Chapter 19: The South and the West Transformed

I. Introductiona. After the Civil War the South and the West provided enticing

opportunities for pioneers and entrepreneurs. The South needed to be rebuilt, the trans-Mississippi West beckoned entrepreneurs and farmers. Both regions were undeveloped and proved to be fertile catalysts for urbanization and industrialization.

b. Prior to the Civil War, the West was a barren landscape unfit for human habitation or cultivation, an uninviting land suitable only for Indians and animals. But after 1865, the federal government encouraged western settlement and economic development.

c. The construction of transcontinental railroads, the military conquest of the Indians, and a liberal land-distribution policy combined to help lure thousands of pioneers and expectant capitalists westward.

d. There were some 35,000 miles of railroads in 1865 and grew to nearly 200,000 miles by 1897.

e. The defeated South attracted investment and industrial development. After 1865, proponents of a “New South” argued that the region must abandon its single-minded preoccupation with agriculture and pursue industrial and commercial development. As a result, the South experienced dramatic social and economic changes during the last third of the 19th century.

II. Prophets and goals of the New Southa. After the Civil War many southerners looked wistfully to the

plantation life that had characterized their region prior to the war, but several prominent leaders insisted the postwar South must liberate itself from nostalgia and create a new society of small farms, thriving industries, and bustling cities.

b. Henry Grady of the Atlanta Constitutioni. His view attracted many supporters who preached the gospel

of industry with evangelical fervor.ii. They reasoned the Confederacy had lost b/c it had relied too

much upon King Cottoniii. South must follow the North’s example and industrialize

c. The New South “gospel”i. From that central belief flowed certain implications: a more

diversified and more efficient agriculture would be a foundation for economic growth and that more widespread education, especially vocational training would promote material success.

III. Economic growth in the New Southa. Textile mills

i. Chief accomplishment of the New South movement was a dramatic expansion of the region’s textile production.

1. From 1880 to 1900, the number of cotton mills in the South grew from 161 to 400 and the number of mill workers (women and children outnumbered men) increased fivefold.

2. By 1900, South had surpassed NE as the nation’s largest producer of cotton cloth

b. Tobaccoi. Growing increased significantly after the Civil War

ii. Essential to the rise of tobacco industry was the Duke family of Durham, NC

1. Story goes that Washington Duke took a load of tobacco and with help of his 2 sons beat it out with hickory sticks, stuffed it into bags, and set out across the state selling tobacco in small pouches as he went.

2. By 1872 the Dukes had a factory producing 125,000 pounds of tobacco annually

3. Buck (Washington’s son) recognized the importance of advertising and poured large sums into it and perfecting the mechanized mass production of cigarettes

4. They bought out their competitors and brought into the American Tobacco Company, which controlled 9/10ths of the nation’s cigarette production

5. Supreme Court ruled in 1911 that the American Tobacco Company was in violation of the anti-trust laws and ordered it broken up

6. Duke family found new worlds to conquer-hydroelectric power and aluminum

c. Coal and iron orei. Use of other natural resources helped revitalize the region

along the Appalachian Mtn chain from WV to AL.ii. Coal production grew from 5 million tons in 1875 to 49 million

tons by 1900iii. At the southern end of the mountains, Birmingham AL sprang

up during the 1870s as a major steel producing center and tagged itself the Pittsburgh of the South

d. Lumberi. Industrial growth created a need for wood-framed housing,

and after 1870 lumbering became a thriving industry in the South.

ii. By turn of century, it surpassed textiles in valueiii. Resulted in ecological devastation

iv. Industry only saved by warm climate which fostered quick growth of replanted forests and rise of scientific forestry

e. Miscellaneous industriesi. 2 forces furthered the southern industrial revolution were

already on horizon at the turn of the century: 1. Petroleum in the Southwest-in 1901 the Spindletop oil

gusher in TX lead to huge rush2. Hydroelectric power in the Southeast-electric power

proved equally profitable and local power plants dotted the South by the 1890s

a. Richmond, VA developed the nation’s first electric streetcar system in 1888

b. Columbia, SC boasted the first electrically powered cotton mill in 1894

3. Greatest advance began in 1905 when Buck Duck’s Southern Power Company set out to electrify entire river valleys in the Carolinas

IV. Agriculture in the New Southa. Background

i. Even with advances, by start of the 20th century most of the South remained undeveloped

ii. Despite optimistic rhetoric of Henry Grady and other New South spokesmen the typical southerner was less apt to be tending a textile loom than facing the eastern end of a westbound mule

iii. King Cotton survived the Civil War and expanded over new acreage even as its export mkts leveled off

b. Problems in southern agriculturei. The majority of southern farmers were not flourishing. A

prolonged deflation in crop prices affected the entire Western world during the last third of the 19th century.

ii. Land ownership rare: Sagging prices for farm crops made it more difficult than ever to own land. Sharecropping and tenancy among poor blacks and whites became the norm

1. Sharecropping-occurred when a person had nothing to offer the landowner but their labor, they worked the land in return for supplies and a share of the crop (generally about half)

2. Tenant farming-hardly better off, might have their own mule, a plow, and credit with the country store; entitled to claim a larger share of the crops

3. The sharecropper-tenant system was horribly inefficient, it was essentially a form of land slavery and tenants and owners developed an intense suspicion of each other

iii. Postwar South suffered an acute shortage of capital; people had to devise ways to operate w/o cash

1. Small landholders use the crop-lien system: merchants furnished supplies in return for liens (or mortgages) on farmers’ crops

2. Credit and markets tied to cash crop of cottona. To a few tenants and small famers who seized

the chance, such credit offered a way out of dependency, but to most if offered only a hopeless cycle of perennial debt

b. The merchant required his farmer clients to grow a cash crop, which could be readily sold at harvesttime

c. Meant the routines of tenancy and sharecropping were geared to a staple crop, usually cotton

d. Resulting stagnation of rural life held millions, white and black, in bondage to privation and ignorance

V. Tenancy and the environmenta. Use of tenancy and sharecropping caused profound environmental

damagei. Nutrients leached from soils-Growing commercial row crops

on the same land year after year leached the nutrients from the soil.

ii. Fertilizers exacerbate the problem: Tenants had no incentive to take care of farmland by manuring fields or rotating crops b/c it was not their own. Instead they used fertilizer to accelerate the growing cycle, but extensive use of phosphate fertilizers only accelerated soil depletion by enabling multiple plantings each year.

iii. Eventual erosion leads to “ravaged” lands: Once the soil had lost its fertility, the tenants moved on to another farm, leaving behind rutted fields whose topsoil washed away with each rain. The silt and mud flowed into creeks and rivers, swamping many lowland fields and filling millponds and lakes. By the early 20th century much of the rural South resembled a ravaged land: deep gullies sliced through, bare eroded hillsides, and streams and deep lakes were clogged with silt

VI. The political leaders of the New Southa. In post-Civil War southern politics, habits of social deference and

elitism still prevailedb. Definition and evaluation of the term Bourbon

i. After Reconstruction ended in 1877 an elite group of planters, lawyers, merchants, and entrepreneurs dominated southern politics.

ii. Supporters referred to them as redeemers b/c they supposedly saved the South from Yankee domination, as well as from the limitations of a purely rural economy

iii. Included a rising class of entrepreneurs eager to promote a more diversified economy based upon industrial development and railroad expansion.

iv. Opponents of the redeemers labeled them Bourbons in an effort to depict them as reactionaries. Were said to have forgotten nothing and have learned nothing in the ordeal of the Civil War

c. Bourbon ideology: perfected a political alliance with northeastern conservatives and an economic alliance with northeastern capitalists

i. Generally pursued a government policy of frugality, except for the tax exemptions and other favors they offered business

ii. Slashed expenditures and avoided political initiatives, making the transition from Republican rule to Bourbon rule less abrupt than is often assumed

iii. The Bourbons’ favorable disposition toward the railroads was not unlike that of the Radical Republicans

d. Effects of Bourbon retrenchmenti. Greatly reduced spending on education: They focused on

cutting back the size and cost of government. This type of policy spelled austerity for public services, including the school systems started during Reconstruction. Illiteracy rates at the time were about 12% among whites and 50% among blacks

ii. Convict leasing: Urge to economize led them to adopt the degrading system of convict leasing. Destruction of prisons during the Civil War and the poverty of state treasuries afterward combined with the demand for cheap labor to make the leasing of convict workers a way for southern states to avoid penitentiary expenses and generate revenue.

iii. Repudiation of state debts: They reduced not only state expenditures but also a vast amount of government debt. The corruption and extravagance of Radical Republican rule were commonly advanced as justification for the process, but repudiation of debts was not limited to those incurred during Reconstruction. Altogether, 9 states repudiated more than half of what they owed bondholders and other creditors

e. Achievements of the Bourbonsi. They did respond to the demand for commissions to regulate

the rates charged by railroads for commercial transportii. Agricultural: Also established boards of agriculture and public

health

iii. Educational: As well as agricultural and mechanical colleges, teacher-training schools and women’s colleges, and even state colleges for African Americans

f. Flexibility in Bourbon race relationsi. Perhaps the ultimate paradox of the Bourbons’ rule was that

these paragons of white supremacy tolerated a lingering black voice in politics and showed no haste to raise legal barriers of racial separation in public places.

1. African Americans sat in VA’s state legislature until 1890, in SC’s until 1900, and in GA’s until 1908

2. The South sent black congressmen to Washington in every election except one until 1900, though they always represented gerrymandered districts into which most of the state’s black voters had been thrown

3. The color line was drawn less strictly immediately after the Civil War.

a. In some places racial segregation appeared before the end of Reconstruction, especially in schools, churches, hotels, and rooming houses and in private social relations

b. In other public places, such as trains, depots, theaters, and diners however segregation was more sporadic

ii. Black voting and political involvement prevalent enough to disarm contemporary Bourbon critics

VII. African Americans and the New Southa. During the 1890s the attitudes that had permitted moderation in race

relations evaporated. A violent “Negrophobia” swept across the South and much of the nation at the end of the century. Whites resented the signs of black success and social influence.

b. Educationi. Brought enlightenment to a new generation of young African

Americans born and educated since the end of the Civil War1. They were more assertive and less patient than their

parents2. Growing number of young white adults were equally

determined to keep “Negros in their place”ii. Racial violence and repression surged to the fore during the

last decade of the 19th century and first 2 decades of the 20th century

1. By end of 19th century, the so called New South resembled the racially segregated Old South

2. Ruling whites imposed their will over all areas of African American life. They prevented blacks from

voting and enacted “Jim Crow” laws mandating public separation of the races

a. Came as a result of a calculated campaign by white elites and racist thugs to limit African American political, economic, and social life

c. Black disenfranchisementi. Political dynamics of the 1890s exacerbated racial tensions.

The rise of Populism, a farm-based protest movement that culminated in the creation of a third political party in the 1890s

1. It divided the white vote to such an extent that in some places the African American vote became the balance of power; some Populists courted black votes

2. In response the Bourbons revived the race issue-began insisting that the black vote be eliminated completely from southern elections

a. Some farmers hoped that the disenfranchisement of African Americans would make it possible for whites to divide politically w/o raising the specter of “Negro domination”

b. Since the 15th Amendment made it illegal simply to deny blacks the vote, racists accomplished their purpose indirectly through such devices as poll taxes (or head taxes) and literacy tests

i. Mississippi led the way to near-total disenfranchisement of blacks

ii. Called a constitutional convention in 1890 to change the suffrage provisions of the Radical Republican constitution of 1868

ii. The Mississippi plan-set the pattern that 7 more states would follow over the next 20 years.

1. Residence requirement-2 years in the state, 1 year in an election district; struck at those black tenant farmers who were in the habit of moving yearly in search of better opportunities

2. Disqualifications for conviction of certain crimes3. Poll tax and other taxes had to be paid by Feb 1 of each

year; this fell heavily on the poor, most of whom were black

4. Literacy tests (with understanding clause)a. all voters had to be liberateb. the alternative, designed as a loophole for

otherwise-disqualified whites, was an “understanding clause”: the voter, if unable to read the Constitution, could qualify by

“understanding” it, to the satisfaction of the registrar

iii. Variations of the Mississippi plan (including the “grandfather clause”)

1. In 1898, LA invented the “grandfather clause,” which allowed illiterates to register to vote if their fathers or grandfathers had been eligible to vote on January 1, 1867 when African Americans were still disenfranchised

2. By 1910, GA, NC, VA, AL, and OK had adopted the grandfather clause

iv. Democratic primaries1. Every southern state adopted a statewide Democratic

primary, which became the only meaningful election outside isolated areas of Republican strength. W/minor exceptions the Democratic primaries excluded African American voters altogether

2. Effectiveness of these measures seen in a few sample figures

a. LA in 1896 had 130,000 registered black voters and in 1900 5,320

b. In AL in 1900, 121,159 black men over 21 were literate according to the census, but only 3,742 were registered to vote

d. Segregation in the Southi. Jim Crow social segregation followed disenfranchisement and

in some states came firstii. From 1875 to 1883, any racial segregation violated a federal

Civil Rights Act, which forbade discrimination in places of public accommodation

iii. Supreme Court1. The Civil Rights Cases (1883)-ruled on 7 civil rights

cases involving discrimination against blacks by corporations or individuals

a. Court held that the force of federal law could not extend to individual action b/c the 14th Amendment, which provided that “no State” could deny citizens equal protection of the law, stood as a prohibition only against state action, individuals were free to discriminate as they saw fit

b. This interpretation left as an open question the validity of state laws requiring separate public facilities under the rubric “separate but equal” (a slogan popular with the New South prophets)

2. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

a. Began when LA followed MS’s example of requiring railway passengers to occupy the car set aside for their race in 1890

b. Law was challenged in Plessy v. Ferguson, which the Supreme Court decided in 1896

i. Test case originated in New Orleans when Homer Plessy, an octoroon (a person of 1/8th African ancestry) refused to leave a whites-only railroad car when asked to do so

ii. He was convicted of violating the segregation statue and the case rose on appeal to the Supreme Court

iii. Court ruled in 1896 that segregation laws “have been generally, if not universally recognized as w/in the competency of state legislatures in the exercise of their police power”

c. The principle of statutory racial segregation extended to every area of southern life, including streetcars, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, parks and places of employment

e. Lynchings of blacksi. Violence accompanied the Jim Crow laws. From 1890 to 1899,

lynchings in the US averaged 188/year, 82% of which occurred in the South, from 1900 to 1909, they averaged 93/year, of which 92% occurred in the South

ii. By the end of the 19th century legalized racial discrimination-segregation of public facilities, political disenfranchisement, and vigilante justice punctuated by brutal public lynchings and race riots-had elevated government sanctioned bigotry to an official way of life in the South

iii. Black response to racism and statutory segregation1. Some left the South in search of equality and

opportunity, but vast majority stayed in their native region

2. Accommodation-idea of wearing a mask of deference and apply discretion, this did not mean total submission

3. Create independent culture and institutions-excluded from the dominant white world and eager to avoid confrontations, black southerners after the 1890s increasingly turned inward and constructed their own culture and nurtured their own pride.

a. African American churches continued to serve as a hub for black community life; not only a place for worship but also social gatherings, club

meetings, and political rallies; offered men leadership and political roles

b. Churches enabled African Americans of all classes to interact and exercise roles denied them in the larger society

iv. Irony of segregation1. Economic opportunities-a new class of African

American entrepreneurs emerged to provide services: insurance, banking, funeral, barbering

2. Rise of black activisma. at same time they formed their own social

organizations, all of which helped bolster black pride and provide fellowship and opportunities for service

b. Middle-class black women formed a network of thousands of racial-uplift-organizations around the nation.

i. These clubs were engines of social service in their communities

ii. Cared for the aged and the infirm, the orphaned and the abandoned

iii. In 1896 the leaders of such women’s clubs converged to form the National Association of Colored Women, an organization meant to combat racism and segregation

f. African American leadersi. Ida B. Wells and the founding of the NAACP (1909)

1. She was one of the most outspoken African American activists of the time

2. She was born into slavery in 1862 in MS, attended a school staffed by white missionaries; lost her parents and infant brother to yellow fever in 1878; moved to Memphis in search of economic security and opportunity

3. In 1883 after being denied a seat on a railroad car b/c she was black, she became the first African American to file suit against such discrimination; circuit court sided in her favor and fined the railroad, but the TN Supreme Court overturned the ruling

4. Became prominent editor of Memphis Free Speech, a newspaper focusing on African American issues

5. In 1892 when 3 of her friends were lynched by a white mob, Wells launched a lifelong crusade against lynching; angry whites responded by destroying her newspaper office and threatening to lynch her

6. Moved to NY where she continued to use her fiery journalistic talent to criticize Jim Crow laws and demand that African Americans have their voting rights restored

7. She helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 and promoted women’s suffrage

ii. Booker T. Washington and accommodation1. Born in VA of a slave mother and a white father, fought

extreme adversity to get an education at Hampton Institute; went on to build at Tuskegee, AL a leading college for African Americans

2. By 1890, Washington had become the nation’s foremost black educator

3. Argued that blacks should not antagonize whites by demanding social or political equality; instead, they should concentrate on establishing an economic base for their advancement

4. Highly criticized for making a bad bargain: the sacrifice of broad educational and civil rights for the dubious acceptance of white conservatives and the creation of economic opportunities for blacks

iii. W.E.B. Du Bois and protest of the “Atlantic Compromise”1. Led criticism of Booker T. Washington2. Native of Great Barrington, MA and son of free blacks;

he first experienced southern racial practices as an undergraduate at Fisk University in Nashville

3. First African American to earn a doctoral degree from Harvard (in history)

4. Active career in racial protest, he left a distinguished record as a teacher and scholar

5. Shortly after beginning his teaching career at Atlanta University, he began to assault Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist philosophy and put forward his own program of “ceaseless agitation”

6. Became architect of the 20th century civil rights movement

7. Argued that the education of African Americans should not be merely vocational but should nurture bold leaders willing to challenge segregation and discrimination through political action

8. Demand that disenfranchisement and legalized segregation cease and that the laws of the land be enforced; castigated Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” philosophy: “We refuse to surrender the leadership of this race to cowards.”

VIII. “Colonization” of the New Westa. Emigrants to the West

i. Mexicans, Canadians, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, and others

ii. Exodusters, or African Americans from the South1. Benjamin Singleton2. The Exoduster experience

iii. Buffalo soldiers

IX. The miner in the Westa. The development of mining communitiesb. The great gold, silver, and copper strikesc. Western states admitted to the Union

X. Mining and the environmenta. Individual placer mining gives way to industrial corporate mining

i. Hydraulic, draft, and shaft mining transform landscapes and pollute streams

1. First major environmental lawsuit, Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Co.

XI. Native Americans in the Westa. Emigrant and Indian conflict

i. Fort Laramie meeting, 1851ii. The Sand Creek Massacre, 1864

b. “Report on the Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 1867i. Decision to place Indians on reservations

c. George Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn, 1876d. Continued Native American resistance

i. Nez Perceii. Geronimo and the Apache, 1886

iii. The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee, 1890e. Demise of the buffalo

i. Environmental factorsf. Reform of Indian policy

i. The Dawes Severalty Act1. Goal of the Dawes Act2. Effect of the Dawes Act

XII. Cowboys in the Westa. Early cattle raising in the West

i. Joseph McCoy and Abileneii. The role of railroad refrigeration

iii. The decline of the long drives1. Joseph Glidden and barbed wire

b. The open-range cattle industryi. Impacts of severe winters and long droughts

c. Range wars

XIII. Farmers in the Westa. The problem of aridity

i. Homestead Act of 1862 designed for smaller, wetter farmsii. The Newlands Reclamation Act of 1901

b. Technological advances that aided farmersi. Railroads

ii. Iron “sodbuster” plowc. Pioneer women

XIV. The end of the frontiera. Census of 1890 claimed that the frontier no longer existedb. Frederick Jackson Turner and “The Significance of the Frontier in

American History,” 1893

Lecture Ideas:

1. Plessy v. Ferguson is one of the most important Supreme Court cases in American history and will come up again later when the class gets to Brown v. Board of Education. Lay out for the class the argument made by Plessy’s lawyer, who said that Plessy had been denied property without due process-property defined as his reputation for being white. While emphasizing how language and ideas shape the decisions judges eventually make (a point that can be made again when discussing the “doll test” in Brown), a deeper understanding of Plessy shows that the story is more complicated than “separate but equal.”

2. Read the 14th Amendment tot he students and then ask them why “Indians not taxed” might have been included. This allows you to make the simple point that amid the Reconstruction-era discussions about the Civil Rights of blacks in America, Native Americans were not citizens. As Americans headed West after the Civil War, it would become absolutely necessary to see Indians not only as noncitizens but also as nonhuman.

3. An analysis of western art from the 1860s and 1870s, including Albert Bierstadt’s “The Oregon Trail” from 1869 and John Gast’s “American Progress,” helps students connect the dots b/w the imagined American West of the late 19th

century and the version from Hollywood that emerged later.