-
2nd Industrial Revolution
As the Industrial Revolution spread in America, the standard of living rose, immigrants swarmed to the U.S., and early Jeffersonian ideals about the dominance of agriculture fell. It also led to immense wealth, and wealth inequality. The 2nd industrial revolution primarily focused on mass production. Many people came to the city because of this revolution to become factory workers. Wage workers outnumbered independent workers. -
Bessemer Process
The Bessemer Process was a faster and cheaper way of making steel and allowed for 40,000 miles of railroad in the United States. Railroads became mass transports that connected cities all over the nation together. Railroads were first introduced by the North during the Civil War to ship supplies to troops, but now are being used as mass transport. This also contributed to more jobs in the railway industry. -
Purchase of Alaska
In 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward bought Alaska from Russia to the United States for $7.2 million, but most of the public jeered his act as “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Ice-box.”Only later, when oil and gold were discovered, did Alaska prove to be a huge bargain. -
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism” applied Charles Darwin’s survival-of-the-fittest theories to business. It said the reason a Carnegie was at the top of the steel industry was that he was most fit to run such a business. -
Cattle Drives
The railroads made the cattle-herding business prosper, but it also destroyed it, for the railroads also brought sheepherders and homesteaders who built barbed-wire, invented by Samuel Glidden, fences that erased the open-range days of the long cattle drives. -
Panic of 1873
n 1873, a paralyzing panic broke out, the Panic of 1873, caused by too many railroads and factories being formed than existing markets could bear and the over-loaning by banks to those projects. Essentially, the causes of the panic were the same old ones that’d caused recessions every 20 years that century: (1) over-speculation and (2) too-easy credit -
Little Big Horn
Colonel Custer found gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota (sacred Sioux land), and hordes of gold-seekers invaded the Sioux reservation in search of gold, causing Crazy Horse and the Sioux to
go on the warpath, completely decimating Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at Little Big Horn in the process. -
Social Gospel
The Social Gospel was preached by many people and said the churches should get involved in helping the poor. Some disagreed and didn't think that they should be helped because it was their fault they were poor. This was “Social Darwinism.” Gradually, though, the nation’s conscience awoke to the plight of the slums, and people like Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden began preaching the “Social Gospel,” insisting that churches
tackle the burning social issues of the day. -
Standard Oil
John D. Rockefeller, master of “horizontal integration,” simply allied with or bought out competitors to monopolize a given market. He used this method to form Standard Oil and control the oil industry by forcing weaker competitors to go bankrupt. Rockefeller was an oil tycoon. He owned the Standard Oil Company that eventually controlled at least 90% of American oil. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882, was passed, barring
any Chinese from entering the United States—the first law limiting immigration. This was also a result of Americans fearing that immigrants would take their jobs because immigrants would do a job for much less, taking business away from Americans. This was also the 1st major immigration law that was passed. It was also a form of nativism. -
Time Zones
Due to railroads, the creation of four national time zones occurred on November 18, 1883, instead of each city having its own time zone. Time zones also helped to organize shipments across the country and ensure routine for workers across the nation. -
Ghost Dance Movement
White missionaries would force Indians to convert, and helped urge the government to outlaw the sacred Ghost Dance, a festival that Whites thought was the war-drum beating. It was crushed at the Battle of Wounded Knee. The Ghost Dance led to the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. This act tried to reform Indian tribes and turn them into "white" citizens. It essentially aimed to break up the tribes. -
Haymarket Bombing
This was an 1886 explosion in Chicago during labor disorders that killed several people including police officers. The explosions appeared to be the result of anarchists yet the public largely placed blame on labor unions thus hurt their cause. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act struck at the Indians, and by 1900 they had lost half the land than they had held 20 years before. This plan would outline U.S. policy toward Indians until the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act which helped the Indian population rebound and grow. This 1887 law dismantled American Indian tribes, set up individuals as family heads with 160 acres, tried to make rugged individualists out of the Indians, and attempted to assimilate the Indian population into that of the American -
Hull House
This was a house where immigrants came to live upon entering the U.S. At Settlement Houses, instruction was given in English and how to get a job, among other things. The first Settlement House was the Hull House, which was opened by Jane Addams in Chicago in 1889. These centers were usually run by educated middle class women. The houses became centers for reform in the women's and labor movements. -
Wounded Knee
In 1890, a group of white Christian reformers tried to bring Christian beliefs to the Indians. Fearing the Ghost Dance, American troops were called in. While camped outside of an Indian reservation, a gun was fired and the troops stormed the reservation killing Indian men, women, and children. This battle and this year marked the end of “the Wild West” as by then, the Indians were either moved to reservations or dead. This year, 1890, was when the U.S. government stated the frontier was gone -
Forest Reserve Act
Americans were vainly wasting their natural resources, and the first conservation act, the Desert Land Act of 1877, provided little help. More successful was the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, which authorized the president to set aside land to be protected as national parks. Under this statute, some 46 million acres of forest were set aside as preserves -
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 fueled the passion of the Populists. Many disgruntled unemployed fled to D.C. calling for change. Most famous of these people was “General” Jacob Coxey. “Coxey’s Army” marched on Washington with scores of followers and many newspaper reporters. They called for relieving unemployment by an inflationary government public works program. The march fizzled out when they were arrested for walking on the grass. -
Anti-Saloon League
Concern over the popularity (and dangers) of alcohol was also present, marked by the formation of the National Prohibition Party in 1869. Other organizations like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union also rallied against alcohol, calling for a national prohibition of the beverage. The Anti-Saloon League was also formed in 1893 -
Plessy Versus Ferguson
Plessy boarded a white train car on the railway to challenge the law. He was arrested and convicted. The court ruled that "separate but equal" accommodations did not violate the 14th Amendment. The ruling legitimized segregation for sixty years. However, if the case ended differently, it might not have ended segregation without federal reinforcement. Court did not reverse Plessy until Brown v. Board in 1954.
