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| 9577925488 | Why 1865-1898 was chosen as the dates for Period 6 | 1865 begins with the end of the Civil War and 1898 marks the end of the Gilded Age. | 0 | |
| 9577942100 | Gilded Age | Term coined by Mark Twain; period from 1870s-1890s; businesses grew at a rapid rate and many problems lied below; some prospered; many suffered. | 1 | |
| 9552427684 | Social Darwinism | Charles Darwin's ideas applied to humans, "survival of the fittest." Used by wealthy to justify their position in life | 2 | |
| 9552427685 | Labor Unions | Knights of Labor - skilled and unskilled; AFL - skilled labor only; sought to improve working conditions and increase pay | 3 | |
| 9552427686 | Great Railroad Strike, 1877 | A large number of railroad workers went on strike because of wage cuts. After a month of strikes, President Hayes sent troops to stop the strike (example of how government always sided with employers over workers in the Gilded Age). The worst railroad violence was in Pittsburgh, with over 40 people killed by militia men | 4 | |
| 9552427687 | Chief Joseph surrendered, 1877 | US government broke a land treaty with the Nez Perce, forcing the group out of their homeland in Wallowa Valley in the Northwest for relocation in Idaho. Chief Joseph learned that three young Nez Perce warriors, angry at the loss of their homeland, had massacred a band of white settlers. Fearing retaliation by the U.S. Army, Chief Joseph led fewer than 300 Nez Perce Indians toward the Canadian border. 40 miles short from the Canadian border, they were cornered by the US Army and Chief Joseph surrenders in 1877. | 5 | |
| 9552427688 | James Garfield assassinated, 1881 | On July 2, 1881, President Garfield was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau who was disgruntled because of his unsuccessful attempts at securing a federal post. His death gave momentum to civil service reform, which would pass with the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883 which gradually changed government jobs from the spoils system (patronage) to the merit system, or from "who you know" to "what you know" | 6 | |
| 9552427689 | Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute, 1881 | A normal and industrial school led by Booker T. Washington in Tuskegee, Alabama. It focused on training young black students in agriculture and the trades to help them achieve economic independence. Washington justified segregated, vocational training as a necessary first step on the road to racial equality, although critics accused him of being too "accommodationist". | 7 | |
| 9552427690 | Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882 | law that suspended Chinese immigration into America. The ban was supposed to last 10 years, but it was expanded several times and was essentially in effect until WWII. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law that restricted immigration into the United States of an ethnic working group. Extreme example of nativism of period | 8 | |
| 9552427691 | Pendelton Civil Service Act, 1883 | is a federal law established in 1883 (signed by President Arthur in the wake of Garfield's assassination by a deranged patronage-seeker) that stipulated that government jobs should be awarded on the basis of merit. The act provided selection of government employees competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation. It also made it illegal to fire or demote government employees for political reasons. To enforce the merit system, the law also created the US Civil Service Commission. | 9 | |
| 9552427692 | Haymarket Square Riot, 1886 | bomb is thrown at a squad of policemen attempting to break up a labor rally. The police responded with gunfire, killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more. It set off a national wave of hysteria, as hundreds of foreign-born radicals and labor leaders were rounded up in Chicago and elsewhere. A grand jury indicted 31 suspected labor radicals in connection with the bombing, and eight men were convicted. The Knights of Labor were also blamed for the riot which decrease their popularity. | 10 | |
| 9552427693 | American Federation of Labor created, 1886 | founded by Samuel Gompers. The AFL was considered more conservative than the Knights of Labor or the IWW, and campaigning for basic "bread and butter" issues for workers such as 8-hour days, higher wages, and better working conditions. For decades, the AFL only allowed white male skilled workers to join. The AFL tried to "work within the system" and get more benefits for skilled workers instead of the more radical goals of the KoL and the IWW who wanted to overthrow capitalism and establish economic democracy. | 11 | |
| 9552427694 | Dawes Severalty Act, 1887 | adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted US citizenship. The act was an attempt to destroy Indian culture and the unity of the tribe and make each Native American head of household more like the White citizen/farmers. | 12 | |
| 9552427695 | Jane Addams founded Hull House, 1887 | Settlement home in Chicago, IL designed as a private welfare agency for needy families, particularly recent immigrants. It provided social and educational opportunities for working class people in the neighborhood as well as improving some of the conditions caused by poverty. Not the first, but the most famous of settlement house movement, in part because of popularity of Jane Addams' writing | 13 | |
| 9552427696 | New South | Idea that the south should industrialize after the Civil War. Despite calls for industrialization, sharecropping and tenant farming persisted in the South | 14 | |
| 9552427697 | Sharecropping | Persisted in the South (especially for African Americans.) They had to give a share of their crops to plantation owners. Way for southerners to get around the 13th amendment. | 15 | |
| 9552427698 | Mechanized Agriculture | Using machines in farming to increase farm production; displaced many farmers; farmers created organizations to resist corporate power (Grange) | 16 | |
| 9552427699 | People's (Populist) Party | Created in response to the growth of corporate power; called for political reform (election of senators, secret ballot) and increased government involvement in economy | 17 | |
| 9552427700 | Political Machines | Appealed to immigrants and urban poor; provided services in exchange for support. Think Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall | 18 | |
| 9552427701 | Settlement Houses (Notably Jane Addams' Hull House) | Helped immigrants adjust to American life. Focused on providing education and other skills for women, immigrants, and children | 19 | |
| 9552427702 | Decimation of the buffalo | Buffalo almost became extinct due to westward expansion and over hunting of buffalo (buffalo hide); impacted Native Americans | 20 | |
| 9552427703 | Social Gospel | Protestant Church Movement that sought to improve the conditions of cities | 21 | |
| 9552427704 | Assimilation of Native Americans | Process of making Natives "America"; Dawes Act - assimilated through cutting hair, changing tribal identities, providing individual land plots | 22 | |
| 9552427705 | The "Gospel of Wealth" 1889 | book written by Andrew Carnegie that described the responsibility of the rich to be philanthropists. This softened the harshness of Social Darwinism as well as promoted the idea of philanthropy, meaning to use their wealth for the benefit of society by sponsoring the arts, science, libraries, etc. Nicer alternative to harsh philosophy of Social Darwinism, but it was still very elitist and gave power over society to rich. | 23 | |
| 9552427706 | Jacob Riis published How the Other Half Lives, 1890 | book by muckraker photojournalist John Riis that showed the public the squalid conditions tenements in NYC (slums that housed many recent immigrants in highly unsanitary conditions). Was very graphic and caused people to re-evaluate tenement houses and helped spur reforms as part of the Progressive Era. | 24 | |
| 9552427707 | Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 1890 | First federal action against monopolies, it was signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison and was later extensively used by Theodore Roosevelt for trust-busting. However, it was first misused AGAINST labor unions | 25 | |
| 9552427708 | Wounded Knee massacre, 1890 | US army killed 200 in order to suppress the Ghost Dance movement, a religious movement that was the last effort of Indians to resist US invasion. Ended Native American resistance in the Great Plains | 26 | |
| 9552427709 | Ellis Island opened, 1892 | An immigration center in New York in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty for all incoming immigrants from the Atlantic. Opened to conduct more rigorous tests on incoming immigrants in order to restrict immigration. | 27 | |
| 9552427710 | Homestead Strike, 1892 | On June 29, 1892, workers belonging to the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers struck the Carnegie Steel Company at Homestead, Pa. to protest a proposed wage cut. Henry C. Frick, the company's general manager, determined to break the union. He hired 300 Pinkerton detectives to protect the plant and strikebreakers. After an armed battle between the workers and the detectives, several men were killed or wounded, the governor called out the state militia. The Homestead strike led to a serious weakening of unionism in the steel industry until the 1930s. | 28 | |
| 9552427711 | Panic of 1893 | Serious economic depression beginning in 1893. Began due to railroad companies over-extending themselves, causing bank failures. Was the worst economic collapse in the history of the country until that point, some say as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s. | 29 | |
| 9552427712 | Pullman Strike, 1894 | A staged walkout strike by railroad workers upset by drastic wage cuts. The strike was led by socialist Eugene Debs but not supported by the American Federation of Labor. Eventually President Grover Cleveland intervened because it was interfering with mail delivery and federal troops forced an end to the strike. The strike highlighted both divisions within labor and the government's continuing willingness to use armed force to combat work stoppages. | 30 | |
| 9552427713 | Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 | The court case in which the Supreme Court validated the South's segregationist social order; ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional under the "equal protection" clause in the Fourteenth Amendment; in reality the quality of African American life was grotesquely unequal to that of whites. Later overturned by Brown v. Board in 1954 | 31 | |
| 9552427714 | Election of 1896 | William McKinley wins! The presidential election of 1896 demonstrated a sharp division in society between urban and rural interests. William Jennings Bryan (Democrat & Populist) was able to form a coalition that answered the call of populist groups and rural interests including the indebted farmers and those arguing against the gold standard (remember "Cross of Gold" speech). McKinley's victory highlights the shift from America as an agrarian nature to one of urban interests. Populism defeated, but many of its goals would be achieved later in the Progressive Era. | 32 |
