1.         Discuss and analyze the development of industry and agriculture in the southern states in the late nineteenth century.

 

  • Reconstruction
  • South was in debt; debtors were desperate for work, and go to factories
  • Sharecropping
  • Tenant Farming
  • Crop Lien System
  • Furnishing Merchant
  • Safety-First Agriculture
  • Yeomen-  independent farmers who had never owned slaves; still had problems after the war because much of their land and crops had been destroyed/damaged
  • Cheap labor and the availability of materials = big textile industry
  • Natural settings for tobacco, iron, and steel.  Also along the Fall line, this meant lots of available water power which were important for business.
  • “Lint head” was a derogatory term for cotton textile workers.
  • James Buchanan Duke bought the rights to a cigarette rolling machine and started the Duke Tobacco Company which became American Tobacco.  He donated to Trinity College which was renamed Duke University.
  • Birmingham – coal and iron ore were found near this area.  It was along the Fall Line.  It was big in the steel industry which was the only smokestack industry in the South (I think).

 

 

2.         Compare and contrast the principles, strategies, and achievements of the American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor.

 

American Federation of Labor

·         Started by Samuel Gompers/Strasser in 1886

·         Craft Union

·         “Bread and Butter” union

·         Didn’t care for public interest, just workers

·         Supported strikes

 

Knights of Labor

·         Accepted anyone who “provided a service to the public” (including housewives; excluding lawyers, bankers, stockbrokers, saloon owners)

·         1869 by Philadelphia garment workers; Uriah S. Stephens

·         The “American Ideal”

·         Thought strikes were ineffective

·         Wanted the small-scale/hometown feeling of 1860

·         Romantic and unrealistic

·         Bigger than the AFL

·         The president was the  “Grand Master Workman”

·         Supported prohibition

·         Believed all workers were equal

·         Haymarket – partially brought on by the shooting of a “fellow workman” by police - wanted 8 hour workday – supposed anarchist rally-  someone threw a bomb at the police at police- 7 anarchists were arrested (5 executed, 2 pardoned) – end of the Knights of Labor

 

3.         From the 1860’s to the 1890’s, discuss, analyze, and evaluate the armed conflict between the Plains Indians and United States settlers and the U.S. government.  How and why did U.S. policy toward Native Americans change in the 1890’s?

 

  • First dealt with tribes, then tried working individuals
  • Indians and settlers fought for land and food
  • The Indians knowledge of the territory and horsemanship (esp. Comanches) skills prove to be a threat: U.S. adopts a total war strategy (civil war: William Tecumseh Sherman)
    • 1864: Sand Creek Massacre
    • 1868: Washita – Custer involved
    • 1876: Little Big Horn – Custer involved – Custer’s last stand – torture, disfigured, scalped, killed
  • “War is Hell” – do whatever you have to do to win – Sherman- related to the Total War Strategy

 

  • 1886: Geronimo was the last hostile leader to surrender
  • Ghost Dance
  • 1887: Dawes Severalty Act – individuals were allotted land
  • Resistance becomes political
  • Corruption

 

 

4.         Compare and Contrast the business methods, professional careers, and social attitudes of Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie.

 

Jay Gould

·         Wall street Investor

·         Would take money, even if it ruined his company (would funnel the companies funds into his accounts – made his money by buying companies and destroying them)

·         Gold (Tried to corner the market on gold – almost destroyed the economy)

·         Check kiting (Right checks without actually having the money at the time of writing it)

·         Watered Stock (Cornelius Vanderbilt)

·         Kids inherit money, couldn’t donate to charity

 

John D. Rockefeller

·         Possibly richest man in American history

·         In the oil business during the oil boom of 1850’s-1880’s

·         More people in the oil rush than the gold rush

·         1st boom in western Pennsylvania (Pennzoil and Quaker State)

·         Standard Oil of Ohio (1867) in Cleveland – became Standard Oil of New Jersey

·         Good company at lowest cost: 25% of refining business

·         1872 starts secret rebates and monopolizing; starting asking for kickbacks

·         1879 = 90% of refining business

·         Forms a Trust and goes unnoticed for 15 years

·         Ohio sues so he moves his company to New Jersey and forms a Holding Company

·         Horizontal integration

·         Would drive smaller businesses into bankruptcy to sell his product

·         Gives money to charity (University of Ohio, Rockefeller Foundations)

 

Andrew Carnegie

·         Immigrant of Scotland

·         Swept floors in steel company, married boss’s daughter, inherited factories

·         Devoted to being the cheapest

·         Checked efficiency and retooled

·         Vertical integration

·         Gospel of Wealth (work hard)

·         Sells to J.P. Morgan and donates money to charity, library thing

 

 

 

5.         Discuss, analyze, and evaluate the rise and fall of the Populist Party

 

  • Knights of Reliance 1877
  • 1885: spreads as Farmers Alliance
  • Farmers thought government was ignoring them in favor of industry
  • Stressed cooperation; even joined with blacks
  • 1892: Forms political party with Knights of Labor (a.k.a. People’s Party)
  • Party identity = reluctance to join
  • Ocala Platform
    • Considered radical
    • Graduated income tax
    • 8 hour days
    • Government ownership of railroads
    • Reduction of tariff
    • Sub-treasury plan
      • Cheap government crop warehouses
      • Collateral to borrow at 1% interest
  • 1st national election: nominate Union Weever with a Confederate for V.P.
  • Bryan splits the reform vote, so populists give nomination to Bryan, also, but he loses, and populists sold out
  • Populism ideals live on in progressivism

 

 

6.        Discuss, analyze, and evaluate how and why the United States became involved in World War I.

  • Reasons why we got involved in the war
    • The three major points
      • The news of the war that we received was filtered through England and we therefore received biased news of what was happening
      • We had language and cultural ties with the Allied countries
      • We also had economic ties with these countries ( we sold them war supplies on credit and we knew that if they did not win,  we would not get paid back)
    • Other major points
      • We were indebted to France (from the Revolutionary War)
      • U-boats (a u-boat/submarine attacked Lusitania – a passenger ship that was secretly carrying war supplies)
      • Zimmerman Telegram
      • Pancho Villa
  • Things we did during the war (extra info)
    • War Industries Board
    • Cost Plus Contracts
    • Railroad Administration
    • Food Administration

 

 

 

                       

 

7.         Discuss, compare, and contrast the key personalities and ideas involved in the development of Social Darwinism, the Social Gospel, and Pragmatism in the United States.

 

  • Social Darwinism was based off of scientific Darwinism(Charles Darwin) (The Origin of Species):
    • Belief in “survival of the fittest”
    • “Root, hog, or die” – William Graham Sumner (Yale Professor)
    • If you don’t succeed, it’s your fault for not working harder
    • Believed that competition would be the drive to a greater America
    • Henry Haveneyer- “Let the buyer beware; that covers the whole business” – What the buyer buys is up to them, they need to take the quality of the products that they purchase into their own hands – in relation to Social Darwinism and  how it applies to American business
    • Few business men were directly influenced – Social Darwinism did not believe in charity, yet business men did not have a problem with accepting government handouts
    • Although, most business men would accept any help offered by the gov’t
    • Justifies racism and laissez faire
  • Social Gospel went against the original idea that faith in God would enable the poor to transcend the material difficulties in life
    • Started by Protestant clergymen: most influential preacher Washington Gladden (Applied Christianity 1886 – defended workers)
      • He favored factory inspection, and laborer’s right to strike
      • Didn’t think supply and demand should control wages
    • Proponents thought that slum conditions caused the sins and crimes of the city, and that you couldn’t blame the people
    • They focused on improving living conditions rather than saving souls
    • Eventually developed into socialism
  • Pragmatism – belief in human will; instincts will take over in danger – similar to Social Darwinism but people had more of a choice/ a desire to survive - no one-idea explanations of existence; what a person thought helped to make it come true
    • William James (established psychology)
    • Things happen out of chance and choice
    • Turned society materialistic, anti-intellectual
    • Businessmen favored pragmatism

 

8.         Discuss, analyze, and evaluate the impact of American Progressivism in promoting reforms of local and state government.

 

  • 1900-1920
  • If you see a problem, fix it
  • Wanted to regulate big business and rejected laissez faire
  • Wanted to get rid of the corruption in gov’t by employing experts rather than professional politicians
  • Four reforms at state and local level
    • Initiative: system in which a bill can be put on a ballet by public petition
    • Referendum: voting on measures by the electorate after being put on the ballet by initiative or legislatures
    • Recall: voters can have an office holder removed before their term is up by petition
    • Direct Primary: voters directly select the candidates for their party; it replaced  the caucus nomination

 

9.         Discuss, analyze, and evaluate the philosophy, actions, and impact of Theodore Roosevelt on American Foreign Policy.

 

  • “Big Stick Diplomacy” : “speak softly and carry a big stick”
  • Became President after McKinley died
  • Youngest President at that time, energetic, war hero, and cowboy
  • First progressive President
  • 1890 the frontier was closed for the first time in American history, so Americans wanted to settle their thirst for adventure by expanding out of the country.
  • He believed that war was good because people were fighting for a cause rather than just striving to make money
  • Roosevelt Corollary was his biggest change to foreign policy, states the US may intervene in any Western Hemispheric country whose financial mismanagement threats to provoke European intervention, followed logically from Monroe Doctrine
  • Responsible for the beginning of the construction of the Panama Canal
  • Panama Canal

 

10.       Discuss, analyze, and evaluate why certain parts of the American population consistently voted for particular political parties.  Why was party loyalty so deep?  What were the three key issues from the period after Reconstruction until the rise of Populism and how did the political system address them?

 

  • White Southerners consistently voted democrat because Lincoln was republican, they did not like him because of the whole slavery thing
  • (Where they could vote) Blacks consistently voted republican, also because of Lincoln
  • Southern democrats were called ‘Yellow-Dog Democrats’ because they would not vote outside their party, they would vote for a yellow dog that was a democrat, even if Jesus Christ himself was a republican candidate
  • “Vote as you shot” – This was a republican slogan which meant that the democrats rebelled against the union, and you shouldn’t vote for a rebel
  • New immigrants and Catholics were largely democratic
  • Old immigrants and Protestants were largely republican
  • Party identity meant that your party was part of who you were
  • People were very reluctant to vote outside their party, because their family had belonged to the same party for  generations and voting outside their party would be considered “traitorous”
  • The three major issues of the late 19th century were: 
    • Civil service
    • Tariffs
    • Money supply

 

 

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