* The Great American Desert
Birth of modern america chapter 3
May 27, 2015
Chapter 3 U.S. History
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*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!
*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.
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