The Gilded Age
1860s-1890s
Contents
The Gilded Age, 1860s-1890s
Native Americans
Tom Torlino, a member of the Navajo Nation, entered the Carlisle Indian School, a Native American boarding school founded by the United States government in 1879, on October 21, 1882 and departed on August 28, 1886. Torlino’s student file contained photographs from 1882 and 1885. Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.
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Native Americans Quizlet
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American anthropologist and ethnographer Frances Densmore records the Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief in 1916 for the Bureau of American Ethnology.
The Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, also known as Custer's Last Stand, was a major victory for Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho natives. The United States Army 7th Cavalry Regiment lost 268 of 700 men, inlcuding their commander, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.
Article and video: Why We've Gotten 'Custer's Last Stand' Wrong for Nearly 150 Years
Burial of the dead after the massacre of Wounded Knee. U.S. Soldiers putting Indians in common grave; some corpses are frozen in different positions. South Dakota. 1891. Library of Congress.
Review:
- How did the pressures of westward expansion impact Native Americans?
Western Settlers
Cowboys like the one pictured here worked the drives that supplied Chicago and other mid-western cities with the necessary cattle to supply and help grow the meat-packing industry. Their work was obsolete by the turn of the century, yet their image lived on through vaudeville shows and films that romanticized life in the West. John C.H. Grabill, “The Cow Boy,” c. 1888. Library of Congress.
American frontierswoman and professional scout Martha Jane Canary was better known to America as Calamity Jane. A figure in western folklore during her life and after, Calamity Jane was a central character in many of the increasingly popular novels and films that romanticized western life in the twentieth century. “[Martha Canary, 1852-1903, (“Calamity Jane”), full-length portrait, seated with rifle as General Crook’s scout],” c. 1895. Library of Congress.
While bison supplied leather for America’s booming clothing industry, the skulls of the animals also provided a key ingredient in fertilizer. This 1870s photograph illustrates the massive number of bison killed for these and other reasons (including sport) in the second half of the nineteenth century. Photograph of a pile of American bison skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer, 1870s. Wikimedia.
Buffalo Soldiers, the nickname given to African-American cavalrymen by the native Americans they fought, were the first peacetime all-black regiments in the regular United States army. These soldiers regularly confronted racial prejudice from other Army members and civilians, but were an essential part of American victories during the Indian Wars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “[Buffalo soldiers of the 25th Infantry, some wearing buffalo robes, Ft. Keogh, Montana] / Chr. Barthelmess, photographer, Fort Keogh, Montana,” 1890. Library of Congress.
Railroads made the settlement and growth of the West possible. By the late nineteenth century, maps of the Midwest were filled with advertisements touting how quickly a traveler could traverse the country. The Environment and Society Portal, a digital project from the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, a joint initiative of LMU Munich and the Deutsches Museum.
Review:
- What economic and social factors changed the West after the Civil War?
Populism
The banner of the first Texas Farmers’ Alliance. Source: N. A. Dunning (ed.), Farmers’ Alliance History and Agricultural Digest (Washington D.C.: Alliance Publishing Co., 1891), iv
Conservative William McKinley promised prosperity to ordinary Americans through his “sound money” initiative, a policy he ran on during his election campaigns in 1896 and again in 1900. This election poster touts McKinley’s gold standard policy as bringing “Prosperity at Home, Prestige Abroad.” “Prosperity at home, prestige abroad,” [between 1895 and 1900]. Library of Congress.
Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan railed against the gold standard by declaring "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"
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Populism Quizlet
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Review:
- What led to the rise of the Populist movement, and what effect did it have?
Industrial Growth
Udo Keppler, “Next!” (1904)
“Standard Oil” wraps its many tentacles around the steel, copper, and shipping industries, as well as a state house, the U.S. Capitol, and one tentacle reaching for the White House. The only building not yet within reach of the octopus is the White House—President Teddy Roosevelt had won a reputation as a “trust buster.”
“Standard Oil” wraps its many tentacles around the steel, copper, and shipping industries, as well as a state house, the U.S. Capitol, and one tentacle reaching for the White House. The only building not yet within reach of the octopus is the White House—President Teddy Roosevelt had won a reputation as a “trust buster.”
John Pierpont Morgan with two friends, ca.1907. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-92327
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The Homestead Steel Works near Pittsburg, the railyards of Scranton, and child miners in Pennsylvania c. 1900.
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Friedrich Graetz, “The Tournament of Today – A Set-To Between Labor and Monopoly.” 1883. An oversized knight riding horse-shaped armor labeled “Monopoly” over a locomotive, with a long plume labeled “Arrogance”, and carrying a shield labeled “Corruption of the Legislature” and a lance labeled “Subsidized Press” jousts against a barefoot man labeled “Labor” riding an emaciated horse labeled “Poverty”, and carrying a sledgehammer labeled “Strike”. On the left is seating “Reserved for Capitalists” where Cyrus W. Field, William H. Vanderbilt, John Roach, Jay Gould, and Russell Sage are sitting. On the right, behind the labor section, are telegraph lines flying monopoly banners that are labeled “Wall St., W.U.T. Co., [and] N.Y.C. RR”.
Review:
- How did industrialization and new technology affect the economy and society?
- How did big business shape the American economy in the late 1800s and early 1900s?
Labor Movements
A Maryland National Guard unit fires upon strikers during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Harper’s Weekly, via Wikimedia
In 1912, The International Workers of the World (the IWW, or the “Wobblies”) organized textile workers in Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts. This photo shows strikers, carrying American flags, confronting strikebreakers and militia bayonets.
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Two women strikers on picket line during the “Uprising of the 20,000”, garment workers strike, New York City, 1910. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-49516 .
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Review:
- How did the rise of labor unions shape relations among workers, big business, and government?
Urban Growth
“Five Cents a Spot,” unauthorized immigration lodgings in a Bayard Street tenement, New York City, ca.1890. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-16348
“The great fear of the period That Uncle Sam may be swallowed by foreigners : The problem solved,” 1860-1869. Many white Americans responded to increasing numbers of immigrants in the 1800s with great fear and xenophobic hatred, seeing immigrants as threats to their vision of manifest destiny. This cartoon depicts a highly racialized image of a Chinese immigrant and Irish immigrant “swallowing” the United States–in the form of Uncle Sam. In the second image, the Chinese immigrant swallows the Irish immigrant. Networks of railroads and the promise of American expansion can be seen in the background.
Nativist sentiment intensified in the late nineteenth century as immigrants streamed into American cities. Uncle Sam’s Lodging House, published in 1882, conveys this anti-immigrant attitude, with caricatured representations of Europeans, Asians, and African Americans creating a chaotic scene. Wikimedia.
1886 advertisement depicting the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act. The text reads "THE CHINESE MUST GO. We have no use for them since we got this WONDERFUL WASHER." Many Chinese immigrants ran laundries.
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The idea of America as a “melting pot,” a metaphor common in today’s parlance, was a way of arguing for the ethnic assimilation of all immigrants into a nebulous “American” identity at the turn of the 20th century. A play of the same name premiered in 1908 to great acclaim, causing even the former president Theodore Roosevelt to tell the playwright, “That’s a great play, Mr. Zangwill, that’s a great play.” Cover of Theater Programme for Israel Zangwill’s play “The Melting Pot”, 1916. Wikimedia.
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Review:
- Why did immigrants come to the United States, and what impact did they have upon society?
- What urban challenges did city dwellers face, and how did they meet them?
- What luxuries did cities offer to the middle class?
Political Corruption
Cartoonist Thomas Nast was critical of the corrupt politician William Tweed who dominated New York City politics.
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Political Corruption Quizlet
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An engraving of James A. Garfield's assassination, published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. The caption reads "Washington, D.C.—The attack on the President's life—Scene in the ladies' room of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot—The arrest of the assassin / from sketches by our special artist's [sic] A. Berghaus and C. Upham." President Garfield is at center right, leaning after being shot. He is supported by Secretary of State James G. Blaine who wears a light colored top hat. To left, assassin Charles Guiteau is restrained by members of the crowd, one of whom is about to strike him with a cane.
Review:
- What forms of political corruption were common during the Gilded Age?
- Why did presidents often have less political influence than Congress during the Gilded Age?
Jim Crow
This photograph captures the lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson, a mother and son, on May 25, 1911, in Okemah, Oklahoma. In response to national attention, the local white newspaper in Okemah simply wrote, “While the general sentiment is adverse to the method, it is generally thought that the negroes got what would have been due them under due process of law.” Wikimedia.
“We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro-American assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic before insults. . . . Any discrimination based simply on race or color is barbarous, we care not how hallowed it be by custom, expediency or prejudice . . . discriminations based simply and solely on physical peculiarities, place of birth, color of skin, are relics of that unreasoning human savagery of which the world is and ought to be thoroughly ashamed. . . . Persistent manly agitation is the way to liberty.” |
W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington were the most prominent African American leaders during the era of Jim Crow laws.
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Review:
- What social and political setbacks did African Americans experience following the end of Reconstruction?
- How did African American leaders respond to new forms of segregation and discrimination?
Dawn of the 20th Century
Review:
- How did technology reshape daily life during the closing years of the 19th century?
Readings
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When Jim Crow Drank Coke
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The Lost History of an American Coup D'Etat
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Primary Sources
- Chief Joseph on Indian Affairs (1877, 1879) - A branch of the Nez Percé tribe, from the Pacific Northwest, refused to be moved to a reservation and attempted to flee to Canada but were pursued by the U.S. Cavalry, attacked, and forced to return. The following is a transcript of Chief Joseph’s surrender, as recorded by Lieutenant Wood, Twenty-first Infantry, acting aide-de-camp and acting adjutant-general to General Oliver O. Howard, in 1877.
- Henry George, Progress and Poverty, Selections (1879) - In 1879, the economist Henry George penned a massive bestseller exploring the contradictory rise of both rapid economic growth and crippling poverty.
- William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism (ca.1880s) - William Graham Sumner, a sociologist at Yale University, penned several pieces associated with the philosophy of Social Darwinism. In the following, Sumner explains his vision of nature and liberty in a just society.
- Chester A. Arthur on American Indian Policy (1881) - The following is extracted from President Chester A. Arthur’s First Annual Message to Congress, delivered December 6, 1881.
- Grover Cleveland’s Veto of the Texas Seed Bill (1887) - Amid a crushing drought that devastated many Texas farmers, Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill designed to help farmers recover by supplying them with seed. In his veto message, Cleveland explained his vision of proper government.
- William T. Hornady on the Extermination of the American Bison (1889) - William T. Hornady, Superintendent of the National Zoological Park, wrote a detailed account of the near-extinction of the American bison in the late-nineteenth century.
- Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth (1889) - Andrew Carnegie, the American steel titan, explains his vision for the proper role of wealth in American society.
- The “Omaha Platform” of the People’s Party (1892) - In 1892, the People’s, or Populist, Party crafted a platform that indicted the corruptions of the Gilded Age and promised government policies to aid “the people.”
- Frederick Jackson Turner, “Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893) - Perhaps the most influential essay by an American historian, Frederick Jackson Turner’s address to the American Historical Association on “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” defined for many Americans the relationship between the frontier and American culture and contemplated what might follow “the closing of the frontier.”
Slideshows
Videos
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