1870 – 1900. During the Gilded Age, the size and scope of government grew rapidly at all levels Taxes increased as local governments assumed responsibility.

COMMONWEALTH AND EMPIRE1870 – 1900

THE GROWTH OF GOVERNMENT

During the Gilded Age, the size and scope of government grew rapidly at all levels

Taxes increased as local governments assumed responsibility for providing police, fire protection, water, schools, and parks— gaining votes became a spectacle at election time, and those who sought the power, by any means necessary became powerful machine and party leaders

Federal government developed its departmental bureaucracy as power resided in Congress and state legislatures, and offices were filled by the spoils system that rewarded friends of the winning party

THE SPOILS SYSTEM GOES TOO FAR

Hayes promised civil service reform, but was hampered by the Republican divide between the STALWARTS (the traditional, machine politicians) and the HALF-BREEDS (reformers)—in reality, both sides wanted a piece of the political pie

In the election of 1880, the Republicans nominated James A. Garfield (Half-breed) with Chester A. Arthur (Stalwart) as a compromise. Garfield won the election

Garfield upset the Stalwarts by promising civil service reform Garfield was assassinated by a disgruntled office seeker Charles

Guiteau, and Arthur became president Arthur defied his stalwart buddies and helped pass the

Pendleton Reform Act (1883) that developed a civil service commission that oversaw the hiring of civil servants based on merit, not spoilage

PRESIDENTS OF THE GILDED AGE: 1877 - 1901

Rutherford B. Hayes, Rep. (1877 – 1881)

James A. Garfield, Rep. (1881) Chester A. Arthur, Rep. (1881 – 1885) Grover Cleveland, Dem. (1885 – 1889) Benjamin Harrison, Rep. (1889 – 1893) Grover Cleveland, Dem. (1893 – 1897) William McKinley, Rep. (1897 – 1901)

FARMERS ORGANIZE: THE GRANGE

The Grange formed in the 1870s by farmers in the Great Plains and South who suffered boom and bust conditions and natural disasters

Grangers blamed hard times on the railroads and banks, who charged ridiculous fees for their services

The Granger laws helped to regulate shipping rates and other farm costs

Grangers created their own grain elevators and set up retail stores for farm machinery (cooperatives)

Though the depression at the end of the decade wiped out most of these reforms, collective action and cooperation remained the core of agrarian protest

FARMERS ORGANIZE: FARMERS’ ALLIANCES

In the rural South and West, and eventually the North, farmers formed organizations that demanded economic and political reforms: State ownership of the railroads Graduated income tax Lower tariffs Free and unlimited coinage of silver

WORKERS SEARCH FOR POWER

Workers organized stronger unions that increasingly resorted to strikes and created labor parties; by the late 1880s, labor parties won seats on numbers city councils and in state legislatures in industrial areas where workers outnumbered other classes

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877: the first nationwide strike, spurred by a 10% wage cut, strikers stopped service from Baltimore to St. Louis by destroying equipment and rioting in the streets. Hayes called in federal troops to suppress the disorder. Over 100 people died before the strike was over.

The strike empowered workers, but also made most Americans and politicians wary of the worker’s strife—fear of anarchist sentiment spreading among the masses

WOMEN BUILD ALLIANCES

Women actively shaped labor and agrarian protest; women were members of the KOL, Grange, and Farmers’ Alliances

Frances E. Willard who was president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union taught abstinence from alcohol (over a million members by 1900)

The National American Woman Suffrage Association united the factions of the women’s suffrage movement

POPULISM AND THE PEOPLE’S PARTY

Between 1890-92, the Farmers’ Alliance, KOL, the National Colored Farmers’ Alliance and other organizations formed the People’s Party

Though they lost the 1892 presidential race, the Populists won many local elections

The Populist platform: Government ownership of railroads, banks, and the

telegraph 8-hour work day The graduated income tax Immigration restrictions

THE DEPRESSION OF 1893

The bankruptcy of the railroad industry led to a stock market collapse in 1893, that triggered bank failures, contraction of credit, and loan-dependent businesses to declare bankruptcy

Unemployment soared into the millions as many became vagrants

Populist Jacob Coxey called for a march on Washington to demand relief through public works programs, but marchers were clubbed and arrested upon entering Washington

This instability frightened the middle class, who feared a revolution of radical laborism (the major strikes of the 1890s did not ease any feelings)

THE STRIKES

Coeur D’Alene (1892): silver mine strike after miners rejected a wage cut; troops, strike breakers and scabs were brought in to keep the mine running after rounding up the strikers

Homestead (1892): Carnegie’s steel workers went on strike after a series of wage cuts headed by plant leader Henry Frick; Frick shuts down plant and called in private detectives to attack the strikers; National Guard escorted strike breakers into the plant and production resumed; membership in Amalgamated Association (steel union) dwindled to almost 1/3 of numbers

Pullman (1984): slashed wages 25%, but kept rent and other town duties intact angered the railway workers; led by ARU president Eugene V. Debs, railroad transportation from Chicago to the West Coast halted; railroad companies went AROUND the governor and President Cleveland sent troops into Chicago; strike broken up and Debs arrested—he would run for president in 1900, 04, 08, and 12 as a socialist

THE SOCIAL GOSPEL

Led mostly by Protestant ministers and church leaders to fight social injustice utilizing Christian ideals (What would Jesus do?)

The Catholic Church endorsed the right of workers to form and join trade unions

Women’s religious groups such as the YWCA strove to provide services for poor women

FREE SILVER

Grover Cleveland won the 1892 election capturing the traditional Democratic Solid South and alienated Republicans (the “Mugwumps”)

The Panic of 1893, many believed (including Cleveland) was the currency issue: gold or silver

The US had a bimetal system (gold and silver) on which the currency was based, but the value of gold was 16:1 (16 ounces of silver = 1 ounce of gold)

In 1873, Congress stopped coining silver, and the price fell; suddenly there was a surplus of silver (inflation)

Farmers wanted this inflation as a way to pay their debt (more sliver…”free silver”)

The Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890) required the payment of silver with gold, which caused a drain on the gold supply

Congress repealed the Act in 1894, but it caused a split in the Democratic Party: hard money (gold) v. soft money (silver)

ELECTION OF 1896

Populist nominee William Jennings Bryan, champion of free silver, is nominated by the Democrats

The Republicans nominated on safe, pro-business, pro-expansionist William McKinley

Traditional Democrats (Catholics and urban voters) voted Republican

Prosperity began to return in 1898, and the fusion experiment of the Democrats and Populists destroyed the Populist movement

NATIVISM AND JIM CROW

McKinley and Bryan ignored racism and nativism in the 1896 campaign

Nativists blamed foreign workers for hard times, considered them unfit for democracy, and the bringers of anti-American ideas (socialism, anarchism)

White supremacy was established as the political force in the South as legal segregation, “separate but equal,” and the disenfranchisement of blacks was approved by the Supreme Court (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896)

Racial violence escalated as over 100 lynchings were recorded each year between 1882-1900 (many were advertised in newspapers and were public spectacles)

Ida B. Wells launched a one-woman anti-lynching crusade that won international acclaim (despite being wanted in the South)

CHICAGO 1893

The Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) in Chicago showed how American products might be marketed throughout the world

It attracted 27 million visitors Some critics argued that it promoted

the Anglo-Saxon race as one of ingenuity and progress, but it promoted the savagery and backwardness of people of color

THE IMPERIALISM OF RIGHTEOUSNESS The idea behind imperialism was to

help Christianize and civilize the world Missionary work increased after the

Civil War as college campuses and the YMCA and YWCA embarked on a world-wide crusade to reach non-Christians

Missionaries helped generate public interest in foreign lands and laid the groundwork for economic expansion

AN AMERICAN EMPIRE

Beginning in the 1860s, the US began expanding overseas (see next slide)

The Good Neighbor Policy: created by Sec. of State James Blaine, allowed the US to dominate the local economies of Latin America and the Caribbean

Since political stability was vital to the policy, the US strengthened its navy and began to play an increased role in the Western Hemisphere and Pacific

Mahan’s Influence of Sea Power urged the creation of a strong navy and the necessity for the establishment of bases and ports to ensure the survival and strength of the navy

The annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was testament to this belief Sec. of State John Hay’s Open Door Policy of 1899-1900, after the

suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China helped usher America onto the global stage of international politics as he helped secure trading rights for the US in China, as well as the rights of most European nations

THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR

Cuba began its independence movement from Spain in the 1860s; most Americans sympathized with Cuba The Spanish were imposing harsh taxes on the Cuban people American journalists were publishing horror stories of Cuban

rebels being tortured in concentration camps (yellow journalism) to sway public opinion

The USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor The De Lome Letter: letter written by the Spanish minister in

Washington accusing McKinley of being weak and a panderer—only Americans can insult the President!

“Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!” US declared war on Spain in 1898

A SPLENDID LITTLE WAR

The US won an easy fight against a weak enemy

The war produced a hero out of ex-Naval Secretary Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders

The US gained Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines; Cuba won its freedom The Platt Amendment protected US interests

and acknowledged its right to intervene in Cuban affairs

THE PHILIPPINES

Initially, Filipino rebels welcomed US troops in their fight for independence from Spain

After the US annexed the Philippines, a bitter war was fought until 1902 that killed 4,300 US troops and 50,000 Filipinos

Supporters defended the war as the only way to civilize and bring democracy to a backward people

How could the US build an empire without sacrificing the spirit of democracy?

CRITICS OF EMPIRE

The Anti-Imperialist League was founded after the Spanish-American War, and its members ranged from Carl Schurz to Mark Twain

Most cited democratic principles and racism as the reasoning behind anti-imperialism

Most Americans welcomed the new era of aggressive nationalism—an extension of manifest destiny, perhaps?