Give Me Liberty!

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Chapter 17
Norton Media Library
Give Me Liberty! An American History Second
EditionVolume 2
by Eric Foner
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I. Agrarian revolt

• The farmers plight
• Generally
• Falling agricultural prices
• Growing economic insecurity
• Regional variants
• In trans-Mississippi West equipment debt
• In South declining cotton prices
• Farmers Alliance
• Origins and spread Texas 1870s
• Strategies
• Initial cooperative approach credit exchanges
• Turn to subtreasury plan, political engagement

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I. Agrarian revolt (contd)

• Advent of Peoples (Populist) party
• Scope of following producing classes cotton
  wheat belts
• Grassroots mobilization
• Guiding vision
• Commonwealth of small producers as fundamental to
  freedom (Jefferson)
• Restoration of democracy and economic opportunity
• Expansion of federal power
• Omaha platform (1892)
• Ignatius Donnelly (see quote, page 617)
• Proposals direct election of senators, govt.
  control of currency, public financing for
  farmers, recognition of labor unions, and public
  ownership of railroads

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I. Agrarian revolt (contd)

• Populist coalition
• Interracial alliance
• Tom Watson (GA)
• Colored Farmers Alliance
• Involvement of women
• Mary Elizabeth Lease less corn, more hell
• Support for womens suffrage
• Electoral showing for 1892
• Prospects for Populist-labor alliance
• Context
• Economic collapse of 1893
• Resurgence of conflict between labor and capital
• Sharpening of government repression of labor

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Map 67
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Map 68
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I. Agrarian revolt (contd)

• Prospects for Populist-labor alliance
• Key episodes
• Miners strike at Coeur dAlene, Idaho
• Coxeys Army
• Pullman strike
• American Railway Union
• Attorney General Richard Olney
• Eugene V. Debs
• Populist appeals to industrial workers in 1894
• Some success among miners
• Minimal success among urban workers preference
  for Republicans

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I. Agrarian revolt (contd)

• Election of 1896
• Campaign of William Jennings Bryan
• Joint support by Democrats and Populists
• Electrifying rhetoric (see quote, page 605)
• Themes
• Free silver
• Social Gospel overtones
• Vision of activist government
• National tour to rally farmers and workers
• Campaign of William McKinley
• Insistence on gold standard
• Massive financial support from big business
  (McKinley Tariff)
• National political machine Mark Hanna

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I. Agrarian revolt (contd)

• Election of 1896
• 3. Outcome
• Sharp regional divide (see map)
• McKinley victory
• 4. Significance and legacy
• Emergence of modern campaign tactics
• Launching of Republican political dominance
• Fading of Populism
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

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Map 69
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II. The Segregated South

• Redeemers in power
• Dismantling of Reconstruction programs
• Convict lease system
• Failures of the New South
• Limits of economic development
• Persistence of regional poverty
• Black life
• Rural
• Varied prospects around region
• Elusive quest for land

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II. The Segregated South (contd)

• Black life
• 2. Urban
• Network of community institutions
• The black middle class
• Racially exclusive labor markets
• Pockets of interracial unionism
• Kansas Exodus (1879-1880)
• Mass migration of 50,000 blacks
• Benjamin Pap Singleton
• Kansas reality

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II. The Segregated South (contd)

• Decline of black politics
• Narrowing of political opportunity for black men
• Church, law, private business
• Shifting of political initiative for black women
• National Association of Colored Women
• Middle-class orientation
• Pursuit of equal rights and racial uplift
• Range of activities
• Disfranchisement
• Persistence of black voting following
  Reconstruction
• Readjuster movement in Virginia
• Mounting alarm over specter of biracial
  insurgency
• Systematic elimination of black vote how?
• Justifications and motivations (see quote on pp.
  612-613)

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II. The Segregated South (contd)

• Disfranchisement
• 5. Effects
• Massive purging of blacks from voting rolls
• 1940 3 of adult southern blacks were registered
• Widespread disfranchisement of poor whites as
  well
• Emergence of southern white demagogues
• Tom Watsons moral collapse
• 6. The Norths blessing
• Senate
• Supreme Court

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II. The Segregated South (contd)

• Segregation
• Fluidity of race relations following
  Reconstruction
• Green light from Supreme Court for legal
  segregation
• Civil Rights Cases (1883)
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• Separate but equal doctrine
• Justice Harlan dissent
• Spread of segregation laws across South
• Unreality of separate but equal
• Segregation as component of overall white
  domination
• Social etiquette of segregation
• Effects on other non-white groups

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II. The Segregated South (contd)

• G. Rise of lynching (see table 17.1, page 615)
• Motivations
• Shocking brutality (Sam Hose, Newnan, GA)
• The rape myth
• Ida B. Wellss antilynching crusade
• A distinctly American phenomenon
• H. Uses of historical Memory
• Civil War as family quarrel among white
  Americans
• Reconstruction as horrible time of Negro rule
• Erasure of blacks as historical actors

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III. Contrasting notions of nationhood

• New nativism
• Against new immigrants from southern and
  eastern Europe
• Depictions of new immigrants
• As lower races
• As threat to American Democracy
• Campaigns to curtail
• Immigration Restriction League
• Efforts to bar entry into United States
• State disfranchisement measures

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III. Contrasting notions of nationhood (contd)

• New nativism
• Against immigrants from China
• Congressional exclusion of Chinese women
• Congressional exclusion of all Chinese
• Passage in 1882
• Renewal in 1892, 1902
• Discrimination and violence against
  Chinese-Americans
• Uneven positions of Supreme court on rights of
  Chinese
• Yick Wo v. Hopkins
• United States v. Wong Kim Ark
• Fong Yue Ting
• Precedent for legal exclusion of other groups

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III. Contrasting notions of nationhood (contd)

• Booker T. Washington and the scaling back of
  black demands
• Background on Washington
• 1895 Atlanta address
• Washington approach
• Repudiation of claim to full equality
• Acceptance of segregation
• Emphasis on material self-help, individual
  advancement, alliance with white employers

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III. Contrasting notions of nationhood (contd)

• American Federation of Labor and the scaling back
  of labors outlook
• Rise of the AFL, Samuel Gompers
• AFL-Gompers approach
• Reproduction of broad reform vision, political
  engagement, direct confrontation with capital
• Emphasis on bargaining with employers over wages
  and conditions business unionism
• Narrower ideal of labor solidarity
• Concentration on skilled labor sectors
• Exclusion of blacks, women, new immigrants

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III. Contrasting notions of nationhood (contd)

• Ambiguities of the womens era
• Widening prospects for economic independence
• Expanding role in public life
• Growing network of womens organizations,
  campaigns
• Womens Christian Temperance Union
• Growing elitism of womens suffrage movement
• Ethnic
• Racial

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IV. Becoming a world power

• The new imperialism
• Traditional empires
• Consolidation and expansion of imperial powers
• Cultural justifications for imperial domination
• Abstention of United States from scramble for
  empire before 1890s
• Continuing status as second-rate power
• Confinement of national expansion to North
  American continent
• Minimal record of overseas territorial
  acquisition
• Preference for expanded trade over colonial
  holdings
• Leading advocates

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IV. Becoming a world power (contd)

• C. Emerging calls for American expansion
• Leading advocates
• Josiah Strong (Our Country)
• Alfred T. Mahan (The Influence of Sea Power Upon
  History)
• Themes
• Moral
• Global application of manifest destiny
• Uplift of inferior races
• Economic
• Expanded markets for American goods
• Protection of international trade
• Strategic
• Influence

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IV. Becoming a world power (contd)

• Intervention in Hawaii
• American trade and military agreements
• Economic dominance of American sugar planters
• Over throw of Queen Liliuokalani (1893)
• Rise of assertive nationalism
• Contributing factors
• Depression-era quest for foreign markets
• Concern over economic and ethnic disunity
• Manifestations
• Rituals
• Pledge of Allegiance
• Star-Spangled Banner
• Flag Day
• Yellow journalism Hearst and Pulitzer

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IV. Becoming a world power (contd)

• Spanish-American War (The splendid little war)
• Background
• Long Cuban struggle for independence from Spain
• Renewal of struggle in 1895
• Harsh Spanish response
• Growing American sympathy for Cuban cause
• Toward intervention
• Destruction of battleship Maine
• War fever, fanned by yellow press
• U.S. Declaration of war Teller Amendment

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Map 71
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IV. Becoming a world power (contd)

• Spanish-American War
• 3. The war
• In Philippines
• Admiral George Deweys victory at Manila Bay
• Landing of American troops
• In Cuba and Puerto Rico
• Landing of American troops
• Naval victory of Santiago
• Theodore Roosevelts Rough Riders legendary
  charge up San Juan Hill
• Swift defeat of Spain

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Map 70
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IV. Becoming a world power (contd)

• From liberator to imperial power
• Postwar attainment of overseas empire
• Varied arrangements
• Annexation of Hawaii (1898)
• Acquisition of Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam
• McKinleys duty to uplift and civilize
• Qualified sovereignty for Cuba, Platt Amendment
• Value as outposts for U.S. naval and commercial
  power
• Open Door policy with China (1899)
• Initial welcome in former Spanish colonies for
  U.S. forces
• As agent of expanded trade and social order
• As agent of social reform and national self-rule

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Map 72
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IV. Becoming a world power (contd)

• From liberator to imperial power
• 4. Growing disenchantment in Philippines
• Founding of provisional government by Emilio
  Aguinaldo
• U.S. failure to recognize insistence on
  retaining possession
• 5. Philippine war (1899-1903)
• Bloodiness and brutality
• Controversy in United States (precursor to
  Vietnam?)
• Outcome
• 6. Legacy of poverty and inequality in American
  possessions

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IV. Becoming a world power (contd)

• Status of territorial peoples
• Kiplings white mans burden
• Limits on claims to American freedom
• Forakaer Act
• Insular Cases
• Divergent futures for American territories
• Hawaii (statehood)
• Philippines (independence)
• Guam (unincorporated territory)
• Puerto Rico (commonwealth, or insular territory)
• I. American debate over imperial expansion
• Opponents (Anti-Imperialist League) republic or
  empire?
• Proponents benevolent imperialism