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America: A Narrative History, Brief 9e
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Intro
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Intro
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Intro
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Intro
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Chapter 1: The Collision of Cultures
Chapter 2: Britain and Its Colonies
Chapter 3: Colonial Ways of Life
Chapter 4: From Colonies to States
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Chapter 5: The American Revolution
Chapter 6: Shaping a Federal Union
Chapter 7: The Federalist Era
Chapter 8: The Early Republic
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Chapter 9: The Dynamics of Growth
Chapter 10: Nationalism and Sectionalism
Chapter 11: The Jacksonian Era
Chapter 12: The Old South
Chapter 13: Religion, Romanticism, and Reform
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Chapter 14: An Empire in the West
Chapter 15: The Gathering Storm
Chapter 16: The War of the Union
Chapter 17: Reconstruction: North and South
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Chapter 18: Big Business and Organized Labor
Chapter 19: The South and the West Transformed
Chapter 20: The Emergence of Urban America
Chapter 21: Gilded Age Politics and Agrarian Reform
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Chapter 22: Seizing an American Empire
Chapter 23: "Making the World Over": The Progressive Era
Chapter 24: America and the Great War
Chapter 25: An "Epoch of Confusion": the 1920s
Chapter 26: Republican Resurgence and Decline
Chapter 27: The New Deal America
Chapter 28: The Second World War
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Chapter 29: The Fair Deal and Containment
Chapter 30: The 1950s: Affluence and the Atomic Age
Chapter 31: New Frontiers: Political and Social Change in the 1960s
Chapter 32: Rebellion and Reaction: the 1960s and 1970s
Chapter 33: A Conservative Realignment: 1977-1990
Chapter 34: America in a New Millenium
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In This Chapter
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Chapter 21
Gilded Age Politics and Agrarian Reform
Chapter Study Outline
I. Paradoxical politics
A. Political life and local politics in the Gilded Age
1. Importance of local/city politics
2. Power of political machines and “bosses“
a. Tammany Hall and William “Boss“ Tweed in New York
B. National politics
1. Party loyalty results in higher voter turnout
2. Similarities between Republicans and Democrats
3. Paradox of voter turnout and inertia at national level
C. Partisan politics
1. Intense loyalty to one of the two major parties
2. Patronage and favoritism
3. Geography, religion, and ethnicity
a. Republicans: mainly Protestants of British descent
(1) Power based in Northeast and upper Midwest
(2) Support for nativist and prohibitionist policies
b. Democrats: heterogeneous coalition of southern whites, northern immigrants, Catholics living in the north, Jews, etc.
(1) Included those repelled by Republican “moral“ policies
D. Political stalemate at the national level
1. Republican presidency and Senate, Democratic House
2. Little difference between the parties on major issues
a. Currency, regulation, farm policies, civil service, immigration
E. State and local initiatives
1. Significance of state and local governments
2. Minimal federal role at the local level
II. Corruption and reform: Hayes to Harrison
A. Alliance between politicians and business
1. Gifts and favors for politicians
2. Squabbles over “spoils“ of office
B. Hayes and civil service reform
1. Republican party split between Stalwarts and Half-Breeds
a. Stalwarts benefitted from the spoils system
b. Half-breeds were half-committed to reforming the spoils system
2. Hayes shifts toward merit-based appointments
C. Hayes promotes conservative economic policies
1. Ends up losing support of his party before end of his term
III. The administrations of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur
A. Garfield as president
1. The election of 1880
a. Republican Garfield defeats Democrat Hancock
2. Garfield’s assassination early in his term
B. Arthur as president
1. Arthur’s surprising reforms
a. Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (1883)
2. Attempts to lower tariff
IV. The first administration of Grover Cleveland
A. The scurrilous campaign of 1884
1. Republicans
a. James G. Blaine and the “Mulligan letters“
b. Rise of the Mugwumps
2. Democrats
a. Grover Cleveland and early career of reform
b. Cleveland and the potential scandal of an illegitimate child
3. Last-minute blunders by Blaine
B. Cleveland as president
1. Opposed any federal favors to big business
a. Limited view of government’s role in economic and social matters
2. Supported federal regulation of interstate railroads
a. Signed 1887 law creating the Interstate Commerce Commission
3. The tariff
a. Believed tariffs led to “trusts“
b. Cleveland’s annual message of 1887 devoted entirely to tariff
c. Tariff policy distinguishes Cleveland from Republicans
4. The election of 1888
a. Tariff is main issue
b. Corruption and the phony Murchison letter
c. Cleveland wins popular vote but loses election in Electoral College
V. The administration of Benjamin Harrison
A. Significant legislation
1. Dependent Pension Act
2. Sherman Anti-Trust Act
3. Sherman Silver Purchase Act
4. McKinley Tariff
5. Admission of new western states
B. Economic problems due to inflexible, Republican-supported, gold-based money supply
1. Encouraged deflation
a. Created problems for debt-ridden farmers and laborers
2. Republicans see 1888 election victory as mandate for their economic policies
3. Republicans suffer big losses in 1890 midterm elections
a. Losses may have also been connected to state-level Republican efforts to legislate against alcoholic beverages
VI. The farm problem and agrarian protest movements
A. Unrest in farming communities of South and plains states, as well as in mining towns of Rocky Mountain region
1. Decline in commodity prices
a. Domestic overproduction
b. International competition
2. Railroads and middlemen compounded agrarian problems
a. High railroad rates
3. High tariffs
4. Little bargaining power for farmers who needed to ship and sell their goods
5. Burden of debt further affected farmers
a. Crop liens and land mortgages
b. Forced to grow cash crops
B. The Granger movement
1. Oliver H. Kelley founded the Grange in 1867
a. Promoted farmer-owned cooperatives for buying and selling crops
2. “Granger laws“
a. Regulation of railroad and warehouse rates
b. Supreme Court upheld warehouse regulation in
Munn v. Illinois
(1877)
3. Decline of the Grange
a. Failure of economic ventures
b. The Independent National (Greenback) party
C. Farmers’ Alliances
1. The growth of the Farmers’ Alliances
a. Membership especially high in the South and Midwest
b. More of a grassroots organization than the Grange
c. Colored Farmers’ National Alliance
d. Welcomed women as members
e. Fought forces arrayed against farm section
(1) Bankers and creditors, financiers, railroads, corporate giants
f. Proposed elaborate economic reform program
(1) Based on creation of farm cooperatives
2. The Texas Alliance
a. Charles W. Macune
b. Alliance Exchanges enabled pooling of resources to borrow money and make purchases
c. “Subtreasury plan“ sought to allow farmer to store crops in hopes of getting a better price later, as well as promote inflation
VII. Farm politics and the Populist Party
A. Effort to fight eastern financial and industrial interests through political parties
B. Regional differences
1. In West, third-party successes
2. In South, influenced Democratic party
C. Leaders of farm protest movement
1. Mary Elizabeth Lease
2. Sockless Jerry Simpson
3. Thomas Watson
D. The Populist party
1. Omaha platform adopted in 1892
a. Finance
(1) Support of subtreasury plan
(2) Unlimited coinage of silver
(3) Progressive income tax
b. Federal control of railroads
c. Reclaim excess lands from railroads and other corporations
d. Eight-hour workday and immigration restrictions
E. The election of 1892
1. Grover Cleveland, Democratic presidential candidate
2. Benjamin Harrison, Republican presidential candidate
3. James B. Weaver, Populist presidential candidate
4. Cleveland wins
a. Weaver polled 1 million votes and carried four states
VIII. The economy and the silver solution
A. The depression of 1893
1. Overextended railroads collapse, banks and businesses follow
2. Western and southern farms devastated
3. Worker unrest
a. 20 percent unemployment
b. Cleveland’s policies worsen the situation
c. “Coxey’s Army“ marches on Washington
4. Democrats lose big in the midterm elections of 1894
a. Republican victories
b. Populists elect thirteen to Congress
B. Depression focuses attention on currency issue
1. Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act divides Democrats
2. Populists prepare for 1896 election with eye on currency issue and support for “free silver“
C. The election of 1896
1. Candidates and their positions
a. Republicans nominate William McKinley on gold-standard platform
b. Democrats nominate pro-silver William Jennings Bryan after his “cross of gold“ speech
c. Rather than split silver vote, Populists also nominate Bryan
d. Election was dramatic and notable due to striking contrasts of positions between candidates
2. Victory for McKinley
a. McKinley casts Bryan as a dangerous “communistic“ radical who would incite class war and ruin the capitalist system
b. McKinley casts himself as the “advance agent of prosperity“
c. Bryan carries most of the West and the South
d. Bryan unable to attract votes of northeastern farmers and urban factory workers
IX. Race relations during the 1890s
A. Rise of violent “negrophobia“
1. Spread of ideologies of Anglo-Saxon superiority
2. Concerns over signs of black economic and political success
a. Especially during economic downturn
B. Passage of “Jim Crow“ segregation laws in 1890s
C. Black disenfranchisement
1. Populism divides white southern vote so that black vote became balance of power, could determine elections
2. Race-baiting white politicians want to eliminate black vote
a. Fifteenth Amendment makes it impossible to simply deny blacks the right to vote
b. Leads to poll taxes and literacy tests
c. Example of South Carolina governor Benjamin Tillman
3. The “Mississippi Plan“ for black disenfranchisement
a. Residence requirement
b. Disqualification for conviction of certain crimes (ones that disproportionately affected blacks)
c. Poll tax and other taxes
d. Literacy test (with understanding clause)
4. Variations of the Mississippi plan (including the “grandfather clause“)
5. Democratic primaries adopted throughout South exclude African American voters
6. Dramatic decline of black registered voters
D. The courts and the spread of segregation in the South
1. Popular support for segregation in South builds, even in North
2. Civil rights cases of 1883
a. Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional
b. Private individuals and organizations could discriminate
c. Did not rule on the validity of state laws requiring segregated facilities
3.
Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896) ruled that states did have a right to pass laws segregating public facilities
a. Facilities had to be “separate but equal“
E. Rising violence against blacks accompanies the creation of Jim Crow laws
1. Increase in lynchings throughout South
2. Mob rule in Wilmington, North Carolina
a. White elites lead insurrection against lawfully elected city government
(1) Government was a coalition of Republicans and Populists elected by black majority of voters in the city
b. Insurrection entails indiscriminate killing of blacks and destruction of property
c. White supremacists cement their control of the political process
F. Black response to racism and statutory segregation
1. Accommodation
2. Create independent culture and institutions
3. Irony of segregation
a. Created new economic opportunities for blacks
b. Fostered rise of black activism
4. African American leaders
a. Ida B. Wells and the founding of the NAACP (1909)
b. Booker T. Washington, accommodation, and the “Atlanta Compromise“
c. W.E.B. Du Bois and protest of Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise“
X. A new era
A. The triumph of forces representing urban-industrial America over rural-agrarian America
B. New gold discoveries end the depression
C. Rising global concerns and the coming of the War of 1898 end much controversy over tariffs and the currency