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Homestead Act of 1862
The Homestead Act was a program that gave public land grants of up to 160 acres to adult citizens, including freed slaves. If you were an adult citizen who headed a family you could qualify. You payed a small registration fee and had to live on the land for a continuous five years.It mainly supported impoverished farmers from the east. The program remained in effect for over a century. in the end, ten percent of US territory was settled under the Homestead Act. -
Morill Land Grant College Act
The Morill Act of 1862 was originally intended to establish institutions in every state. There, they were taught the skills needed for practical professions of their time such as agriculture. Justin Smith Morrill, the congressman who introduced the land grant, believed that agriculture was the way of the future, and wanted education to be available to all social classes. The act helps millions of Americans, and shifted the educational system from classical studies to applied studies. -
Standard Oil Trust
The Standard Oil Trust was formed in 1863 by John D. Rockefeller. He built up the company through 1868 to become the largest oil refinery firm in the world. In 1870, the company was renamed Standard Oil Company, after which Rockefeller decided to buy up all the other competition and form them into one large company.The company faced legal issues in 1890 following passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act. -
Chinese Worker Exploitation
During the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, process was slow so the Chinese were suggested as options for workers since, "They build the Great Wall". As the demand for labor increased, the Chinese workers were forced to do much more dangerous tasks. The explosives used to blow away excess land would vaporize, and did vaporize workers who weren't exactly precise with the toxic chemicals. The Chinese workers were not even given credit for in the finishing photo at Promontory Point -
Cattle drives
In the 1860's there was a high demand for beef, thus an increase in the need for longhorn cattle all throughout the country. The price value in the North was 10x greater, which encouraged cowboys to go through the extra effort. Cowboys were hired to gather cattle and lead them up North. However as the transcontinental railroad was built, there was no longer a need for cowboys as the cattle could then be shipped up North, thus ending the cattle drives. -
Progressives Unions
The first large-scale U.S. union was the National Labor Union, founded in 1866 to organize skilled and unskilled laborers, farmers, and factory workers. Blacks and women, however, were not allowed to join the union. They supported any candidate who would fight for shorter workdays, higher wages, and better working conditions.The National Labor Union existed for only six years. When the Depression of 1873 hit, workers’ rights were put on hold; Americans needed any wages, not better wages. -
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor began as a secret society of tailors in Philadelphia in 1869. Under workman Terence V. Powderly, the Knights flourished by 1886. Powderly committed the organization to seeking the 8 hour day, abolition of child labor, equal pay for equal work, and political reforms. The Knights supported the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Contract Labor Law of 1885; like many labor leaders at the time, Powderly believed these laws were needed to protect the American work force. -
Promontory Point, Utah 1869
The Transcontinental Railroad had begun being built in 1866, and in 1869, the final spike was put into the railroad that officially connected the sides together in Promontory, Utah. The Union and Central Pacific workers laid nearly two thousand miles of track ahead of schedule and below budget. After the building of the transcontinental railroad, trips that once took months now took only days. People were now able to travel and construct new buildings all over the territory. -
Oil
John D. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company, which greatly decreased the price of oil due to the large increase in supply. This dramatic drop in price of oil allowed for it to be converted into gasoline to run automobiles. This further allowed more common class people to drive cars, as well as allowing everyone to travel much further without having to spend a fortune as a gallon of gas would be three cents. -
Railroads
Cornelius Vanderbilt became one of the wealthiest Americans of the late 19th century from building an empire making railroad transportation and shipping more efficient. in 1860, he shifted his focuses to the railroad industry which was greatly expanding. He bought a number of railroad lines and connected them, creating a coherent system spanning several states. This lowered the cost for travelers, increased efficiency, and sped up travel and shipment times. -
Battle of Little Bighorn
After gold was discovered underneath Native American lands, they were told to move onto reservations in order for the whites to be able to extract it. After the Native Americans resisted by ignoring their demands, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led federal troops to confront them near the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. Custer greatly underestimated the number of Natives and cost himself and all of his troops their lives, in the greatest Native victory against whites. -
Invention of the light bulb
Thomas Edison, although he could be said to have created the first commercially practical incandescent light, was neither the first nor the only person trying to invent an incandescent light bulb. Edison is often credited with the invention because his version was able to outstrip the earlier versions because of its effective incandescent material, higher vacuum that created high resistance that made power distribution from a centralized source economically viable. -
African American Exodusters
The Homestead Act, which awarded a 160 acre plot of land to US settlers gave African Americans of the South an option to which escape and start new lives. Jim Crow segregation threatened the safety of southern blacks, many of which were former slaves. Their first mass migration after the Civil War became known as the Exodus of 1879. They were named the exodusters, taking inspiration from the biblical Exodus. The exodusters settled mainly in the state of Kansas, but also in Oklahoma and Colorado -
Tenements
In the 1800s, more and more people began crowding into America’s cities, including thousands of newly arrived immigrants. Buildings that had once been single-family dwellings were increasingly divided into multiple living spaces to accommodate this growing population. These narrow, low-rise apartment buildings were cramped, poorly lit and lacked indoor plumbing and proper ventilation. By 1900 two-thirds of New York City’s population were living in tenements. -
Assassination of President Garfield
Tragedy struck the nation’s capital on July 2, 1881, when a drifter named Charles Guiteau shot newly inaugurated President James A. Garfield in the back at a downtown train station. Garfield would cling to life for 80 agonizing days, but a severe infection—most likely brought on by unsanitary medical practices—eventually led to his death. Guiteau became convinced that Garfield’s death would save the country by allowing Vice President Chester A. Arthur to take his place -
Nativism and Immigration Restriction
Nativists played on fears of violence and of the diversity of thought, belief, and custom. Reformers blamed immigrants for municipal corruption. The United States had restricted immigration for the first time in 1882, through the Chinese Exclusion Act and a law denying entrance to paupers and convicts. In 1896, laws were created to exclude those who could not pass a literacy test in their native language. Such tests would discriminate against peasants from eastern and southern Europe. -
Buffalo Bills wild West Show
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show opens in London, giving Queen Victoria and her subjects their first look at real cowboys and Indians. In 1883, Cody staged an outdoor extravaganza called the “Wild West, Rocky Mountain, and Prairie Exhibition” for a Fourth of July celebration in North Platte, Nebraska. He realized then that he could make a lot of money, so he opened up an outdoor exhibition, "Buffalo Bills Wild West" which exaggerated the lives of western cowboys and Indians. -
Pendleton Act
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was passed to regulate and improve the civil service of the United States. The purpose of the Pendleton Act was to break the Spoils System which had become the 'custom and practice' of presidential administrations. The law was sponsored by reformer Senator George Hunt Pendleton of Ohio and was signed into law by President Chester Arthur on January 16, 1883. -
Richard Warren Sears Mail Order Catalogue
Richard Sears came across an opportunity to purchase and sell watches from a Chicago jeweler. Sears was able to sell the watches and quickly ordered more watches and created a catalogue for them in 1888. In 1893, Sears and Roebuck diversified their products to a wide variety pilling into 322 pages. This catalogue would not have taken off if it wasn't for the building of the transcontinental railroad which allowed the shipments to transfer quicker, cheaper, and more effectively. -
Invention of the Motion Picture Camera
Not only is Thomas A. Edison credited for creating the first commercially available light bulb, but he also created the first motion picture camera.By 1892 Edison and Dickson invented a motion picture camera and a peephole viewing device called the Kinetoscope. They were first shown publicly in 1893 and the following year the first Edison films were exhibited commercially. -
Steel
Andrew Carnegie, an American industrialist, created fortunes through a monopoly in the steel industry. While working for the railroad he invested into many promising ventures, one including steel. With a new way to create steel, it made it cheaper than ever before and he took advantage. Without the Bessemer converter, America would not have been the steel-skyscraper empire we know it as today. Engineering spread with now being able to build more buildings, and much taller as well. -
Currency Reform
Before the American Civil War, the nations money was based on gold and silver, but paper money was what fueled economic expansion. over four thousand different kinds of paper money circulated, much of which was counterfeit. However after the war people put their faith in one national paper currency that only the federal government was allowed to print. This also helped fix the great depression. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
the Sherman Antitrust Act was the first legislation enacted by the United States Congress (1890) to curb concentrations of power that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition. It was named for U.S. Senator John Sherman of Ohio, who was an expert on the regulation of commerce. One of the act’s main provisions outlaws all combinations that restrain trade between states or with foreign nations. -
City Beautiful Movement
During the Guilded Age, the population in America exponentially grew. 46 percent of citizens lived in urban areas - stretching cities. The City Beautiful Movement, lead by the middle and upper classes, was meant to deal with these rising issues of sanitation, crime, and over-population of cities. In the height of the Gilded Age, these reformers felt the best way to deal with these issues was through consumption and creation of beauty. -
Wounded Knee
North American Indian and U.S. government conflict left 150 Native Americans dead in the 1890 massacre known as Wounded Knee. Nearly half of those killed were women and children. It was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux. Sioux believed that by practicing the Ghost Dance and rejecting white ways of life, the gods would destroy all non-believers. in 1890, reservation police killed Sitting Bull, who they claimed to believe was a Ghost Dancer, increasing tensions at Pine Ridge. -
Inventions/ Products made in the Early 1900s
Kodak Camera, Telephone, Light bulb, Motion Picture Camera, Coca Cola, Cocaine Toothache Drops, Phonograph, Electrical products, Psychology of selling products, Mail Order Catalogs, Sewing Machines, Vacuum cleaner, air conditioning, radio broadcasting, electric washing machine, robots; insulin, hearing aids, frozen food, television, 'Talkies' at the movies, penicillin, artificial life, Jet engine, Liquid fuel rocket and more -
Temperance
Women were transformed during the guided age. Expanding cities created urban growth, and women had a shifting change in opinions and fashion. Many educated women truly believed that many of societies problems could be fixed with the limiting, more so the complete banning of alcohol known as prohibition. Because of this, later in 1919, congress will have created the 18th Amendment which prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. -
Laissez Faire
Laissez Faire is a policy of minimum government interference in the economic affairs of individuals and society which was a popular belief and influence over America in business while it was becoming an industrial power. It advocates for the advantage of the individual self-interest as well as entrepreneurship competition. -
Working/Labor issues of the 1900s
Working conditions in the early 1900s were miserable. Workers often got sick or died due to the long hours and unsanitary conditions. Workers formed unions and went on strike, and the government passes legislation to improve unsafe and inhumane conditions. The International Ladies' Garment Worker's Union organized a strike of 60,000 workers in New York City in 1909. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a minimum wage and forced employers to pay overtime for any work over 40 hours. -
Teddy Roosevelt
Republican politician Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States in September 1901, after the assassination of William McKinley. Young and physically robust, he brought a new energy to the White House, and won a second term on his own merits in 1904. He was a dedicated conservationist, setting aside some 200 million acres for national forests, reserves and wildlife refuges during his presidency. He was so loved his name was given to "teddy bears" -
Education during the Guilded Age
African Americans mobilize to bring public education to the South for the first time in 1865. Prior to the late 1800’s, education was a private practice that took place in private institutions or through home schooling. However in 1902 John D. Rockefeller created the general education board in conjunction with Frederick T. Gates. The general education board was responsible for funding the American public school system. -
Muller vs Oregon
Supreme Court Case Muller vs Oregon was over the issue of is a state law setting a maximum workday for women constitutional. In 1903, Oregon passed a law that said that women could work no more than 10 hours a day in factories and laundries. Muller was convicted of violating the law. Brandeis then showed a direct link between long hours of work and women's health. 9-0 vote, the justices upheld the Oregon Law. -
The Square Deal
The "Square Deal" domestic policy was adopted by President Roosevelt in which he pledged not to favor any group of Americans but to be fair to all. He supported progressive and aggressive political reforms, including heavy regulation of business. His inauguration as President saw social and political reforms sparked by the Progressive Movement. The Square Deal policy encompassed the three C’s: Square Deal: Control of the corporations, Consumer protection, and Conservation of natural resources -
Henry Ford
The Model T was an automobile built by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 until 1927. Conceived by Henry Ford as practical, affordable transportation for the common man, it quickly became prized for its low cost, durability, versatility, and ease of maintenance. Assembly-line production allowed the price of the touring car version to be lowered from $850 in 1908 to less than $300 in 1925. At such prices the Model T at times comprised as much as 40% of all cars sold in the United States. -
Business
in just fifty years after the American Civil War, the United States became the greatest superpower of its time. Much of this was part to a group of men;
(Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Ford, Morgan, and Edison) who created monopolies that led a trend of businesses that solely controlled American markets. Their inventions and products changed America into the great land that it is today including oil, steel, electricity (light bulb), and automobiles. -
Monopolies
Businesses that controlled a market solely are called monopolies. In Industrial America, they started becoming a problem for the 98%. in 1890, Congress passed the first legislation to even out concentrations of power in a market that interfere with trade and reduce economic competition. This became known as the Sherman Antitrust Act. Trusts were stockholders of multiple competing corporations who turn their stock in exchange for a dividend. Trusts were accused of buying out to manipulate laws. -
The Great Migration
The relocation of over 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the North. Driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws, many blacks headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that first arose during ww1. Africans confronted racial prejudice, and handled economic, political and social challenges to create an influential black urban culture. -
Indian Citizenship Act
Native Americans were not granted American citizenship unless female Natives married a white male citizen, or male Natives entered into the military. There were allotments, special treaties, and statutes, but for the majority of the Native population, they were unable to vote until Congress granted every United States born Native American citizenship on June 2nd, 1924. The U.S. federal government did so in order to assimilate Indians to the American ways of life.
