Division, Reconciliation, and Expansion(1850-1914)

Historical Background on the Age of Realism

Prelude to War

• North—commerce is king– Industrial Revolution/cheap transportation– Immigration a major factor

• South—cotton ruled – Also sugar, tobacco, rice– Technological progress-little impact here– Believed slavery vital to the South

Prelude to War, cont.

• Fugitive Slave Law (1850)• Expansion of slavery– Bloody Kansas

• Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, 1859– John Brown attempts to provoke armed slave

revolt– Executed for treason

Union Is Dissolved

• 1860—Lincoln elected– New Republican party vowed to halt spread of slavery

• Succession begins• Fighting begins—Ft. Sumter, Charlestown• Most anticipated short war– Lasted 4 years– 26,000 dead at Antietam in one day– Siege of Vicksburg– Destruction of Georgia

After the Surrender

• Lee surrendered in 1865• 620,000 dead• 500,000 wounded• South destroyed• Lincoln assasinated

Expanding America

• Homestead Act of 1862• Transcontinental Railroad• Disappearing frontier– Buffalo herds gone– Open range gone– Indian nations gone– West lived on in folktales

Changing Society

• Second Industrial Revolution– Introduction of Electricity– “Modern” life begins– Mass production of consumer goods• Advertising

– Urban life• Skyscrapers, department stores, mass transit• Noise, traffic jams, air pollution• Surge in immigration

Changing Society, cont.

• New extremes of wealth and power– Industrial wages low– Child labor– Disease rampant in cramped working/living spaces– A handful of men made fortunes & lived like

royalty• “The Gilded Age”

– Discontent beneath the prosperity