economic change and the crisis of the 1890s © 2003 wadsworth group all rights reserved. chapter 19
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Economic Change and the Crisis of the 1890s
© 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved.
Chapter 19Chapter 19
Economic Growth
• 15 years between 1878 – 1893: U.S. economy grew at one of the fastest rates in history
• Growth in manufacturing:– 180% increase
• Agriculture:– 26% increase
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
Value Added by Economic Sector, 1869-1899 (In 1879 Prices)
Railroads
• Railroads: single most important agent of economic growth
• Railroad “pools” and other sources of resentment• Patrons of Husbandry or Grange (1867)
– "Granger laws"– Munn v. Illinois (1877)
• Interstate Commerce Act (1887)– Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
• Standard time zones
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Technology• Advancements in:
– Railroads
– Steel Mills
– Telephone
– Electricity: light and the generator
– Typewriter
– Elevators and skyscrapers
– Entertainment: phonographs and motion picture
– Household items: refrigerators, washing machines
– Internal Combustion engine leads to automobiles and first flight (Wright Brothers)
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved
The American Middle Class
• Middle class achieves class consciousness
• Tries to recreate nation in their image
Philadelphia Centennial Exposition
• American inventions on display
• Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone
• Christopher Sholes and the typewriter
• Corliss Steam Engine
• Fair demonstrated that the antebellum Market Revolution had become industrial
Gilded Age Cities
• Urbanization increased– U.S. 20% urban in 1860, 40% in 1900
• Streetcars allow urban growth beyond “walking city”
• Great disparities of wealth in cities• Suburbs for middle class• Public vs. private utilities and urban
services
American Museum
• Museums move from warehouse of curiosities to ornate display of fine art and scientific artifacts– Natural History Museum in New York– Field Museum in Chicago
• Labor groups pressure museums to open on Sundays
• Middle class decorum maintained
The Department Store and Mail Order Catalogs
• Department stores replace small, single item shops– John Wanamaker’s Philadelphia 1876
• Mail Order catalogs bring department experience to rural areas– Montgomery Ward– Sears Roebuck
• Chain Stores– A & P– Woolworth’s
• All required standardization of goods
Advertising and magazines
• Advertising becomes a major industry• Magazines
– Primary method of advertising distribution
– Pioneered artistic style like Realism
– Pioneered literary forms like short stories
– Made important technical breakthroughs for media like photo reproduction and printing
• Newspapers– Sunday editions and comic strips
African-American Middle Class Culture
• Segregation forces Blacks to organize their own economic and social institutions
• The Colored American
• Frances E. Harper
• Paul Laurence Dunbar
• W. E. B. Du Bois
The New Woman
• Women challenge “separate spheres” in generation after the Civil War
• More women obtain high school and college degrees
• Women begin to work in professional and white collar occupations– Work put women away from supervision of male
family members
– Wages gave them some independence
• Women and volunteer associations– Settlement Houses and YWCA
World’s Columbian Exposition
• Chicago 1893: culmination of the middle class revolution
• White City— middle class ideal for future of America
• Midway Plaisance– Sol Bloom– Ferris Wheel
Wealth and Inequality
• Gulf between rich and poor widened dramatically
• Thorstein Veblen and Conspicuous Consumption– The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
• “Robber barons“– Criticism was of power, not wealth
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Real Wages of Workers and per capita Income of all Americans, 1870-1900
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The Antitrust Movement
• Standard Oil Trust
• John Sherman and the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)– “Restraint of trade”
• U.S. v. E. C. Knight Company (1895)
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Labor Strife
• Labor discontent– U.S. had world’s highest rate of industrial accidents
– Decline in status of craft labor
• National Labor Union (1866)• Bureau of Labor (1884)• Labor Day (1894)• Molly Maguires• Greenback-Labor Party
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The Great Railroad Strike of 1877
• Railroad wage cuts– Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
• 10 states call out militia
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The Knights of Labor
• Terence V. Powderly and the Knights of Labor (1869)
• Rank and file wanted to concentrate on improvement in bread and butter issues
• Leadership wanted alternative to wage system• Although leadership opposed strikes, Knights
greatest triumphs were through strikes
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Haymarket
• National general strike for 8 hour day 5-1-1886• McCormick strike, police kill 4 strikers 5-3-1886• Protest of killings at Haymarket Square 5-4-1886
– Anarchists– Bomb kills 10, 6 police– 8 Anarchist tried for murder– Knights of Labor caught in anti-labor backlash
• American Federation of Labor (1886)– Samuel Gompers– Accepted capitalism and wage system
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Henry George
• Progress and Poverty (1879)
• Land monopoly is source of wealth disparity
• Solution: 100% tax on “unearned increment” of land value
• Sensitized generation that become the Progressives to social issues
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Edward Bellamy
• Looking Backward (1887)
• Social Gospel and Christian Socialism– Aid to poor as important as saving souls– Settlement houses– Contributed to rise of Progressives
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The Homestead Strike
• Carnegie Steel Company
• Henry Clay Frick
• Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers
• Lockout vs. sitdown 1892
• Pinkertons and state militia break strike
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The Depression of 1893-1897
• Panic of 1893– Reading Railroad– National Cordage Company
• Jacob Coxey– End depression with road building– "Coxey's army"
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The Pullman Strike
• George Pullman• Company town• Pullman cuts wages, but keeps rents and store price
the same• American Railway Union (ARU)
– Eugene V. Debs– Success in spring 1894 against Great Northern Railroad– Sympathy strike with Pullman workers– Federal troops sent, 34 die– Strike broken, Debs jailed
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Farmers’ Movements
• Settlers fill plains states in generation after Civil War
• Agricultural challenges for farming in the west– Severe weather was devastating– Precipitation swings “in God we trusted, in Kansas we
busted”– Isolation and loneliness for farm families
• Global agricultural glut in wheat and cotton by 1880s
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Credit and Money
• Deflation hurt farmers in debt– “Greenbacks"
• Public Credit Act (1869)
• Specie Resumption Act (1875)
• Effects mixed– Facilitated overall economic growth– Hurt rural economies of South and West
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The Greenback and Silver Movements
• Greenback Party– "the Crime of 1873"
• Bland-Allison Act (1878)
• “Free Silver”
• Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890)
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The Farmers’ Alliance
• Farmers' Alliance– Marketing cooperatives– Ocala, Florida demands (1890)
• Graduated income tax• Direct election of Senators• Free silver• Government control of railroads, telegraph, and telephone
industry• Subtreasury Plan
• People's Party– Populists
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The Rise and Fall of the People’s Party
• Support for Populists strong in Plains and mountain states
• Leonidas L. Polk• Omaha platform (1892)
– Mirrors Ocala demands
• James B. Weaver• Results
– Gain control of some Western legislatures– Defeated by racial demagoguery in the South
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The Silver Issue
• William Jennings Bryan– “Cross of gold" speech– Democratic nominee
• Populist dilemma– Democratic whale swallowed the Populist fish
in 1896
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The Election of 1896
• Republicans and William McKinley – Preferred tariff campaign– Bryan is irresponsible inflationist– Mark Hanna– "front porch campaign"
• 1896 election most impassioned in a generation• Section pattern: South and West vs. North• International gold discoveries reverse deflation,
prosperity returns
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Conclusion
• 1890s in America:– American Past: large rural and agricultural
economy– American Future: cities and commercial-
industrial economy
• Social and Political upheavals– Economic changes and the widening gap
between rich and poor
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved