Dr.
Leonard Dinnerstein's Lecture Handouts
January 21
January 26
January 28
February 2
February 4
February 9
February 11
January
21, 2004
People believe what they want to believe
People hear what they want to hear
People see what they want to see
Most people do not allow facts or evidence to disturb their opinions.
GROWTH OF AN INDUSTRIAL NATION
Vast natural resources: iron, coal, oil, gold/silver/copper
Well developed transportation system: waterways, railroads
Industrial leaders: Rockefeller, Carnegie,
Sophisticated banking: J. P. Morgan
Favorable governmental Policies
Available Work Force: Immigration
Social Darwinism
Federal Legislation:
Homestead Act 1862
Morrill Act 1862
Pacific Railway Act 1862
U. S. Mail Service
Tariffs
Major industries retain lobbyists in state capitals
and Washington, D.C.
POLITICS IN THE GILDED AGE
(1870S-EARLY 1900S)
Major political issues: civil service
“bloody shirt”
tariffs
veterans’ pensions (GAR)
Demands Upon Government:
Grangers
Greenbacks
Silverites
More money in circulation
Railroad Strikes of 1877 (cf. 1837, 1894, 1902)
Immigration and Urbanization: Northeastern quadrant
of the nation top
January 26, 2004
LABOR AND IMMIGRATION
1. Labor
Transformation of Work
Industrialization leads to new demands for labor
Sources: immigration and rural areas
Women and children in work force
Women and children paid less
1890s: 90% of all workers earned less than $500 a year, which was the
minimum
income for an urban family to live just above the poverty line
Skilled workers valuable
Attempts to form unions: National Labor Union: sought 8 hour day
American Federation of Labor (AfofL; now AFL-CIO)
2. Immigration
1865-1914: 26 million immigrants
19th century: Largest number of Immigrants: Germans (5 million) and
Irish (4+ million)
Major immigrant periods: 1840s-1920s
1840s-1890s: mostly German and Irish
(Germans: largest immigrant group every year except
three from 1854-1892; the other three years, Irish
the largest number)
1890s – 1920s: Italians, Slavs, and Jews
Most Scandinavians come 1879-1910
Immigration Restriction Laws: 1882, 1892, 1917, 1921, 1924, and 1952
Major revisions: 1965, and, to a lesser extent, 1986
1970s – present: more immigrants come every decade with the 1990s
showing almost
ten million people arriving, mostly from Latin America and Asia
Immigration to USA in different periods
1845-1854: 3 million + (note decade begins in 1845 for counting purposes)
1881-1890 5,246,613 1951-1960 2.5 million
1891-1900 3,687,564 1961-1970 3.3 million
1900-1914 10,000,000+ 1971-1980 4.5 million
1921-1930 4,000,000+ 1981-1990 7.3 million
1991-2000 9.1 million
President Bush’s current proposal for guest workers. Why? top
January 28, 2004
WORKING CONDITIONS
How concerned are employers with workers’ health and welfare?
How were women and children treated?
How many hours do laborers work? Under what conditions? What are conditions
under which low paid employees work today? Walmart? Nickel and Dimed;
farm workers
Rose Schneiderman and her activities: what does she want?
Making cigarettes and cigars in a tenement
Conditions of miners; how old are boys when they start working? Are
there any hazards in the mines? Who is responsible for dealing with
these hazards?
Black Lung disease.
Household expenses and wages: food, medicine, drugs.
Italian laborers.
How many people lived in one room? peonage
Padrone convict labor
Is life better in US than in Italy? Is that enough?
How much did a shoe shine cost?
Women’s Trade Union League
ILGWU
Should workers strike? Are strikes necessary? Why or why not?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _
To what extent should government regulate conditions of labor, wages
and hours, sanitation, fire hazards, etc.?
TO WHAT EXTENT SHOULD GOVERNMENT INTERVENE IN THE AFFAIRS OF BUSINESS
AND LABOR?
Health and safety; medical research; religious beliefs
Wages and hours
The environment
The economy; dealing with long term problems such as automation
Defense
Education
Social Welfare
What should the attitudes of legislators, executives, judges be to these
questions? What were they? What are they now?
Please turn over
ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR THIS WEEK (Before you go to discussion sections)
Berkin:
pp. 520-522 (RR strike)
p. 542 (Haymarket)
pp. 613-614 (Homestead and Pullman)
pp. 638-39. What do you think of George Baer’s comment?
701-702 “HCL” and Strikes
729-32 Start 4 lines from bottom of page: “In 1920….”what
was the American Plan?
765-66 Start with paragraph beginning, “Roosevelt and his advisers….”
What do you think of the WPA and NYA?
943-44 “Striking Grape Workers?
President Bush’s guest workers proposals top
February 2, 2004
THE WEST
Pacific RR Act
Homestead Act
Water needed for economic development:
Timber Culture Act, 1873: additional ¼ section for settler who
would devote 40
acres to planting trees.
It was hoped that trees would bring water.
Desert Land Act, 1878: could occupy 640 acres for 25 cents an acre,
then could
Pay $1 an acre to hold full title to land if he could prove that he
irrigated
Timber and Stone Act, 1878: $2.50 an acre for lands not fit for cultivation.
The
land for three years. Most could not irrigate the land. Lumber companies
wanted these lands and hired people to purchase it in their own names
and then sell to lumber companies.
Reclamation Act, 1902: federal govt to construct irrigation facilities
in the West.
Plains Indians
Plains Wars
1851: Policy of Indian Reservations Begins
US needed central plains to be open as a route to the Pacific
Americans (and foreigners) GO West to farm and to explore for gold
and silver
Slaughter of the Buffalo for tanneries in the East
Nez Perce: Chief Jospeh (Idaho)
Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apaches (Arizona)
1890: Battle of Wounded Knee, South Dakota
Zion in the Great Basin: Mormons and Theocracy
Cattle Kingdom: open –range
The Long Drive (see red lines on map, p. 580)
RR: Federal subsidies for miles of tracks laid
Western mining
Western Agribusiness
Logging in Pacific Northwest
San Francisco: metropolis of the West
Ethnicity and Nativism will be covered on February 4 if I do not get
to those topics today top
ETHNICITY AND THE WEST
Why did (do) people come to the United States?
Look at the Chinese: what kind of work did they do?
How did they live?
How were they treated in California?
Why were there race riots in Wyoming, Seattle, and elsehwere?
Chinexe Exlusion Act of 1882
AMERICAN INDIANS
Helen Hunt Jackson, A century of Dishonor
Dawes Severalty Act, 1887, intended to “civilize” the Indians
Mexican Americans
The West in Myth and Reality
Jack Chen, “Linking a Continent and a Nation”
Chinese and the bldg of the railroads
Robert A. Trenner, “Educaqting Indian Girls….”
BIA
Boarding Schools: what was their intent/
Were they good for children
What kinds of routines did they follow
Religious Practices
What was accomplished in the schools?
Note: In your readings for today the word assimilation is sometimes
used incorrectly. Ask yourself why._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_
Rreading assignment for February 11: Berkin, pp. 513-522 and pp. 557-567
top
THE NEW URBAN AMERICA
Immigrants make up more than 40% of several cities: NYC, Chicago, San
Francisco
Cities: growth of jobs and culture
Expansion of cities
“walking cities:
innovations: streetcars and elevated lines
new architecture:
Louis Sullivan Frank Lloyd Wright
Brooklyn Bridge: a new wonder of the world
Bldg and Urban Infrastructure
Land use: zoning laws: residential, recreational, industrial, commercial
Parks
Filtration and chlorination of water
Sewage
Garbage removal
Cleaning streets
City utilities and services: police, fire
New Middle Class
Suburbs, household servants (live-in)
Ferment in Education
Growth of public and parochial schools
High schools: 1878 – 500 in US; 1898: 5500 in US
Colleges generally for upper middle class and upper class students
Women: 1 of 7 grads in 1870; 1 of 4, 1900; more than half 2000
Men’s colleges: Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale
Women’s Colleges: Vassar, Wellesley, Barnard, Pembroke, Radcliffe
Cult of Domesticity
Separate spheres for men and women: clubs, activities, occupations
Bradwell v. Illinois (1872)
“manly virtues” strength, loyalty
feminine virtues: humility, obedience, domestic chores, charity top
February 11, 2004
THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN POLITICS
Politics and Patronage
Politics and principles (515)
Issues of the era: 1865-1890
Currency, civil service, tariff, “bloody shirt”
Repubs: “bloody shirt”, veteran’s pensions (GAR),
and prohibition, stimulate economy
Party of Wasps ? Scandinavians, “respectable people, the new rich
Dems: “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion”; against government
interference; states’ rights, urban bosses, southerners
516: “Neither party… advocated government action to regulate,
restrict, or tax the newly developing corporations.”
Grangers, Greenbackers, Silverites: want more government action
Munn v. Illinois (1877) vs. Wabash Railway vs. Illinois” (1886)
1887: establishment of ICC and the beginning of rr regulation
What did Great Railway Strike of 1877 reveal?
1890-1896: Battle of the Standards (gold vs. silver); and demands for
greater government activity
Populist Party calls railroads “greedy monopolies”; they
want to end “oppression, injustice and poverty” (p. 610);
they want to end the “corporate behemoths”
Issues: falling crop prices, debt rising
Populists favor “The rights of plain people” over “the
insatiable greed or organized wealth” (cf. In today’s world
Haliburton and Drug Act, December 2003)
Solutions: Massive government changes and activity
Ownership of railroad, telegraph and telephone
Establishment of Postal Savings Bank
Currency Inflation
Direct election of Senators and votes for women
Australian ballot
Graduated income tax
Initiative and referendum
What do the Populists achieve in their lifetimes? Which of their proposals
are adopted in the twentieth century top
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