A.P. U.S. History

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A.P. U.S. HistoryThe Gilded Age
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POLITICS 1877-1894

• Problems of the underclass ignored
• Instead, govt. had belief in laissez faire, and
  concentrated on only 3 issues
• (1) tariff (2) money supply (3) civil service
  reform
• House changes majority 5 times
• Previous President Grants presidency plagued
  with corruption scandal (Grantism)
• Spoils system popular in the time period
• 1873 stock market panic led to depression in
  1873-1878 which had an impact on the period

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Major Parties Platforms and Bases of Support

• Republicans
• New England, Upper Midwest,
• Plains
• small towns and rural areas
• Protestants
• Immigrants British, Swedes,
• Norwegians
• African Americans
• Grand Army of the Republic
• (veterans of the Civil War)
• High tariffs
• Temperance
• English-only compulsory education

• Democrats
• South Lower
• Midwest
• cities in the North
• Catholics
• Immigrants Irish,
• Germans, New
• Immigrants
• Low tariffs
• Anti-temperance
• No English-only
• education

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Rutherford B. HayesRepublican1877-1881

• Won Election of 1876
• Restores respectability to office of President
• Attacked corrupt NYC customs house and fired
  Chester Arthur there
• Sent in federal troops to end the BO railroad
  strike
• Munn v. Illinois (1877) ruling supported Granger
  laws
• Greenback Party formed (1877) supported
  expanded money supply, and benefits to farmers
  and industrial workers

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During the Hayes administration the Republican
Party was split into two factions

• Stalwarts
• - conservative faction
• opposed to Hayes' efforts
• to reconcile with the South
• opposed all forms of civil
• service reform, preferring
• spoils or patronage system
• backed the protective tariff
• supported by Radical
• Republicans and party
• bosses

• Half-Breeds
• moderate faction
• backed Hayes'
• lenient treatment
• of the South
• supported
• moderate civil
• service reform

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James GarfieldRepublican1881

• Won Election of 1880
• Half-Breed who won Republican nomination named
  Stalwart Chester Arthur as his running mate to
  keep party together
• Garfield assassinated by an angry Stalwart who
  supported Garfield in hopes of gaining a govt.
  position in the spoils system
• Arthur becomes President

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Chester ArthurRepublican1881-1885

• Became President when Garfield assassinated
• Arthur has reputation for corruption from his
  days in NY political machine and the NYC custom
  house
• Partly because Arthur was president the cause of
  civil service reform became a hot issue
• Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883) set up exams
  and standards for gaining federal govt.
  positions, and forbade workers from giving
  contributions to candidates

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Grover ClevelandDemocrat1885-1889

• Won Election of 1884 by gaining support of
  Mugwumps (republicans who switched sides as they
  felt that the Republican candidate Blaine was
  part of the corrupt spoils system)
• Supporter of laissez faire
• Wanted lower tariffs so federal budget surplus
  would drop, so Congress not tempted to add pork
  barrel projects to laws

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Grover ClevelandDemocrat1885-1889

• Wabash Railroad Strike (1885)
• Haymarket Square Incident (1886)
• vetoed a bill (1887) that gave pensions to all
  veterans even if their disability was unrelated
  to war
• Wabash v. Illinois (1887) ruling overturned
  Munn decision and prohibited states regulation of
  interstate RR trade
• Interstate Commerce Act (1887) overturned
  Wabash decision allowing federal govt. to
  regulate interstate transportation and trade

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Benjamin HarrisonRepublican1889-1893

• gained 4 million war chest from industrialists
  upset with Clevelands low tariffs to win
  election in 1888
• Increased Civil War pensions by 43
• McKinley Tariff (1890) pushed them to all-time
  high
• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) first major
  attempt by federal govt. to regulate monopolies
  and trusts
• Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890) U.S. to buy
  nations output of silver

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Benjamin HarrisonRepublican1889-1893

• Southern and Northwestern Alliances merged in
  1889 and ran candidates in 1890 midterm elections
• wanted govt. action on behalf of farmers and
  workers, such as tariff reduction, graduated
  income tax, public ownership of RRs, unlimited
  coinage of silver
• Party split over whether it could operate within
  the Democratic Party (which Southerners wanted)

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Benjamin HarrisonRepublican1889-1893

• Democrats won back control of Congress in the
  1890 midterm elections as people were upset about
  Republican ties to big industry
• Peoples Party or Populist Party (1892) took
  alliances platform and added political reforms
  like direct election of US Senators, initiative,
  recall, and referendum, and called for govt.
  warehouses for crops so they could be stored
  until prices rose
• Homestead Strike (1892)

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Grover ClevelandDemocrat1893-1897

• Won Election of 1892 due to these factors
• Populists hurt by lack of Southern support as
  they kept traditional loyalties to Democratic
  Party and because the Populists ran a former
  Union general James Weaver
• Republicans hurt by public reaction to labor
  violence (Homestead Strike) and McKinley Tariff
• Cleveland grew more conservative and won back
  support of businessmen by opposing populism and
  by supporting the gold standard

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Grover ClevelandDemocrat1893-1897

• Panic of 1893 caused by agricultural
  stagnation, slumping RR growth which led to
  crisis in the iron and steel industries,
  depletion of the gold supply, and depletion of
  govt. surplus due to veterans pensions and pork
  barrel projects
• banks and RRs failed and stock prices dropped
• led to the depression from 1893-1897
• Industrial unemployment 20-25
• Agricultural prices dropped 20

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Grover ClevelandDemocrat1893-1897

• Sherman Silver Purchase Act repealed in (1893) to
  save the gold supply
• Pullman Strike (1894)
• In re Debs case (1895)
• Bankers like J.P. Morgan loaned the govt.
  millions in exchange for discounted US bonds
  (which stopped the gold drain)

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Lower classes perceived a govt. and money class
alliance that they couldnt break

• Morgan loan for huge profits
• Inability to pass lower tariff by Congress
• Clevelands using force to end Pullman Strike
• End of Sherman Silver Purchase Act angered
  farmers as it meant money supply would not grow

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Grover ClevelandDemocrat1893-1897

• Republicans gained seats in 1894 midterm
  elections winning both houses
• Immigrants battered by depression throughout
  Clevelands presidency left the Democratic Party
• Progressive movement within the Republican Party
  emerges and takes votes from the Populists
• Democratic Party split over gold standard and
  silver advocates take control of the partys
  platform

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William McKinleyRepublican1897-1901

• Won Election of 1896
• William Jennings Bryans Cross of Gold Speech
  made adding silver to the money standard the
  major issue for the Democrats
• Populists joined the Democrats giving up many of
  their platform goals to try to gain free silver
• Republican McKinleys victory meant end to the
  Populist Party

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William McKinleyRepublican1897-1901

• By stressing one issue in the 1896 election the
  Democrats couldnt appeal to factory workers and
  the urban middle class
• Protestant revivalist preacher Bryan turned off
  immigrants who were Jews Catholics and against
  his temperance stance
• Defeat of Populism led to Republican reign of
  power (with exception of Wilsons two terms) that
  lasted until FDR in 1932

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William McKinleyRepublican1897-1901

• Dingley Tariff (1897) pushed rates to a new
  all-time high
• Currency Act (1900) officially committed the US
  to the gold standard
• Populist movement ended, but a new reform
  movement called progressivism would emerge
• Thorstein Veblens Theory of the Leisure Class
• conspicuous consumption of the rich

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Progressive Reforms in the Gilded Age

• Only three major pieces of progressive
  legislation were passed during the period
• Pendleton Civil Service Act
• Interstate Commerce Act
• Sherman Anti-Trust Act