Politics, Urban Life, Immigration, and Reforms

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Politics, Urban Life, Immigration, and Reforms

• 1870-1915

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The Gilded Age

• Mark Twain Gilded Age what does it mean to
  be gilded??
• Refers to the post-Reconstruction period the
  golden period for Americas industrialists
• Their wealth helped hide the corruption and
  problems faced by immigrants, laborers, and
  farmers and helped cover up abuse of power in
  business and govt

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Business Practices

• While some Americans speculated in stocks and
  lands and made fortunes, depressions, low wages,
  and rising farm debt contributed to discontent
  among working people
• In the late 1800s, businesses operated w/o govt
  regulation laissez-faire hands off govt
  should play a limited role in business idea
  that the strong will survive

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Laissez-faire

• Most people supported some involvement with
  tariffs and subsidies payment made by govt to
  encourage the development of certain industries
  (RRs)
• To ensure govt help, most industrialists budgeted
  for bribery and gifts led to scandals and
  corruption (Credit Mobilier)
• If you have to pay money to have the right thing
  done, it is only just and fair to do it.

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Spoils System

• Bribery was one consequence of the reliance of
  politics on the spoils system appointed friends
  and supporters, regardless of qualifications
  led to corruption
• Because of unfair business practices the federal
  govt begins to restrict and regulate businesses

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Republican Party

• Republicans favored a tight money supply (gold),
  high tariffs, generous pensions for Union
  soldiers, govt aid to the RRs, strict limits on
  immigration, and enforcement of blue laws
  regulations that prohibited certain private
  activities that some people consider immoral
• Found most support with whom???

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Democratic Party

• Democrats favored an increased money supply
  (silver), lower tariffs on imported goods, higher
  farm prices, less govt aid to big business, and
  fewer blue laws
• Appealed to whom??
• Claimed to represent the common man the
  ordinary people of America

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Election of 1876

• After his election in 1876, Rutherford Hayes
  tried to reform the civil service the govts
  non-elected workers
• Hayes chooses not to run for 2nd term had
  angered many Republicans split in 1880 election
  the Stalwarts, Half-Breeds, and
  Independents all based on the spoils system

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Election of 1880

• James A. Garfield is elected but w/in a few
  months is assassinated by Charles Guiteau who
  wanted Chester Arthur to become President (a
  Stalwart) and had not been appointed to a govt
  job by Garfield
• The murder of Garfield caused a public outcry
  against the spoils system leads to Pendleton
  Civil Service Act (1883)

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Pendleton Civil Service Act

• Act created Civil Service Commission, which
  classified govt jobs and tested applicants
  fitness for them qualifications
• Federal employees could not be required to
  contribute to campaign funds and could not be
  fired for political reasons

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Grover Cleveland (1884, 1892)

• In 1884 election, Grover Cleveland (Dem) wins
  first time since 1856
• Favored tight money, opposes high tariffs and
  took back 80 million acres of land granted to RRs
  and supported regulations
• Cleveland loses in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison, who
  raises tariffs which leads to economic depression
  in 1893 Cleveland again wins in 1892, but is
  blamed for the bad economy

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William McKinley -- 1896

• Clevelands second term is marred with economic
  disaster, which leads to the election of William
  McKinley in 1896 a Republican again!!
• McKinley oversaw a new tariff bill and stronger
  gold standard, but was assassinated in 1901
  before he could see any results

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Immigration

• Between 1865 and 1920 30 million immigrants
  arrived in the US
• Economic opportunities, personal freedom, and the
  chance to escape religious persecution drew them
  (pogroms violent massacres of Jews)
• Most immigrants from 1890-1920 were from central,
  southern, and eastern Europe and the Middle East

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Ellis Island

• In 1892, the federal govt established Ellis
  Island in NY harbor where immigrants came to have
  physical exams and information was recorded
  their entry port into the US
• Ellis Island was a huge reception area for
  steerage passengers coming into the US

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Immigrants and Urban Areas

• Most immigrants wanted to settle in communities
  of their own ethnic backgrounds (WHY??)
• In urban areas, these communities became ghettos,
  places where one ethnic group dominated
• Most immigrants who enter through West Coast
  ports come from Asia (China and Japan)

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Asian Immigration

• Earlier Chinese (mid 1800s) were recruited and
  offered entry to help build the railroads and
  later settle down into other jobs how does that
  impact American-born citizens??
• The different culture and language of Asians made
  many Americans suspicious and hostile toward them
  and in 1882 Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion
  Act

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Asian Immigration

• Act prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the
  country and was renewed in 1892 and 1902 and then
  made permanent not repealed until 1943
• Japanese also were restricted but through the
  Gentlemens Agreement (1907 Compromise), Teddy
  Roosevelt tried to slow the immigration from
  Japan did NOT end feelings Webb Alien Land
  Law forbade aliens from owing farmland

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Mexican Immigration

• Also massive immigration from South of the
  Border Mexicans who immigrated because of job
  opportunities where?
• Also discriminated against prejudices remain
  today
• Push factor civil war in Mexico
• Pull factor new job opportunities

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Expanding Cities

• American cities like NY, Boston, Chicago, St.
  Louis, and New Orleans were jammed with people by
  the end of the 1800s
• Along with the new immigrants, Americans were
  moving in record numbers to cities (WHY??)
• The faces of these also changed with the
  features of modern cities first appearing (WHAT
  FEATURES??)

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Factors of Urbanization

• Americans were moving into the cities because of
  the opportunities for jobs factories and
  machines replaced much of the manual labor of
  farms allowing (forcing) both men and women
  into factory-type jobs
• A-As, facing segregation and violence in the
  South, also migrated to cities

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Factors of Urbanization

• Public transportation made travel easier, and
  many people moved from the inner cities to the
  suburbs residential areas around cities
• As space became more limited, skyscrapers began
  to appear, as did elevators within those
  buildings Elisha Otis (1852)
• Also see specialized areas within those cities
  industrial, commercial, resid

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Tenement Life

• Many urban dwellers lived in harsh conditions
  no running water, no toilets, no sewers, no
  central heat and air conditioning
• Most were crowded into tenements low-cost
  apartment buildings where light, air, and water
  were often lacking
• Fire was a huge hazard, and disease took the
  lives of thousands

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Dumbbell Tenements

• The thought that the lack of air, water, and
  light led to diseases prompted new structures
  dumbbell tenements shape which allowed each
  room to have an outside window just threw out
  garbage and wastes (human and artificial)!!

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How the Other Half Lives

• Jacob Riis reporter began to write about life
  in the tenements in 1890 for the first time,
  most Americans could see how life was for those
  living in urban tenements
• As a result of his work led to the first
  meaningful laws to help improve tenement life

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Political Machines

• As cities grew, their govts and political figures
  became more powerful, and political machines, run
  by men called bosses, often controlled city
  govt
• Political machines worked to keep one party in
  power and were often very corrupt they took
  bribes and used grafts using of ones job to
  gain profit often through skimming

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Political Machines

• Many people blamed success of pol machines on
  large number of urban immigrants corrupt
  politicians took advantage of poorly educated
  immigrants
• Immigrants tended to support PMs because they
  helped poor people at a time when neither govt
  nor private industry would!!

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Boss Tweed and Thomas Nast

• The most notorious boss was William Boss Tweed
  Tweed controlled Tammany Hall, club that ran
  Democratic NY through the election of
  supporters they gained control over and
  plundered it padded bills and kept the extra

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Thomas Nast

• Through the work of Thomas Nast, a cartoonist,
  Tweeds illegal business practices came to the
  publics attention and he was convicted in 1873!!
  (Oh Yeah!!)
• "Stop them daed pictures. I don't care what the
  papers write about me. My constituents can't
  read. But, darn it, they can see pictures."

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Social Reforms

• As cities continued to grow, many Americans were
  shocked at the condition of the poor
• Out of religious or social impulses, they founded
  charities to help the needy and improve societal
  problems and conditions
• Churches began to provide social services (?) for
  people, and soon a social gospel movement arose

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Social Gospel Movement

• Social Gospel Movement held that religious
  institutions should seek to apply the Gospel
  teachings of the Bible (love your neighbor, give
  food and shelter) directly to society
• SGM was put into practice by young reformers who
  established settlement houses community centers
  that offered social services soon SHs were
  everywhere

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Hull House and Sociology

• One of the most important SH was the Hull House
  in Chicago founded and opened by Jane Addams and
  Ellen Gates Starr here people could attend
  cultural events, take classes, or display crafts
  they provided day-cares, camps all to help
  people help themselves
• All of these changes within society and led to
  the development of sociology the study of how
  people interact with society

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Nativism

• Some people though, saw immigrants not as those
  that needed help, but as those who were the sole
  cause of their problems and the problems of the
  US
• Nativism policy that favors native-born
  Americans over immigrants, emerges and demands
  policies such as teaching only American culture
  or language in schools and tighter restrictions
  on hiring aliens

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Purity Crusaders

• Some reformers called purity crusaders were
  determined to stamp out gambling, drugs, alcohol,
  prostitution, and other forms of vice
• These people began the temperance movement an
  organized campaign to eliminate alcohol
  consumption
• To achieve this, they supported prohibition a
  ban on the manufacture and sale of alcohol

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Prohibition and Temperance

• Three (3) groups dominated this prohibition
  movement Prohibition Party, Womens Christian
  Temperance Union, and the Anti-Saloon League
• One activist, Carry Nation, won fame and
  publicity by smashing illegal saloons with a
  hatchet in Kansas
• Wanted to destroy the links between saloons and
  immigrants

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Reforms in Education

• In the late 1800s children attended school for
  only a few years pressure from parents to
  provide their children with more than the basic
  skills needed to advance in life
• And pressure from reformers to limit child labor
  led many states to pass laws requiring children
  to attend school
• By 1910 nearly 72 of children went to school
  required by state law

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Education

• For immigrants, literacy the ability to read
  and write, was very important for their children
  (WHY??)
• They believed that reading and writing English
  would speed the process of assimilation
• However, not all education was equal minorities
  attended separate schools

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Higher Education

• Higher education also expanded and many new
  universities opened (Morrill Land-Grant)
• New womens colleges expanded when
  philanthropists gave funds to establish schools
  of higher learning
• Despite prejudice, many A-A were also gaining
  higher education

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A-A Education

• Two viewpoints with the A-A education
• Booker T. Washington Tuskegee Institute urged
  A-A to study vocational skills to build economic
  security NOT equality for now
• W.E.B. Du Bois first A-A to graduate Harvard
  encouraged blacks to get a well-rounded education
  and become leaders in society

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W.E.B. Du Bois

• Du Bois helped found the Niagara Movement a
  group of A-A that called for full civil
  liberties, and end to racial discrimination, and
  recognition of human brotherhood
• Left teaching to go to NAACP and would be the
  best-known black leaders of the first half of the
  20th century

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Jim Crow Laws

• For most A-A though, life was not education and
  good times after Reconstruction, A-A saw
  their rights begin to disappear
• Southern states passed laws requiring blacks to
  own property and pay a poll tax a special fee
  in order to vote
• Sometimes they required literacy tests most
  could not read or pay money and thus could not
  vote Jim Crow Laws

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Plessy v. Ferguson

• These Jim Crow laws required segregation
  separation of people by race in public places
  this notion (idea) would be further upheld by
  Plessy v. Ferguson
• Supreme Court held in Plessy the idea of
  separate but equal doctrine for public life
  (education, public places)
• Segregation was legal as long as facilities were
  equal most werent!!

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NAACP

• Another problem for A-As included lynching the
  unlawful killing of person at the hands of a mob
  usually by hanging
• Between 1882 and 1892 about 1,200 A-As were
  lynched in the South
• In response to these continued problems group of
  A-As and whites founded the National Association
  for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in
  1909

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NAACP

• Founded in 1909, the NAACP fought through the
  courts, church groups organized settlement
  houses, and the National Urban League for
  improved job opportunities and housing for A-As
• NAACP would become the voice for A-A
  discrimination and problems would help educate
  and inform Americans about conditions and
  pressure the govt for help

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The Woman Problem

• Americans at 1900 had different attitudes about
  what role women should play in society the
  woman problem
• Many women wanted equality in the forms of the
  right to vote, the right to control their own
  property and incomes, and the right to have
  access to higher education and professional jobs

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Changes in the Roles of Women

• People who opposed these ideas argued that
  society would be permanently damaged if women
  gained more power
• However, new technology was making domestic tasks
  easier, allowing women more time to pursue
  outside interests
• Women could shop in department stores, or order
  from a mail-order catalog, using rural free
  delivery (RFD) women were becoming THE consumer
  power

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Opportunities for Women

• As a result of these changes, many more women
  worked outside the home, often in domestic
  service jobs or professional jobs men did not
  want they were paid about 30-60 less than men
  though (social workers, education)
• Many women joined volunteer groups, worked for
  political and social reform, and begin to push
  for womens suffrage

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The New Woman

• With the creation of the National American
  Womens Suffrage Association, women had a strong
  voice for suffrage in the early 1900s
• The new woman that appeared dressed
  differently, married older, and pushed for
  information on birth control and would continue
  to push for reform into the 1900s

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