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Gilded Age

1877-1900

The Gilded Age

At the end of the Civil War, U.S. troops occupied the Southern states which had been in rebellion. A Republican-dominated Congress quickly passed legislation to amend the Constitution and protect the newly freed slaves. The North had boomed economically during the War, while the agricultural economy of the South was destroyed. Railroad and factory construction raced to conclusion to move goods and materials across the country. Banks became overextended in support of this economic boom, and when foreign markets collapsed in the early 1870s, economic panic struck the country and led to a halt in construction, the cutting of wages, a drop in real estate values, and vanishing corporate profits. Coupled with labor disputes by workers drawn to union movements which were springing up across the country, this panic caused widespread economic damage.

The word gilded, usually suggests the application of a thin coating of gold-colored metal to a base metal of lesser value. Between 1868 and 1900, this term applies to an era of U.S. history. From the first term of Ulysses S. Grant to the term of William McKinley, America prospered and failed by equal measure. Corruption in political and business dealings was commonplace, and economic rise and fall composed business as usual. This era was characterized by bank failures, massive labor disputes, political corruption, underhanded business dealings, and controversy over U.S. currency. During this time, most of the gains made by African Americans in the South were lost because of a failure of presidents to use their power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. However, it was also the great age of American immigration, an era of tremendous industrial growth, and a period during which great strides were made in labor movements, social reform, and civil service reform.

The Gilded Age

As the gap between the rich and the poor grew, urban problems multiplied, and farmers vented their frustrations over mounting debts, but political leaders of the late 19th century often failed to act decisively, and instead responded with passivity and confusion. Problems and grievances festered as a result, so that the economic depression that began in 1893 touched off conflicts between East and West, urban and rural, and rich and poor. By 1900, many Americans were convinced that the nation’s most pressing need was to impose order on the chaos and to right industrial societies blatant injustices. This movement came to be called “progressivism,” a powerful and widespread set of ideas that restored and expanded the government’s leadership role in shaping the democratic course of the American republic,

The Gilded Age

❧ Name comes from the title of an 1873 Mark Twain booko Referred to the “superficial glitter” of the new

wealth that developed in the from the 1870s until about 1900.

❧ Dominated by a belief in limited government, laissez-faire economics, & Social Darwinism

❧ Marked by political corruption & ineffectiveness

❧ Industry and invention

❧ 1% of the population controlled nearly all of the wealth and the laboring class was exploited as workers and consumers.

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Industrial Supremacy

Factors that Encouraged Growth of Industrial America

❧ The Second Industrial Revolutiono Experienced in Europe, Japan and the United States; included a new method of steel

production; increase in efficiency; railroad expanded; steamship fleets appeared; new buildings proliferated (“Age of Steel”); chemical industries, plastics

❧ Corporate bankso Owned by many shareholders, large and small; worked in collaboration with

governments; mobilized impressive resources for investment in big industrial companies

❧ Plentiful laboro Population more than doubled; steady stream of immigrants, mainly from Europe;

increased workforce, providing plentiful and cheap labor; most settled in cities and became industrial workers

❧ The Civil Waro In the first year of the war, thousands of businessmen in the north went bankrupt as a

result of disruption in materials, transportation, and labor; as war went on government contracts for war equipment (ships, uniforms, and rifles) led to expansion and prosperity for industry; northern businessmen appealed for high tariffs (South had previously opposed) to protect manufactures from foreign competition.


❧ Continued pro-business policies after the waro During Reconstruction, north continued to dominate federal government; insured protectionist tariffs

remained in place; government supported policies opening western lands to American entrepreneurs, including assignment of Native American tribes to reservations on least desirable lands

❧ The growth of railroadso Federal government pro-business policies supported railroad building with land grants, or gifts of public

land, to railroads for the construction of northern, southern, and central transcontinental routes that connected West to East; smaller grants made for smaller branch lines; government supplied some of building materials and provided loans

❧ Growth of other industrieso Expansion of railroads provided stimulant to growth of other industries; demand for iron, steel, coal,

lumber, engines, and railroad cars created new jobs and required increased industrial output; railroads created nationwide system of distributing goods; advances (air brake, standardization of railroad gauge, coal-burning engines, and tank and refrigerator cars) made system more efficient.


❧ A national communication systemo Telegraph invented in 1844, but during this time, many new telegraph lines, and the

invention of the telephone, provided a national communication system

❧ Innovation and Technological Advancemento Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse: made transmission of electricity over long

distances cheaper; spread of electricity was essential to industrial and urban growth; provided a more reliable source of power than water or steam

o Henry Ford: means of getting product to market; vision of mass production of automobiles; assembly lines that reduced time and cost of producing cars; assigned each worker only one task, performed repeatedly, using the same specialized machine; rising automobile production sparked growth of related industries (oil, paint, rubber, and glass); $5 a day wage and profit sharing in the company

• Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations: first proposed the idea of dividing labor among workers by giving them each a specialized task.


❧ Sea-Based Transportation and New Communicationso Westerners penetrated beyond sea coats; steamboats and railroads allowed exploration of internal rivers

and lands, rather than sea lanes; new speed; advances in refrigeration; export products – dairy and meat; telegraph linked people across seas; transatlantic cable; Suez canal and Panama canal facilitated trade between imperial powers and territories controlled; made communication easier

❧ Competition and Consolidationo Technological change increased industrial productivity; enabled manufacturers to cut costs; hire cheap

unskilled or semi-skilled labor; fostered competition; underselling, leaving weaker competitors by wayside; encouraged consolidation (railroads, then oil, steel, and coal); accelerated financial Panic of 1893; bankruptcy; big banks took control, forming pools divided markets among competing firms and fixed prices; established trusts, legal devices allowing rival companies to be managed under single director; corporations took control of entire industries (4,000 firms gobbled up by larger corporations controlling national market); short-term benefit – lowered prices to bankrupt rivals; later higher prices - monopolies

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The Philosophy of Business


❧ Cartel: businessmen divide up an area among themselves; this leads to higher prices. Cartels meet only the needs of the very rich.

❧ Merger: combinations of different businesses. The result is a few corporate leaders making decisions.

❧ Vertical integration: brings as many elements of production under centralized control as possible. It is one way of creating a monopoly; it often leads to tensions among manufacturers.

❧ Horizontal integration: combines purchasers in order to dominate an industry; less competition means more centralized control of prices.

❧ Monopoly: involves the exclusive control of a product or service; the result is fixed priced and wages.


❧ Industrialization part of established economic system of capitalism based on private ownership of property and businesses that produced goods to be bought and sold in a free market. New American industrialists based their right to wealth on two social philosophies: free-market economies and Social Darwinism. o Free-market Economics: Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776); resources of nature are

boundless; no nation need be poor; entrepreneurs need to exploit nature’s resources to create “the wealth of nations”; led to development of capitalism; force behind the economy should be the “invisible hand” of competition, not by the forceful hand of government; laws of supply and demand govern marketplace; demand increase, prices rise; demand decreases after need met; government control is interference with supply and demand; assumes there will be recessions/depressions; in economic decline government should protect people until market is restored; believed high tariffs, guild restrictions, and mercantilist restraints on free trade obstructed the free market; founded laissez-faire economic theory; individuals pursue own economic interest; create wealth


❧ In the late nineteenth century, a new group of men - Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, George Westinghouse, George Pullman, and others - began to amass large amounts of wealth by changing the nature of American capitalism. Discarding the earlier idea of laissez-faire capitalism as out of touch with current realities, they developed monopolistic capitalism to meet their own economic interests, as well as their perception of society’s needs. These men argued that such a change was appropriate for the United States as a whole and would meet the needs of workers and consumers alike. o Classical liberalism is the view of capitalism from the late eighteenth century, is associated with

thinkers like Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and Samuel Smiles. Industrialists Robert Lowell and others of the nineteenth century held that competition would be good for the economy with little or no government interference and that, with an invisible hand, everyone’s needs would be met. As a theory of economics, it had its drawbacks in that not everyone’s needs were met and wealthy entrepreneurs tended to get what they wanted from government bureaucrats.

o Rugged individualism is the view that, in the United States, one can become a rich and productive member of society through hard work and effort. While proponents of this theory argued that prosperity was available to all, in reality only a small percentage of entrepreneurs could reach it.


o Social Darwinism• Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species; each new species of plants and animals evolved as a

result of natural selection and survival of the fittest, with some small variations being more useful than others; those with variants that promoted survival are passed onto offspring

• Social Darwinists applied survival of the fittest to social situations; Herbert Spencer - successful individuals and races emerged to dominate others as a result of “survival of the fittest”; ideas used to justify both the wealth of entrepreneurs in opposition to laborers, as well as domination of European imperialists over subject peoples

• In America the defenders of private enterprise used Social Darwinism to argue that the economy was governed by a natural aristocracy, based on wealth; wealthy had risen to top of struggle for profits that rewarded strong and eliminated the weak; country best served by economic independence of natural aristocracy; any governmental attempt to interfere with the situation could only slow economic progress

• Social Darwinism justified the existence of poverty, since poor people lacked thrift and industrious habits, and so had not survived the economic struggle.

The New Industrialists

❧ Definition: Robber Baronso Many considered them to be “captains of industry”o The term robber baron was often used to describe the industrialists who controlled monopolies, or trusts,

during the Gilded Age.o Examples: Andrew Carnegie (steel), Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroads), and John D. Rockefeller (oil), J.P.

Morgan (mergers movement and steel)• To control most of the steel industry, Carnegie bought out the raw materials and railroad lines

associated with production. This is called vertical integration. He also looked to buy out similar companies, or merge with them. This is called horizontal integration (Rockefeller as well).

o Horatio Alger wrote dime novels about some of these men, like Carnegie, who went from “Rags to Riches” during the Gilded Age.

o Trusts formed when one company took over the stock of competing companies in “trust” agreements. This often led to monopolies, where one huge corporation controlled almost the entire market.

o Competition fizzled and prices were often manipulated.

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What was the philosophy of business during the Gilded Age?


John D. Rockefeller: “The growth of a large business is merely survival of the fittest… This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God.”

Social Impact

❧ The Industrial Revolution created a small, enormously rich class in America (quick fortunes in business or industry)

❧ Traditionally, wealth had been invested in land or business; new wealth had huge disposable incomes used to impress others and improve one’s social standing; Thorstein Veblen labeled this “conspicuous consumption” in his book, The Theory of the Leisure Class; wealthy had huge, elaborate homes staffed with hundreds of servants, grand coaches with matching horses, etc.

❧ Popular concept: anyone can acquire this wealth if the effort is made❧ “Acres of Diamonds” lecture by Russell H. Cornwell – tales of individuals making

extraordinary wealth in everyday settings; ex. Farmer who discovers diamonds in farm field

Social Class Distinctions

❧ Urban lower class – factory laborers and mineworkers; fewer skills then artisans of earlier periods; worked for low wages; lived in crowded urban housing or company-towns in mining areas; factories were dirty and tedious; few owners protected their workers against dangerous substances or circumstances; no safety provisions; accidents common; 2/3 to 3/4 of income spent on food budget; long work hours; all able-bodied family members worked outside the home, including women and children; lived around the factories they worked in; dependent on factory for livelihood; layoffs and job losses common during downward turns in the economy; machines replaced skilled workers; especially those who specialized in handicrafts

❧ Social Darwinism and competition encouraged the view that workers were just small parts of the industrial production system; Laissez-faire economics ensured the government would not intervene in business operations, so few invested in safety features and many employed children at even lower wages than adults.

Social Class Distinctions

❧ Industrial process meant relations between management and labor became more impersonal; factories grew larger; little opportunity for direct contact between business owners and workers; number of factories shrank; jobs became less secure; many unemployed

❧ System of interchangeable parts (standardized parts that could be used in all machines produced) made America a worldwide industrial leader; worker’s life boring and unrewarding; little pride in work

Industry and Life on the Farm

❧ In 1900, 3/5 Americans still lived in rural areas; life influenced by industrialization; hard to make a living unless one could buy mechanized threshers and harvesters (especially in West); need to invest in new varieties of seed and fertilizer; tended to specialize in one cash crop – they were at the mercy of princes for that one crop; revolution in transportation (which made western settlement possible) put farmers in competition with worldwide markets in Australia, Argentina, and Canada

❧ Price drop after Civil War, including agricultural products; yet machinery prices rose (American farm machinery protected by high tariffs); many farms heavily mortgaged; deep debt; value of money had stayed the same while price for farm goods had dropped; unfair rates of railroads; grain warehouses used prior to shipment; refusal to carry goods to market if farmers refused storage changes

Industry and Life on the Farm

❧ Farmers suffered loss ins social status as city and town dwellers came to seem them as backwards, unsophisticated, or even ignorant

❧ Industrialization shifted focus away from Jeffersonian idealized vision and toward urban areas where major changes were at work altering American society.

Family Life

❧ Major change – separation of the work place from family life (farm families generally worked together, all on the same land; work and family blended); in industrialized society people left home to go to work; gone all day; came home at night; causes separate lives

❧ Social class greatly affected family life styles and roles; among working classes both men and women worked outside home for wages that were meager; life required two incomes; gave men and women “equality” except women’s wages were lower than men’s; many lower-class women became domestic servants “women’s work” or factory hands living in supervised dormitories run by factory owners

❧ Gender roles in middle and upper class families were very different; economic power led to pride that the wife did not have to work; middle class men interested in social improvement, so supporting churches, reading, attending lectures became leisure; tried to instill values in workers; workers preferred leisure at sporting events, bars, pubs (escapism); evolved into different social values and deepened divisions

Family Life

❧ Middle class – gender distinction between work and family was complete; middle-class women limited to role of wife and mother; enjoyed luxuries with homes full of manufactured items and staffed with servants; chief goal was to provide a private refuge at home for men from the rough and tumble world of business; responsible for handling spending accounts, family correspondence, keepers of the hearth; led to idealized concepts of women as paragons of virtue/good/pure; separation of women from the outside of the home and the creation of an insulated world of home, servants, children, and management of the family’s social life is called the “cult of domesticity.”

Demographic Transition

❧ Birth rates began to fall as children lost their economic value as workers on the farm and instead became family members in need of support

❧ In the middle-class, the value of self-improvement began at an early age; mothers were responsible for the emotional and social development of children; instead of working, middle-class children spent their time being educated, making them dependent of their parents for a longer period of time; expenses encouraged husbands and wives to limit the number of children, creating a demographic transition; low birth rates and low death rates from improved hygiene and health created a steady population level; many enjoyed a life above subsistence level; diets and housing improved; deaths of infants and children declined due to better hygiene during birthing and better care; medical advancements – Louis Pasteur’s discovery of germs allowed doctors and nurses to develop more sanitary health care.

Urban Growth

❧ 1880s U.S. becomes an urban nation; by 1920 a majority of Americans lived in settlements with more than 2,500 people; by 1900 a network of small, medium, and large cities spanned the country; city became central to American life

❧ The Industrial Revolution created the manufacturing city where factories attracted laborers from rural areas and other countries to tenements constructed to provide housing for factory workers; wider straight boulevards were created to accommodate commercial traffic and automobiles; steam and electric trolleys crisscrossed streets; developers divided cities into regular sized lots that could be bought and sold; many lost the town square; almost all suffered problems of sanitation, overcrowding, pollution, and disarray; grew along railroad lines that connected them to market (not by navigable waterways as had been common in the past)

Development of Urban Districts

❧ Cities grew rapidly; distinct districts emerged for working-class, ethnic groups, downtown, and a ring of suburbs; one factor in creation was mass transportation that allowed people to live farther away from the urban ore where most offices and stores were located; horse-drawn vehicles were replaced by motor-vehicles; cable cars with underground wires; electric-powered streetcars; transit firms dug underground passages for electric interurban railways (subways); outer regions became attractive for homebuyers and businesses; those who could afford to live beyond the overcrowded city commuted for work, shopping, and entertainment

❧ Cities grew without planning; zoning was nonexistent; wood and coal used to heat city homes polluted the air; dangerous to breathe; traffic congestion; few rules existed for traveling on roads and streets; soot, dirt and grime covered everything; epidemic disease; death rates soared in the cities, especially among the poor

New Migrants and Immigrants

❧ Low crop prices and high debt encouraged people to leave farms to seek better economic conditions; thousands of rural black Americans escaped sharecropper lives, but few found factory jobs; black women often outnumbered black men in major cities because of traditionally female service jobs; many Latinos moved into cities or unskilled construction and grading jobs

❧ Emigration to the Americans in the 19th and early 20th century is among the most significant in human migrations in recent centuries; 75 million departed for the Americas between 1835 and 1935o 1840s and 1850s: two largest groups were the Irish (fleeing desperate economic conditions)

and the Germans (escaping difficult political conditions)o Late 1800s: After decline in immigration during Civil War, immigration rose; more than ¾ from

Northern and Western Europe; German; Irish; Scandinavians; attraction of Industrial Revolution and demand for factory labor; “America fever”/land of opportunity

New Migrants and Immigrants

❧ Emigration to the Americans in the 19th and early 20th century is among the most significant in human migrations in recent centuries; 75 million departed for the Americas between 1835 and 1935o Early 1900s: After economic depression of the 1890s, industrial boom

meant immigration resumed reaching peak levels in 1910; more immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary)

o Ellis Island

Urban Neighborhoods

❧ Many urban neighborhoods were multi-ethnic❧ Some became destinations for the same group of immigrants, creating clusters of nationalities in

major cities; landlords in better sections of the city were reluctant to rent or sell to immigrants and immigrant families, often with a limited command of English, tended to be more secure/comfortable in a neighborhood with the life of their native lando Ex. Chinatown and Little Italyo As neighborhoods became almost entirely of one ethnicity or culture, people began to call

them ghettos, the term used in Europe for sections of the city where Jews were forced to live.o Immigrants and newcomers crowded into tenement buildings, which were owned by

landlords who rented small apartments to families; 7-8 stories high, shallow and sunless, little ventilation; several families per floor; shared one toilet per hall; Flophouses were available for a place for a night

o These dwellings formed “slum” areas; more established immigrants left for better areas, resettling in urban neighborhoods; wealthiest left the city altogether

Nativism

❧ Nativism, the belief that a country’s policies should favor its native-born citizens, had earlier surfaced after the Irish and German immigrant arrivals in the 1840s and 1850s; new wave of immigrants in 1880s revived it.

❧ Nativists viewed western and southern Europeans as inferior beings with strange cultural customs, and they worried that natives of Anglo-Saxon heritage would lose political and social power as a result of increasing immigration rateso The most extreme anti-foreigners believed that the purity of Anglo-Saxon stock would be

threatened by mixing with that of “inferior” southern and eastern Europeans❧ Trade unionists protested the new arrivals who undercut working wages with their

willingness to work for low wages and new nativist organizations, reminiscent of the “Know Nothings” emerged. o Ex: American Protective Association (APA), created in 1887, claimed a million members and

urged voting against Roman Catholic candidates for office.

Nativism

❧ In 1882, Congress passed the first restrictive law that forbid immigration of paupers, criminals, and convicts, all of whom had to be returned to their land of origin

❧ First people targeted for ethnicity were the Chinese, who bore the brunt of resentment in California; passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act; barring immigration of the Chinese for 10 years and prevented citizenship; later extended and in 1904 Congress passed a permanent ban; Chinese immigrants replaced by immigrants from Japan; exclusion began; 1906 San Francisco School Board ordered all Japanese students to be segregated into special schools; provoked diplomatic incident; settled in the Gentlemen’s Agreement with President Theodore Roosevelt to restrict inflow of Japanese immigrants in exchange for repeal of segregation order

Labor Unions

❧ Individual workers had little power, so they attempted to better their situations by forming collective organizations that could challenge the system of big business that they believed to be exploiting them

❧ Early 19th century, labor unions formed to protect the rights of workers within the new work arrangements of industrialization; both the government and employers considered labor unions to be illegal on the grounds that they restrained tradeo One of the most controversial union tactics was the strike, when union members refused to

work until their demands for wages and/or working conditions were met. Employers tried to hire replacements who often got into violent confrontations with strikers; the government was enjoined to order union members back to work

o Movement to create nationwide labor unions grew after the Civil Warw; meant to permanent, well-organized groups to represent labor interests and bargain collectively on behalf of all members to win higher wages and better working conditions from management

The Knights of Labor

❧ First attempt to nationalize unions in 1866 collapsed after the panic of 1873❧ First successful national union was the Knights of Labor, 1869, open to all who “toiled”

(all workers and most business and professional people, excluding lawyers, bankers, liquor dealers, and gamblers); welcomed women and blacks – not just factory workers, but domestic servants and women who worked in their own homes; urged an eight-hour day, an end to child labor, equal pay to all and a graduated income tax to force those who made more money to pay a higher rate of taxes

❧ Remained a secret organization for years; moved public under Terence V. Powderly; expanded; launched a series of strikes in 1880s against leadership’s wishes; first attempt worked in Missouri (Pacific Railroad), but second in Texas was crushed; public became to blame knights for all strikes, inconvenience, and violence

Anarchism

❧ Tensions between management and labor helped generate interest in doctrine of anarchism; believed that all governments were abusive devices used by the rich and powerful to oppress and exploit the workers; though that governments would eventually disappear, many promoted idea of a transition into a stateless society which could be hurried along by revolution of the people; tactics included dramatic acts of violence against governments; often escalated tensions into violence and led to the demise of the Knights of Labor

Labor Violence

❧ Labor violence damaged the unions during 1880s and 1890s; example Haymarket Square in 1886 – iron molders union again protested McCormick Company as new machinery reduced labor need; resulted in second strike; Chicago government sided with company; four strikers killed by police; rally held to protest deaths; 200 police arrived and ordered people to go home; bomb exploded killing one policemen and wounding others; police opened fire on workers causing a riot; trial marked by prejudice and hysteria, seven anarchists were sentenced to death, despite lack of evidence; four executed

❧ Knights of Labor not involved, but blamed by public mind; workers began to leave union❧ Pullman Strike in 1892; company cut wages by 25% during depression of 1893 without reducing

rent or company store prices; workers went on strike and appealed to workers of other rail lines; railroad owners responded by hooking Pullman cars to trains carrying mail, causing involvement of President Cleveland and federal courts; court forbade strikers from interfering with trains carrying mail, president brought army troops in to keep trains moving; destroyed union and leaders sentenced to prison for ignoring injunction

American Federation of Labor

❧ Although strikes and labor violence continued, few were successful until the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in the 1890s basing policies on more limited goals; strikes that tried to unite all workers failed; instead organized by craft, emphasizing value of skilled labor; formed an umbrella group of skilled craft unions; retained a degree of autonomy, including ability to negotiate with management; only major labor group to survive anti-labor sentiment of these yearso President Samuel Gompers; led union to seek strictly economic gains (better wages and

working conditions) and to avoid involvement with the utopian ideas or politics; hired organizers to spread unionism; worked as diplomat to prevent overlapping unions and to settle jurisdictional disputes; did not try to set firm “national policies” for unions within the federation; did promote strikes as potent weapons for skilled workers who could not be replaced by unskilled workers; skilled workers won many benefits, including the idea of a “contract” or agreement between the union and the company; led to idea of “closed shops” which could only hire union workers

o Unskilled workers had no comparable union to represent their needs.

Items for Independent Review❧ Industrial technologies (steel production, petroleum)❧ The airplane and the automobile❧ Corporate research and development❧ Transformation of higher education❧ Taylorism❧ Moving assembly line❧ Railroad expansion❧ The corporation and limited liability❧ Andrew Carnegie❧ New managerial techniques❧ The trust and the holding company❧ Horizontal and Vertical integration❧ Rockefeller's Standard Oil❧ The trust agreement❧ Corporate consolidation❧ Capitalism❧ The Self-Made Man❧ Social Darwinism❧ Gospel of Wealth

❧ Russell Conwell❧ Horatio Alger❧ Alternative visions❧ Lester Frank Ward❧ Henry George❧ Looking Backward❧ The problems of monopoly❧ Louisa May Alcott❧ The immigrant workforce❧ Wages and working conditions❧ Women and children at work❧ The struggle to unionize❧ The Great Railroad strike❧ The Knights of Labor and the AFL❧ The Homestead Strike❧ Henry Clay Frick❧ The Pullman Strike❧ Eugene V. Debs❧ Sources of Labor Weakness

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Gilded Age Politics

Politics in the Gilded Age

In a world dominated by undemocratic governments, many 19th century Americans believed that they lived in a political democracy that enjoyed universal manhood suffrage and individual political rights and liberties. However, the rising power of the new corporations during the Gilded Age (1870-1900) caused many to question just how much popular self-government actually shaped the policies set by the national government. Political corruption characterized many state governments, and starting with the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877), unscrupulous wheeling and dealing penetrated the halls of government in Washington as well.

Urban Politics and Political Corruption

❧ Many cities during the Gilded age were controlled political machines, organizations run by groups of powerful men who often did not hold any official political positions but controlled the political parties in urban areas.

o Such machines existed even in colonial days, when wealthy landowners had been able to control the votes of their tenants farmers on election day.

o Headed by a “boss”o Provided services to business, immigrants, & the

poor in exchange for votes on election dayo Exemplified by “Boss” William Tweed of the

Tammany Hall machine (Tweed Ring) in NY city

Political Corruption

❧ The Tweed Ring plundered the city of tens of millions of dollars and reached into virtually every neighborhood.

❧ Tweed was the most visible of a group of urban bosses who rose to power in the power vacuum created by the chaotic growth of cities and no corresponding growth in the powers of government

❧ Political bosses focused on winning votes for his organization, and he did that by winning the loyalty of the voters, especially the immigrant poor who depended on the machine to provide food, fuel, and jobs in hard times

Political Corruption

❧ Between 1869 and 1871, Tweed’s Tammany Hall organization gave $50,000 to the poor and $2,250,000 to schools, orphanages, and hospitals

❧ But it also led to an increase in patronage, i.e. giving away 60,000 government offices to its supporters for votes, kickbacks, & party service

❧ It also elevated the city’s debt by $70 million through graft and inflated contracts.

❧ Although Tweed was convicted of fraud and extortion and sentenced to jail in 1873, the corruption of urban politics undermined the political authority of local officeholders throughout the era.

❧ Reformers targeted spoils system as being inefficient & corrupt

Gilded Age Politics

❧ The most striking feature of the late-nineteenth century was the remarkable stability of the party system

❧ Era was most highly competitive politically in US historyo Intense party loyaltyo Voter turnout of adult white males reached highest levels in

US history (women and African Americans disenfranchised)o Parties avoided controversial issues that might alienate

voterso Led to issue-free campaigns focused on party loyalty &

regional, religious, & ethnic ties

The Nature of Party Politics

❧ Cultural-Political Alignmentso Party loyalty reflected American pluralism as different groups competed for power, wealth,

and status, forming coalitions to achieve their goals.• Region was perhaps most important

• To white southerners, loyalty to the Democratic Party was a matter of unquestioned faith as it had been the vehicle of their triumph of Reconstruction and the preserver of white supremacy.

• To many northerners, white and black, Republican loyalties were equally intense. To them, the party of Lincoln remained a bulwark against slavery and treason.

• Religious and ethnic differences also shaped party loyalties.• The Democratic Party attracted most of the Catholic voters, recent immigrants, and poorer

worker-groups that often overlapped.• The Republican Party appealed to northern Protestants, citizens of old stock, and much of the

middle-class groups that also had considerable overlap.

The Nature of Party Politics

❧ Cultural-Political Alignmentso Among the few substantive issues on which the parties took clearly different strands were

matters connected with immigrants.• Republicans tended to support measures restricting immigration and to favor temperance legislation,

which many of them believed would help discipline immigrant communities.• Catholics and immigrants viewed such proposal as as assaults on them and their cultures and

opposed them; the Democratic Party followed their leado Party identification was usually more a reflection of cultural inclinations than a calculation of economic

interest. Individuals might affiliate with a party because their parents had done so, or because it was the party of their region, their church, or their ethnic group.

Two-Party System

These issues made politics a personal as well as a community activity and people formed strong loyalties to individual politicians.

Allegiances to national parties and candidates were so evenly divided that no faction gained control for any sustained period of time.

● From the end of Reconstruction until the late 1890s, the electorate was divided almost evenly between Republicans (16 states) and Democrats (14 states)

● Between 1877 and 1897, Republicans held the presidency three terms, Democrats for two.

● Rarely did the same party control both the presidency and Congress simultaneously (Republicans controlled Senate; Democrats controlled House)

From 1876 and 1892, presidential elections were extremely close and the outcome often hinged on the popular vote.

Two-Party Balance

● One reason the two parties managed to avoid substantive issues was that the federal government and state and local governments, did relatively little. The government in Washington was responsible for delivering the mail, maintaining a military, conducting foreign policy, and collecting tariffs and taxes. It had few other responsibilities and few institutions with which it could have undertaken additional responsibilities even if it had chosen to do so. In most respects, the United States was a society without a modern, national government. The most powerful institutions were the two political parties (and the bosses and machines that dominated them) and the federal courts)

● There were significant exceptions. The federal government had been supporting the economic development of the nation for decades (subsidies to railroads in the form of grants of federal land; use of federal troops under President Cleveland against the Pullman strike; pension system for Union Civil War veterans). At state and local levels, adherents of these two cultural traditions battled over how much control government should exercise over people’s lives.

○ The two most contentious issues were use of leisure time and celebration of Sunday, the Lord’s day. Protestant Republicans tried to keep the Sabbath holy through legislation that prohibited bars, stores, and commercial amusements from being open on Sundays. Immigrant Democrats fought saloon closings and other restrictions on a day that was free from work.

○ Similar splits developed over public versus parochial schools and prohibition versus the free availability of liquor.

Political Parties

Republican Party❧ Stressed strict codes of personal morality and

government’s involvement in regulating both economic & moral affairs of the community as a whole

❧ Government as an agent of moral reform and belief in direct government action

❧ Consisted mostly of native-born Protestants who believed that religious salvation could best be achieved by purging the world of evil and that legislation could protect people from sin

❧ Also consisted of businessmen & African Americans❧ Support from Midwest & small & rural towns in

northeast

Democratic Party❧ Opposed government efforts to impose a

single moral standard on society/opposed government interference in matters of personal liberty

❧ Emphasized economic equity❧ Consisted of many immigrant German

Lutherans & Catholics (especially Irish)❧ Support from the Solid South & large

industrial cities where immigrants factored in significantly under political machines

❧ Desire to restrict government power

❧❧

Gilded Age Presidents


The presidents who served during the Gilded Age were products of their age. Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley all served heroically as field officers during the Civil War. Grover Cleveland paid another man to serve in his stead, a practice that was not unusual at the time, and Chester A. Arthur served as a general in the Quartermaster Corps of the New York State militia. All were well educated; grant graduated from West Point, and the others had at least some college education. All except Cleveland, were Republicans. Some, like Garfield, were scrupulously honest, while others, like Grant, were known for their ties to corruption and illegal activities. All had one thing in common: they sought to serve their nation well.

Gilded Age PresidentsUlysses S. Grant (1868-1876; Republican)❧ Fifteenth Amendment ratified.❧ Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, and additional

rail construction resulted in 56,000 miles of track being laid between 1866 and 1873.

❧ First major scandal erupted in 1872 - the Union Pacific Railroad had formed the Credit Mobilier construction company and then hired themselves at exorbitant prices to build the railroad line, earning incredible profits. The arrangement was covered up by distributing stock to influential politicians, including the speaker of the House, who later became vice president. A newspaper expose and congressional investigation led to the formal censure of two members of Congress and the exposure of the vice president’s involvement


Ulysses S. Grant (1868-1876; Republican)❧ Panic of 1873 saw bank failures in Europe which affected over

extended bankers in the United States. Business owners were unable to repay loans. Stock market crashed. Factories were shut down, and workers were laid off.

❧ Grant’s administration was further tainted by the Whiskey Ring, which was an extensive system of bribes and payoffs that robbed the Treasury of millions in excise-tax revenues by uniting Republican officials, tax collectors, and whiskey manufacturers in a massive scheme to defraud the federal government.

One-Term Presidents and Party Factions

Beginning in 1876, a series of one-term presidents - Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield (succeeded, after his assassination in 1881 by Chester A. Arthur), Grover Cleveland in 1884, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and Cleveland, elected for the second time, in 1892. Seldom did the same party control the White House and both houses of Congress, so important bills often took a long time to enact, if they managed to pass both houses at all. Presidents generally did not actively mobilize public opinion in favor of their policies, and mandy did very little at all.❧ Both parties were split by internal quarrels that often led to stalemated inaction. The life blood of both parties

was patronage - the disbursing of government jobs in return for votes, kickbacks, and party services. ❧ Republican Factions: Stalwarts, Half-Breeds, and Mugwumps

o Stalwarts: Led by Roscoe Conkling, Senator who favored traditional spoils/patronage systemo Half-Breeds: Led by James G. Blaine, Congressman favored reform, but really disagreed about who

should control the doling out of favorso Mugwumps: Represented in thought by Thomas Nast; made up of young liberal reformers; favored

Reconstruction policies to help African Americans; anti-corruption❧ Democrats: tended to subdivide into white-supremacy southerners, immigrant-stock and working-class urban

political machines, and business-orientated advocates of low tariffs. Democrats also utilized the spoil system.


Rutherford B Hayes (1877-1880; Republican)The battle over patronage overshadowed all else during the Hayes presidency. Although the presidency still had symbolic importance, Hayes and his small staff were overwhelmed by the large number of government appointments the president was expected to make. Hayes tried to pacify his party’s factions (Stalwarts and Half Breeds), but they paid little attention to him, and even the system of pensions for Union Civil War veterans was riddled with corruption and party politics. Hayes tried to create a civil service system that based government employment on merit, but neither party supported this initiative.❧ Attempted to reestablish honest government after Grant; supported

temperance; vetoed efforts to restrict Chinese immigration❧ Compromise of 1877 resulted in the election of Hayes to the presidency;

disputed election was decided by a congressional commission. Southern members of Congress agreed to support Hayes if he would withdraw federal troops from the still occupied Southern states and appoint one Southerner as a member of his Cabinet; ended Reconstruction.


Rutherford B Hayes (1877-1880; Republican)❧ Railroad Strike of 1877 occurred when Baltimore and Ohio

employees struck over attempts by the company to stop unionization and cut wages as a result of the Panic of 1873. It spread across the country and affected sympathetic industries which also struck. Troops were used to put down labor disputes, and between seventy and one hundred workers were killed when the troops opened fire on crowds.

❧ Bland-Allison Act (1878) required the U.S) Treasury to buy a certain amount of silver and put it into circulation as silver dollars.

❧ Munn v. Illinois (1876) determined that railroad rates could be controlled by the government because railroads were considered to be private enterprises which benefited the public good.


James Garfield (1881; Republican)❧ Republican – Half-Breed❧ By the time that Garfield took office in 1881, the number of federal

jobs had tripled since 1865 and elected officials tried their best to control these jobs in order to gain political support.

❧ Garfield quickly engaged in a public quarrel with Stalwart leaders, and he professed support for civil service reform. The quarrel was never resolved.

❧ Appointed most patronage jobs to Half-Breeds; angered Conkling & the Stalwarts

❧ Assassinated by a deranged Stalwart office seeker in 1881❧ Became a martyr in a corrupt civil service system—spurred public

demand for reform❧ Accomplished little in domestic and foreign affairs


Chester A Arthur (1881-1885; Republican)❧ Republican – Stalwart; Became president when Garfield died❧ Like Hayes and Garfield, Chester A. Arthur tried to follow an

independent course, even though he was an open spoilsman and a close ally of Roscoe Conkling. Garfield’s assassination gave credibility to reformers who called for an end to patronage, and Arthur, recognizing that the spoils system had been discredited, kept most of Garfield’s appointees in office and supported civil service reform

❧ Signed the Pendleton Act (1883) - First national service measureo Prohibited hiring office holders based on wealth; aimed at reforming the

spoils systemo Established a merit system for making appointmentso Created competitive examinations for civil service workers; set up Civil

Service Commission to give open competitive examinations to applicants


Chester A Arthur (1881-1885; Republican)❧ Signed the Pendleton Act (1883) Continued

o Forced politicians to look to corporations for campaign fundso Covered only 10% of government jobs; passed due to Garfield’s

assassination❧ Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) restricted Chinese immigrants from

entering the country for a period of ten years to work in the mining industry, required Chinese residents who left the country to reapply for entry as aliens, and excluded Chinese immigrants from citizenship.

Election of 1884

❧ During the Gilded Age, both parties were controlled by powerful bosses with close ties to business.o Republicans strongly supported a high tariff to protect American industry, and throughout the 1870s,

they advocated reducing federal spending, repaying much of the national debt, and withdrawing greenbacks - the paper money issued by the Union during the Civil War.

o Democrats opposed the high tariff, but the party’s national leaders were still closely tied to New York bankers and financiers, and so they resisted demands from debt-ridden farmers to the increase money supply.

❧ In 1879, for the first time since the war, the United States returned to the gold standard, which backed paper currency with gold prices at a fixed rate.

❧ Most political leaders held to a strictly limited view of government’s role in both economic and social matters, including the presidential candidates in 1884:o Republicans – James Blaine, leader of the Half-Breedso Democrats – Grover Cleveland, governor of NY, reformer who fought Tammany Hall

Election of 1884

❧ Blaine and Cleveland agreed on most substantive issues, but the campaign turned nasty, with each side slinging personal insults at the opposing candidate.o Republicans publicized Cleveland’s claim of having

an illegitimate child• “Ma, ma, where's my pa? Gone to the White

House, ha, ha, ha!”o A New York Republican clergyman labeled the

Democrats as the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion”

• Insulted NY’s Irish community and the Catholic church

• Blaine failed to repudiate the statement• The nativist phrase ultimately cost Blaine crucial NY

Election of 1884

Cleveland’s Presidency

◻ 1884-1888, 1892-1896; first Democrat in 28 years❧ Staunch believer in laissez faire economics; he strongly opposed

governmental favors to business◻ Believed in the merit system, but eventually replaced Republicans

with “deserving Democrats”◻ Vetoed farm assistance – “Though the people support the

government, the government should not support the people.” ◻ Vetoed pension bills◻ Supported a lower tariff◻ First real issue that divided the Democrats & Republicans◻ Would end a treasury surplus◻ Meant lower prices for consumers and less protection for

monopolies


◻ Depression of 1893 was caused by overspeculation, depressed agriculture, and weak U.S. credit here and abroad. Most of those affected were farmers and the urban unemployed poor.

◻ The Pullman Strike (1894) in Chicago was marked by use of federal troops to end the strike.

◻ Dawes Severalty Act (1887) carved up Native American tribal lands and gave each family an allotment to be held in trust. It also granted citizenship to all Native Americans.

◻ Interstate Commerce Act (1887) created an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) which was to regulate all trade and business conducted across state lines.

• Wabash railroad v. Illinois (1886) SC ruled that states could not regulate rates on interstate traffic


◻ Interstate Commerce Act (1887) created an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) which was to regulate all trade and business conducted across state lines.

• Required railroad rates for freight and passengers to be fair and just

• Gave the ICC the power to investigate railroads and to prosecute violators

• No provision for enforcement; no significant difference◻ Coxey’s Army (1894) included unemployed men, among them

veterans of the Civil War, who came to Washington to demand economic relief for conditions caused by the Depression of 1893.

◻ Cleveland asked Congress to reduce the tariff rates, but Senate Republicans refused and passed a bill raising rates. The resulting dispute made the tariff an issue in the election of 1888

Election of 1888

The campaign of 1888 was the first since the Civil War to involve a clear question of economic difference (the tariff) between the parties. The vote was very close, and even though Cleveland won the popular vote, Harrison carried the electoral college by 233 to 168 and so Harrison became president.

Benjamin Harrison’s Presidency


❧ Reversed most of Cleveland’s policies❧ Even though he was one of the most passive of the Gilded Age

presidents during his term (1889-1893) the public began to demand the government confront some of the important social and economic issues of the day, especially the rise in support for legislation to curb the power of trusts.

❧ Some states had tried to pass laws banning trusts, but these laws were useless if the trusts were engaged in interstate commerce, which could be regulated only by Congress.

❧ In 1890 Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) o Outlawed agreements that were the restraint of trade; vagueo Banned big business monopolies but was used more often to prosecute labor

unions. (14 against Business, many against unions); few convictionso Later it was used by Theodore Roosevelt to break up the Standard Oil Company.


❧ McKinley Tariff Act (1890) o Set one of the highest protective tariffs in American history when it

taxed foreign goods at 50% of the face value of the item.o Raised tariffs to highest peacetime levelo Damaged farmers

❧ Voters responded by voting for Democrats, taking the House, and voting the Republican party out of the presidency in the next election (Cleveland wins)o For the first time since 1878, the Democrats won a majority of both

houses in Congress.o Most of Cleveland’s second term was like his first, devoted by

laissez-faire government. Again he supported a tariff reduction, but the Senate modified it, so the new law - the Wilson-Gorman Tariff - included only a few very modest reductions.

William McKinley’s Presidency

❧ Wilson-Gorman Tariff (1894) was intended to reduce the high tariffs placed on imported goods by the McKinley Tariff. Hundreds of amendments were added, which effectively gutted the bill. The law also added a 2% income tax, which was later struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

❧ Annexation of Hawaii (1897) was completed during McKinley’s first term in office. Annexation had been proposed earlier but was challenged by sugar interests who did not want to relinquish the control they had over the islands.

❧ During the Spanish-American War (1898) the United States attacked Spanish possessions in the Caribbean and Pacific in response to Spanish actions against dissidents. Spurred on by the press, Congress sent an American army, most of whom were volunteers, and the American navy against far outnumbered Spanish forces.

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