The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age

To what extent was it an era of progress in America?

The Breakers

The Breakers – up close Vanderbilt’s Newport Playground

Connection to our world??

• Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794 – 1877)– Worked for Tom Gibbons of Gibbons v. Ogden fame– Later owned Central NY Railroad

• Commodore's grandson= Cornelius Vanderbilt II• Gloria Vanderbilt =great-great granddaughter• Anderson Cooper =great-great-great grandson

The Breakers

Transcontinental Railroad ‘62

• Bessemer process• Union Pacific v. Central Pacific• Chinese laborers (12,000/90% CPR) • Land grants = $133-500 m. to rail co.• Completed 1869 at Promontory Point,

Utah• Govt. & Big Business stimulate, not regulate

– Land (131 million acres)– Eminent domain– Indian removal

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The Railroad Network, 1880 • pg. 596

The Railroad Network, 1880

Growth in Rails

• Investment 1850 $300 million

1870 $2.5 billion

• 1865 = 35,000 miles of rail

• 1880 = 93,000 “ “

• 1890 = 166,000 “ “

Moving West

• Homestead Act 1862– 160 acres w/ 5 yrs.– 1 of 5 got free land– Sometimes less desirable land– Some 600,000 claim by 1900

• Barbed wire• Dry farming • Sod House• Buffalo soldiers

Sod Houses:“Honey, time to mow the roof”

“The Breakers” Sod-style!

Home Sweet Home:Livin’ the Good Life!

Buffalo Soldiers

FARMING!!• Land cultivated 30 after Civil War > prev. 150

• Small farmers aware of national markets

• Production increased & prices fell

• 1880s and 1890s farmers protests – too productive?– Not “in” industrialization power elites– Feel politically powerless– Org. new political party Populists

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Farmers Problems

• New/pop. Machines incr. prod.– McCormick reaper

• As production increased …prices fell

• Farmers were debt-ridden – Borrowed to buy new machines– New machines decr. Prices/margins

Mining Frontier

• Gold in Cali (they were going back to Cali.)

• Comstock Lode (Nevada) = silver

Cattle Frontier

• Causes– Expansion of rail/Transcontinental railroad– Barbed wire– Refrigerated rail cars

• Effects– Massive drives from Tex. Neb. – Train to Chicago– Beef begins to “do the body good”

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Whatever you wanted of me I have obeyed. The

Great Father sent me word that whatever he had

against me in the past had been forgiven and

thrown aside, and I have accepted his promises

and came in. And he told me not to step aside

from the white man's path, and I am doing my best

to travel in that path. I sit here and look around me

now, and I see my people starving. We want cattle

to butcher. That is the way you live, and we want

to live the same way.

Sitting Bull, 1883

Changing Indian Policy

• 1881 A Century of Dishonor by Helen Hunt Jackson

• Reservation policy since 1850s• Dawes Act 1887 ~ Americanization

– reservations into 160 acre farms– citizenship– 25 yrs.

• Forced assimilation breeds…• Ghost Dance…which leads to…• Wounded Knee Massacre…The End

Wounded Knee

– On December 29, 1890, soldiers opened fire on Ghost Dancers encamped on Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing between 150 and 200 Indians, mostly women and children

Effects of Dawes Act

• 90 m. of 138 m. acres of N.A. land became white-owned in just 45 years

• boarding schools tear apart N.A. families

30 million in 1800…but buffalo were nearly extinct by 1890

Remaking Indian Life = forced assimilation Ghost Dance

Turner Thesis

• Census says by 1890 frontier is gone

• Frederick Jackson Turner argues frontier shaped American character (“Turner Thesis”)

Causes of Industrialization

• Railroads (1st “Big Business”)– Steel– Transport goods = national market (first “online” shopping? Well, not really but...)

• Inventions• Natural resources coal, iron ore• Pop. Growth

– Immigration– Natural pop. increase high

Causes of Industrialization

• Entrepreneurs– “Captains of industry” or

“Robber barons”– Vanderbilt, Rockefeller,

Carnegie, Swift, Morgan, Duke

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Causes of Industrialization

• Laissez-faire gov’t. – few regulations

• Gov’t. aid– Tariffs – Land grants railroads

colleges (Morrill Land Grant Act ’62)

Land Grant Colleges:A Sampling

ALABAMA Alabama A&M University Auburn University Tuskegee University ALASKA University of Alaska, Fairbanks ARIZONA University of Arizona ARKANSAS University of Arkansas CALIFORNIA University of California COLORADO Colorado State University

CONNECTICUT!!!!! University of Connecticut DELAWARE University of Delaware FLORIDA Florida A&M University University of Florida

GEORGIA University of Georgia IDAHO University of Idaho ILLINOIS University of Illinois INDIANA Purdue University IOWA Iowa State University KANSAS Kansas State University KENTUCKY University of Kentucky LOUISANA Louisana State University MAINE University of Maine MARYLAND University of Maryland MASSACHUSETTSMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyUniversity of Massachusetts MICHIGAN Michigan State University MINNESOTA University of Minnesota MISSISSIPPI Mississippi State University

MISSOURI University of Missouri MONTANA Montana State UniversityNEBRASKA University of Nebraska NEVADA University of Nevada, Reno NEW HAMPSHIRE University of New Hampshire NEW JERSEY RutgersNEW MEXICO New Mexico State UniversityNEW YORK Cornell University NORTH CAROLINA North Carolina State University NORTH DAKOTA North Dakota State University OHIO Ohio State UniversityOKLAHOMA Oklahoma State University OREGON Oregon State University PENNSYLVANIA Penn State University PUERTO RICO University of Puerto Rico RHODE ISLAND University of Rhode Island SOUTH CAROLINA Clemson University SOUTH DAKOTA South Dakota State University TENNESSEE University of Tennessee TEXAS Texas A&M University UTAH Utah State University VERMONT University of Vermont VIRGINIA Virginia Tech WASHINGTON Washington State University WEST VIRGINIA West Virginia University WISCONSIN University of Wisconsin-Madison WYOMING University of Wyoming

Gilded Age: Effects

• Industrial Economy – By 1913, US produced one-third of the

world’s industrial output

– Factory work majority work non-farming jobs

Gilded Age: Effects

• Cities grow esp. west Appl. Mtns.

• Gap btw. rich and poor grows– Social Darwinism says its ok– Horatio Alger myths

• New business models vertical v. horizontal

Gilded Age: Effects

• New business models – Vertically integrated

• Own all aspects of an manufacturing (steel)• Rockefeller’s Standard Oil

– Horizontally integrated• Own all/most of one industry

Government and the Economy• Gov’t not equipped

• Republican economic policies favor industrialists and bankers

• Reforms begin - Pendleton Civil Service Act in1883 merit system

(exams)

- Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1887

- Sherman Antitrust Act 1890