Bridge to 20th Century

Unit 2

Supreme Court Cases

• Plessy v. Ferguson: established “separate but equal” clause in 1896 legalizing Jim Crow policies in the South

Related- Jim Crow laws tried to make the 14th Amendment which made former slaves citizens as part of checks and balances, it reversed the Dred Scott Supreme Court Case, obsolete.

Supreme Court Cases

• Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908) Oregon's restrictions on the working hours of women are constitutional.

• Influence of the Grange/ Populist movement -Munn v Illinois, 1877 States could regulate the railroad rates for the benefit of the Farmers.

Opposition to African Americans exercising their freedoms

• Jim Crow—Segregation Laws• The Ku Klux Klan—goal was to restore white

supremacy and disenfranchising African Americans (taking the vote away) blacks

• Grandfather clause, Literacy Test and Poll Taxes were laws used to disenfranchise African Americans.

Document 6: "Worse than Slavery"

KKK used intimidation to scare freedmen into not voting

Cycle of Poverty• Many former slaves

did not have money to buy their own land

• They became tenant farmers or sharecroppers

•They rented land and equipment and paid for its use with a large part of their harvest

Western Settlement Government policy

• Mid 1800's - U.S. Gov changes policy from one of live and let live to:- Settlers began demanding access to Gold, lumber and land - Established reservations - special areas used by a specific group

- Indians agreed to live on reservations based on the promise that the land would be theirs forever (signed Treaties with the U.S. Gov.)

- They were also promised food, money and other help

Assimilation• Dawes Act (1887) - intended to make Indians give up their

traditions and accept White customs Americanization- Reservation lands were divided up in farm plots for families and individuals (40 to 160 acres)- Indians who accepted the plots of land could become citizens for the 1st time

• Dawes Act failed because many western Indians didn't want to settle down as farmers, lacked tools and training and sold their plots to white settlers cheap- 20th century U.S. government finally realizes importance of Indian way of life

Government influence on Western Migration

• Gov. encouraged western settlement

• (1862) Homestead Act - Gov. offered 160 acres to head of family over age 21 in return for living on the land 5 years and improving it- 1862 to 1900 – 6,000,000 families settled in the west

Farming the Plain

• Exodusters - Southern African-American settlers in Kansas.

• Gov. created Department of agriculture– Introduced new crops (Russian

wheat) that could survive harsh winters

– Morrill Act of 1862, 1890 financed agricultural colleges

Farmers in Debt

• Railroads, investors created bonanza farms (huge, single-crop spreads)

• 1885 to1890 - droughts bankrupted single-crop operations

• Rising cost of shipping grain pushed farmers into debt

• Between 1867 and 1887 the price of a bushel of wheat fell from two dollars to 68 cents, railroads conspired to keep transportation costs artificially high, and farmers were caught in a cycle of debt.

The Farmers’ Alliance• In the 1870’s 800,000 farmers

joined into cooperative groups called The Grange

• By 1880, the Grange had faded and was replaced by the more political Farmers’ Alliance. Beginning as a local group in Texas in the late 1870s, alliances spread throughout the South and Northwest, and by 1890, boasted a membership of 1.5 million nationwide.

The Populist Party

• In 1892, Alliance members helped found the Populist Party, which drew support from urban laborers as well as farmers.

Proposed Economic Reforms• Populist economic and

political reforms included:– Unlimited coinage of silver – Direct election of Senators– rise in crop prices– Lower taxes– federal loan program– 8-hour workday – Reduced immigration

Political Machines

• Immigrants were often influenced by the political machines when given jobs and opportunities through the machines

• Grafts: illegal use of political influence for personal gain

• Boss Tweed: Most known political boss in New York

• Thomas Nast: Political Cartoonist helped expose Tweed for being a crook

Civil Service Replaces Patronage

• Patronage: practice of giving government jobs to people who helped get you elected

• Civil Service: replaced patronage by adoption of merit system and later testing for government employment

• Chester A. Arthur: passes Pendleton Civil Service Act to make merit based bipartisan appointments to federal jobs the new norm.

Railroads• After the civil war, many people began to go

west to start over• Railroads made westward expansion possible• The government gave railroad companies land

grants and loans• Expansion of railroads led to the development

of towns and new markets for eastern goods

Robber Barons or Captains of Industry

• John D. Rockefeller used trusts, horizontal integration, to form a monopoly in the Oil Industry

• Andrew Carnegie used vertical integration in monopolizing Steel Industry

Monopolies

• Trust—companies turn over their stock to be managed by a group of trustees who run the companies like a large corporation.

• Big Business is spurred on by cheap labor, immigrants, pro-business laissez-faire government and profits from the Civil War.

American Federation of Labor• AFL: An organization of skilled

workers that join together to collective bargain: Negotiation between workers and management to reach a written agreement

• The AFL wanted better hours, wages, and working conditions

• The AFL used strikes to achieve their goals

Samuel Gompers was the President of the AFL

New Immigrants

• Before the civil war, the Old Immigrants came from Germany, Ireland, France, Etc (North and West Europe)

• After the civil war, the New Immigrants coming to the USA were from Southern and Eastern Europe

• Ellis Island—immigrant processing station in New York City for European immigrants

• Angel Island--immigrant processing station in San Francisco for Asian immigrants

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

• The American government created this law to stop Chinese immigrants from coming to the USA

• Asian immigrants were seen as competition for jobs because they would work for less pay

• In addition a Gentleman’s Agreement was restricting Japanese immigration occurred

Immigration & Urban Problems

• When they got to America, immigrants usually lived in the cities where they could find jobs

• Tenements- large overcrowded housing developments that had no sanitation or plumbing

• Mass transits- city run mass transit of people from one end of the city to another. It expands the cities.

• Water- No running water in the city.

Urbanization Cont.

• Sanitation- No plumbing in the cities. • Crime- No set police force or inadequate

police force for the city.• Fire: No running water or equipment to

combat fires

Settlement Houses help the poor

• Settlement houses: Community centers to help the poor

• Jane Addams: the most influential person of this movement

• Social gospel movement: only way to salvation is to help the poor.

Women lead the way

• After the civil war, women once again lead the reform movement

• Suffrage, temperance/prohibition, educating Native Americans, workers’ rights, child labor, hardships of the farmers, living conditions in the cities, education

Muckraker

• Muckraker—journalist in the Progressive Era that exposed corruption in government, business, and society

• Ida Tarbell—muckraker who exposed corruption in The Standard Oil Company