Birth of modern america chapter 3

*The Great American Desert

*Ranching the Plains

*Most felt the Plains could not be farmed.

*It was suited for cattle.

*Vast OPEN RANGE of grasses.

*Long Horns well adapted to dry plains.

*Why the cattle drives?

*Had to get cattle from Texas to rail roads further north.

*Many RXR’s built in the 1860’s & 70’s.

*Cattle Trails

*Land Grant System

*1850’s and RXR’s given 28 million acres of public land.

*This helped them finance the RXR’s.

*By the 1860’s and 1870’s this public Land Grant Program had given away 120 million acres.

*This equals the size of all the New England states, New York and Pennsylvania!

*T.C. RXR.

*Farming the “Great American

Desert”

*Homestead Act-160 acres.

*RXR’s provided new inroads to the Plains.

*New “Dry” farming methods.

*These farms will make America a huge exporter of grains.

*New farming methods will lead to Dust Bowl.

Native Americans expelled.

*Native peoples were killed and put on Federal reservations.

*Armed conflicts with N.A. occurred as Americans pushed westward.

*N.A’s resented reservations and would leave.

Assimilation.

*Many Americans wanted to absorb and ASSIMALATE the N.A.

*Many N.A. children sent east to boarding schools to become “Americans.”

*They were forbidden to speak their native language or practice their customs.

*Native Americans

*Industrial Revolution takes off after Civil War.

*South not able to stop northern polices to industrialize.

*Industrialization

*What helped the U.S. Industrial

Revolution?

*Natural resources.

*Large semi skilled work force.

*Free enterprise/Laissez-Faire.

*English capital/money.

*New Inventions Fuel I.R.

*Rail Roads.

*Telegraphs.

*Telephones. Alexander Graham Bell.

*Light bulb. Edison.

*Phonograph. Edison.

*Electric generator. Edison.

*Battery. Edison.

*Motion Picture. Edison.

*Ice Machine.

*Standardization.

*Telegraph Key

*Robber Barons and the Rise of

Corporations

*Wealthy RXR tycoons had a bad reputation as being looters of the system and swindlers of the government and taxpayers.

*Corporations grew to gigantic sizes.

*Many corporations had monoplies OR oligopolies.

*Labor Unions

* Conditions for workers:

*Twelve hour day.

*Seven hour workday.

*Unsafe work places.

*Child labor.

*Opposition to Unions

*Anti American. “Pull yourself by your own bootstraps.”

*Yellow Dog Contracts.

*Lock outs.

*Black lists.

*Government anti union.

*The use of violent strike breakers O.K.

*American Federation of

Labor

*Founder: Samual Gompers. “More!”

*Pushed for CLOSED SHOP. Now illegal.

*Goals for unions:

*Eight hour day.

*40 hour week.

*Safer working conditions.

*End child labor.

*Immigration

*Push - Pull Theory.

*U.S. Open Door policy.

*Industrial Revolution needed unlimited low paying jobs.

*Resurgence of Nativism.

*American cities explode in population.

*“Americanization.” Melting pot v. tossed salad.

*Early Reform and The Gilded Age

*Why did social critics call it the “Gilded Age?”

*“Rugged “Individualism.” No matter how humble your start. you can become wealthy.

*Herbert Spencer and “Social Darwinism.

*Darwin HATED this idea!

*S.D. and Spencer gave capitalism and its bad social conditions legitimacy. Social Darwinism

*Rise of Racial Segregation and

Discrimination.

*Plessy v. Freguson. 1896.

*“Separate but equal.”

*Legitimized Jim Crow laws for the next 50 years.

*Poll tax or literacy test to vote.

*80% of all racial lynchings occurred in South.

*Feds REFUSED to pass laws against it.

*Africa – American Activists

*Ida B. Wells. Organized crusade against lynchings.

*Booker T. Washington. Promoted education and vocational traning.

*W.E.B. Du Bois. Fought for full civil rights.