America’s Gilded Age: America’s Gilded Age 1870-1890
Second Industrial Revolution: Second Industrial Revolution Astounding pace and magnitude Factory realm of industrial production Wage labor prevalent source of livelihood City as chief setting for manufacture Leading industrial cities New York Chicago Pittsburgh Single-industry cities
Second Industrial Revolution: Second Industrial Revolution Expansion of national market Eastern markets for western goods Western markets for eastern goods Central role of railroad National brands, chains, mail order firms Technological innovations Leading breakthroughs Thomas A. Edison’s research laboratories
Second Industrial Revolution : Second Industrial Revolution Competition and consolidation Volatility of marketplace Downward pressure on prices Great Depression of 1873-1897 Ruthless competition among businesses Corporate initiatives to stabilize marketplace Pools Trusts Mergers
Second Industrial Revolution : Second Industrial Revolution Industrial giants Vast accumulation of wealth and power Leading business figures Thomas A. Scott (railroad) Size and scope of Pennsylvania Railroad Prototype of modern business organization
Second Industrial Revolution : Second Industrial Revolution Industrial giants Vast accumulation of wealth and power Leading business figures Andrew Carnegie (steel) Personal rise Vertical integration Blend of philanthropy and dictatorial management
Second Industrial Revolution : Second Industrial Revolution Industrial giants Vast accumulation of wealth and power Leading business figures John D. Rockefeller (oil) Cutthroat competition Horizontal integration Blend of philanthropy and dictatorial management
Second Industrial Revolution : Second Industrial Revolution Industrial giants Popular perceptions of Favorable; “captains of industry” Unfavorable; “robber barons” Workers’ conditions in industrial America Advantages for skilled labor elite High wages Areas of control Process of production Pace of production Training of apprentices
Second Industrial Revolution : Second Industrial Revolution Workers’ conditions in industrial America Hardships for growing ranks of semi-skilled workers Economic insecurity Working conditions Odds against collective action Breadth and depth of poverty
Second Industrial Revolution : Second Industrial Revolution Growing signs of class division New urban middle-class neighborhoods Exclusive world of the rich Home and neighborhood Resorts, social clubs, schools “Conspicuous consumption” ( Thorstein Veblen) 1897 Waldorf-Astoria costume ball Contrasts of wealth and poverty Matthew Smith’s Sunshine and Shadow Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives
Transformation of the West: Transformation of the West Overall themes Variety of regions within West Variant on global patterns of political and economic incorporation Farming empire Spread of land under cultivation Pace and diversity of settlement Wheat and corn production on Middle Border
Transformation of the West: Transformation of the West Farming empire Hardships of Great Plains farming Call for large-scale irrigation John Wesley Powell Implications for small-scale farmers Increasing market orientation of small farmers Forms Impacts
Transformation of the West: Transformation of the West Farming empire Budding trend toward large-scale farming Cowboys Corporate West Prominent manufacturing and trading centers
Transformation of the West: Transformation of the West Corporate West Large corporate enterprises Displacement of independent prospectors, farmers Subjugation of Indians Earlier transformations of Plains Indians
Transformation of the West: Transformation of the West Subjugation of Indians U.S.-Indian conflict on the Plains Emergence in 1850s During Civil War President Ulysses S. Grant’s “peace policy” Systematic onslaught on Indian life
Transformation of the West: Transformation of the West Subjugation of Indians U.S.-Indian conflict further west Defeat of the Navajo Defeat of the Nez Percé Continuation of Indian resistance Sioux-Cheyenne victory at Little Big Horn Apache escapes and raids
Transformation of the West: Transformation of the West Subjugation of Indians Ongoing white encroachment New western states Railroads, soldiers, settlers Indian reservations Reduction of Sitting Bull to popular spectacle Federal assault on Indian culture Imposition of white American values Elimination of treaty system Dawes Act
Transformation of the West: Transformation of the West Subjugation of Indians Indian citizenship Conditional offers of American citizenship in nineteenth century Judicial obstructions to equal citizenship for Indians Western courts Supreme Court Gradual expansion of Indian citizenship Closing act Ghost Dance Wounded Knee massacre
Politics in a Gilded Age: Politics in a Gilded Age Origins and meanings of “Gilded Age” Political corruption Widespread unease over Manifestations of Corporate lobbyists Urban political machines “Boss” Tweed Crédit Mobilier scandal The political parties Imprint of Civil War on each Social and regional bases of support
Politics in a Gilded Age: Politics in a Gilded Age The political parties The state of American political democracy Meager response to social problems of industrial era Deference of both parties to business interests Achievements of national politics (and their limits) Civil Service Act Interstate Commerce Act Sherman Antitrust Act Political ferment in the states Debate over role of government at state and local levels Popular campaigns for government action Legacies of popular campaigns
Freedom in the Gilded Age: Freedom in the Gilded Age Debate over aspects of new social order Defenses of Gilded Age inequalities New “liberal” reformers Fear of lower-class democracy Commitment to individual liberty and property rights Social Darwinism Application of evolutionary science to social problems Implications for social policy William Graham Sumner What Social Classes Owe to Each Other Liberty of contract
Freedom in the Gilded Age: Freedom in the Gilded Age Liberty of contract Themes Sanctity of labor contract As arbiter of free labor As beyond reach of public intervention Promotion by the courts; overturning or distortion of regulatory legislation Munn v. Illinois Wabash v. Illinois Pro-business slant in ICC cases U.S. v. E.C. Knight Co. Use of Sherman Antitrust Act against labor Lochner v. New York
Labor and the republic: Labor and the republic 1877 railroad strike and emergence of “labor question” Resurgence of labor movement Knights of Labor Variety of programs Common targets Ideologies of Social Darwinism and liberty of contract Growing loss of economic independence Inequalities of wealth and power Corruption of democracy by concentrated capital
Labor and the republic: Labor and the republic Middle-class reformers Unease over social conditions, concentrated capital, class conflict Range of social prescriptions Leading works of social criticism Henry George’s Progress and Poverty Laurence Gronlund’s The Cooperative Commonwealth
Labor and the republic: Labor and the republic Leading works of social criticism Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward Futuristic utopian novel
Labor and the republic: Labor and the republic Social Gospel movement Seedbed Emerging strain within Protestantism Variant within Catholicism Themes and initiatives Critique of Social Darwinism, laissez-faire doctrine, Gospel of Wealth Vision of equalization of wealth and power, checks on competition Efforts to ameliorate working-class conditions Promotion of cooperative organization of economy
Labor and the republic: Labor and the republic 1886: Labor’s great upheaval Explosive growth of Knights of Labor Nationwide May Day demonstration for eight-hour day Haymarket Affair (Chicago) Background Iron moulders’ strikes of 1885 and 1886 Killing of strikers by police Bloodshed at Haymarket Square Scapegoating of labor movement As violent As vehicle of immigrant radicals
Labor and the republic : Labor and the republic 1886: Labor’s great upheaval Haymarket Affair (Chicago) “Haymarket martyrs” Arrests, trial, and conviction of anarchists Hangings, imprisonment, commutations Albert and Lucy Parsons Labor and politics Spread of independent labor political campaigns Connection to Knights of Labor Major goals Electoral successes New York mayoral campaign of Henry George Decline of Knights of Labor
Ch. 16, Image 26: Ch. 16, Image 26
America’s Gilded Age: America’s Gilded Age 1870-1890