there’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold… · when is the gilded age? •end of the...

THE GILDED AGE OF AMERICAN

HISTORY

chapter 8

sections 1 & 2

When is the GILDED AGE?

• End of the Civil War until end of century

– 1865-1900 GILDED AGE

– 1900-1917 Progressive Era

– 1917-1918* WWI

– 1920s Roaring ’20s

– 1930s Great Depression

– 1941-1945* WWII

– 1945-1989 Cold War

What is the GILDED AGE?

• Time of growth in America

– 2nd Industrial Revolution

– Cumulative wealth increases

• Visible only on the surface

• Beneath the surface

– Unstable economic infrastructure

– Immigration issues

• Poverty & crime

– Corruption

GILDED Economics

• Unhindered capitalism

– Social Darwinism

– Laissez-faire

• Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations

• Free marketplace

• Government involvement

– Subsidies for key industries

– Corruption

• Credit Mobilier scandal

Credit Mobilier Scandal

• Government loans given to Union

Pacific for TCRR

– Union Pac hires out Credit Mobilier company

• CM overcharges Union Pac, then bribes

key congressmen to

keep funds coming

– Not investigated

until 1872

GILDED Politics

• Ending the Spoils system

– Rutherford B. Hayes bucks the trend

– James A. Garfield gets shot

– Pendleton Civil Service Act

• Other reform

– RR’s were overcharging farmers

– Interstate Commerce Commission

• Standardized shipping rates

Economic Depression, 1893

• Part of business cycle

• Laissez-faire policies

• Coxey’s Army

IMMIGRANTS!

chapter 8, section 2

Where did America’s workers

come from during this time of

unusual industrial growth?

• New farm technology decreased the need for farm labor

• Former farmers moving to the cities to escape the poor working conditions in rural America, and…

• IMMIGRANTS!

Why did they come?

• PUSH

– Crop failures

– Land shortages

– Unemployment

– Rising taxes

– Political persecution

– Religious persecution

• 1890s pogroms against

Russian Jews

• PULL

– Free land

• Homestead Act

– Availability of FACTORY

JOBS

– Personal freedoms

– Educational opps

– Not forced to serve long

years in Army

– Participation in

democratic gov’t

•American farmers and immigrants contributed to a huge rise in urban population

•URBANIZATION!

Who was coming

to America? • 1865-1890

• 1st Wave

– 10 million from

central & NW

Europe

• 3 million from

Germany

• 3 million from

British Isles

– Looked white,

mostly

Protestant,

blended well

Who was coming to America?

• 1890-1920

• 2nd Wave

– 10 million from southern &

eastern Europe

• 4 million Italians

• 3 million Jews (mostly Russia)

• Greeks, Slavs, Armenians

– Darker skin,

different religions,

did not blend in as well

Their Journey

• 1-3 weeks across Atlantic

– Steerage

• 70% came thru New York City

• Physical exams upon entrance

• Find families

– Ghettos

• Westward migration

Non-Europeans

• Chinese

– Mid-1800s recruitment

to railroads

– Separate communities

– Treated with suspicion

– Chinese Exclusion Act

• 1882, 1892, 1902,

permanent until 1943

•Immigration laws discriminated most

against incoming Asians

Non-Europeans

• Japanese

– Later than Chinese

– 1894 treaty

granting free entry

– 200,000 by 1920

•Immigration laws discriminated most

against incoming Asians

Non-Europeans

• Mexican

– Early 20th century

– New irrigation in SW,

labor needed

– 1910 Mexican Revolution

– Immigration Restriction Act of 1921

• Did not apply to North Americans