Gilded Age Politics in America

1
Issues of the Gilded Age
Honors American History Chapter 7
2
Segregation and Discrimination

• What other types of discrimination and
  segregation did they face?

• What were Jim Crow laws?

• What was the worst outcome of discrimination?

3
Reconstruction Presidents

• Reconstruction- The time period following the
  Civil War when the United States was trying to
  decide on how to let the Confederate States back
  into the union and on what conditions.

4
13th Amendment
5
Civil War 1861-1865

• 1. 13th Amendment
• 2. 14th Amendment
• 3. 15th Amendment

6
White Terrorism

• Ku Klux Klan established
• Terrorizes blacks and black sympathizers

7
Failure of Reconstruction

• Republicans lose power
• Corruption in Grants presidency
• Nation-wide displeasure with Reconstruction
  (pace, terror)
• Depressions draw away attention (1873, 1884)
• Democrats regain power in Congress

8
Results of Reconstruction

• White Southerners regain political control
• Army removed from South
• Blacks lose their gains
• Voting rights not enforced
• Sharecropping established
• Terror continues - lynching

9
Turn of the Century Black America

• Jim Crow Laws
• Poll Taxes
• Literacy Tests
• Segregated Facilities
• Social Practices
• Sharecropping

10
Plessy vs. Ferguson1896
11
(No Transcript)
12
Fighting Back Booker T. Washington

• Worked to establish vocational training for
  African-Americans.
• Thought it was too soon for African-Americans to
  expect full political rights.
• Worked openly with the white establishment.
• Founded Tuskegee Institute.

13
(No Transcript)
14
Fighting Back W.E.B. DuBois

• Demanded full political rights for blacks
  immediately.
• First African-American to earn a PhD from Harvard
• Wanted a classical education for
  African-Americans
• Helped found the National Association for the
  Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

15
Ida Wells Barnett
16
Enforcement of Jim Crow

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• White-Controlled Politicians and Law Enforcement
• Ku Klux Klan
• Lynching

17
Who was an African-American reformer?

1. Ida Wells
2. Booker T. Washington
3. WEB DuBois
4. All of the above

18
Other groups face discrimination

• Hispanic Americans
• What problems did they face?
• Asian Americans
• What did they face?
• Women
• What problems did they face?

19
What was the key date in the women's suffrage
movement?

1. 1848
2. 1869
3. 1872
4. 1920
5. All of the above

20
What was the worst possible outcome of
discrimination?

1. Denial to vote
2. Lynchings
3. Lower wages
4. Poll Taxes
5. Literacy Tests
6. Sharecropping

21
PoliticalandEconomicChallenges

• Section
• 7.2

22
Political Scandal and Reform

• Who controlled the local government in American
  cities in the late 1800s?

Who led these groups? How did they get support?
What was the notorious of these groups in NYC?
23
Who is this individual?

1. James Garfield
2. Boss Tweed
3. US Grant
4. Roscoe Conkling
5. Chester Arthur
6. Thomas Nast

24
Who is this individual?
What happened to him?
25
The Presidency as a Symbolic Office

• Party bosses ruled.
• Presidents should avoid offending anyfactions
  within theirown party.
• The President justdoled out federal jobs.
• 1865 ? 53,000 people worked for the federal
  govt.
• 1890 ? 166,000
  

Senator Roscoe Conkling
26
Presidential Scandal

• Grant becomes President in 1869
• Credit Mobilier Scandal

27
1880 Presidential Election Republicans
Half Breeds
Stalwarts
Sen. James G. Blaine Sen. Roscoe
Conkling (Maine)
(New York)
compromise
How were his views different?
What political views did he have?
James A. Garfield Chester A. Arthur (VP)
28
Garfield
29
1881 Garfield Assassinated!
Charles GuiteauI Am a Stalwart, and Arthur is
President now!
What was he trying to accomplish by killing
Garfield?
30
What was he trying to accomplish by killing
Garfield?

1. Place a Stalwart in the Presidency
2. Replace Garfield
3. Support the Spoils System
4. Show that he is insane
5. All of the above.

31
Chester A. ArthurThe Fox in the Chicken Coop?
How did he surprise his supporters?
32
The Pendleton Civil Service Act was passed

1. After McKinley became President
2. By the Tammany Hall Political Machine
3. After President Garfield was assasinated
4. Immigrants became a force in national politics

33
Pendleton Act (1883)

• Civil Service Act.
• The Magna Carta of civil service reform.
• Promotion based on???
• 1883 ? 14,000 out of117,000 federal govt.jobs
  became civilservice exam positions.
• 1900 ? 100,000 out of 200,000 civil service
  federal govt. jobs.

34
Populism An Agrarian Revolt 7.3
35
Founder of the National Grange of the Patrons of
Husbandry (1867)
36
The Grange Movement

• Wanted to regulate the railroad rates. What does
  this lead to?
• First organized in the 1870s in the Midwest, the
  south, and Texas.
• Set up cooperative associations.
• Social and educational components.
• Succeeded in lobbying for Granger Laws.
• Rapidly declined by the late 1870s.

37
The Farmers Alliances

• Begun in the 1870s (Built upon the ashes of the
  Grange.)
• Wanted more paper money in circulation. Why??
• More political and less social than the Grange.
• Ran candidates for office.
• Controlled 8 state legislatures had
  47representatives in Congress during the 1890s.

38
Farmers Alliance forms political party

• 1873 Congress puts US dollar on gold standard
• Reduces the amount of money in circulation
• Impact on farmers??
• What do farmers want? Why?

39
What did the Populist Party want?

1. Government ownership of the railroads
2. Bank regulation
3. Graduated income tax
4. Free coinage of silver
5. All of the above

40
The Populist (Peoples) Party

• Founded by James B. Weaverand Tom Watson.
• Omaha, NE Convention in July,1892.
• Got almost 1 million popularvotes.
• Several Congressional seatswon.
• What did they want?

James B. Weaver, Presidential Candidate James
G. Field, VP
41
Populist Farmers wanted more money in circulation
in order to

1. Decrease the value of their debts
2. Strengthen the Republican Party
3. Slow down foreign immigration
4. Strengthen the Gold Standard

42
1892 Presidential Election
Grover Cleveland Benjamin Harrison again!
(DEM) (REP)
43
1892 Presidential Election
44
Cleveland Loses Support Fast!

• The only President to serve two non-consecutive
  terms.
• Blamed for the 1893 Panic.
• Defended the gold standard.
• Used federal troops in the 1894Pullman strike.
• Refused to sign the Wilson-GormanTariff of 1894.
• Repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. (Why
  was this a problem?)

45
The Panic of 1893
46
Causes of the 1893 Panic

• Begun 10 days after Cleveland took office.
• Several major corps. went bankrupt.(RR)
• Over 16,000 businesses disappeared.
• Triggered a stock market crash.
• Over-extended investments.
• Bank failures followed causing a contractionof
  credit nearly 500 banks closed.
• By 1895, unemployment reached 3 million.
• Americans cried out for relief, but the
  Govt.continued its laissez faire policies!!
• Cleveland blames Sherman Silver Purchase Act

47
Bi-Metallism Issue
48
19th Century Monetary Fight

• East Coast Bankers (Rich)
• Creditors (They have provided loans to farmers
  for land, seed, machinery, etc.)
• Back the Gold Standard
• Want the amount of currency in U.S. to stay fixed
  or low growth.

• Plains Farmers (Poor)
• Debtors (They have taken out loans that they must
  pay back)
• Back the Free Coinage of Silver
• Want the amount of currency in the U.S. to expand

49
The 1896 Election
50
William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)
The Great Commoner
51
William Jennings Bryan
Prairie avenger, mountain lion, Bryan,
Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Gigantic troubadour,
speaking like a siege gun, Smashing
Plymouth Rock with his boulders from the
West.

• Revivalist style of oratory.

52
BryansCross of Gold Speech
You shall not press down upon the brow of labor
this crown of thorns you shall not crucify
mankind upon a cross of gold!
53
William McKinley (1843-1901)
54
1896 Election Results
55
Why Did Bryan Lose?

• His focus on ______ underminedefforts to build
  bridges to urbanvoters.
• He did not form alliances withother groups.
  Business leaders feared him, gave money to
  _______.
• __________s campaign was well-organized and
  highly funded.

56
What Populist Party reform survived to be
accepted by the major parties?

1. Graduated income tax
2. Regulation of the railroads
3. More flexible monetary system
4. All of the above

57
Gold Triumphs Over Silver

• 1900 ? GoldStandard Act
• confirmed thenations commitment tothe gold
  standard.
• A victory for the forces ofconservatism.
• Good or bad for farmers??

58
(No Transcript)
59
The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
60
The Wizard of OzA Populist Allegory/Parable?
61
1964 Henry Littlefields Thesis?
62
Dorothy and Toto
63
Wicked Witch of the East
64
Munchkins
65
Wicked Witch of the West
66
Good Witch of The North
67
Yellow Brick Road
68
Scarecrow
69
Tin Man
70
Cowardly Lion
71
Winged Monkeys
"Once we were a free people, living happily in
the forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts
and fruit and doing just as we pleased without
calling anybody master...This was many ears ago
before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over
this land."
72
Yellow Winkies
73
Emerald City
74
Im Melting!
75
The Wizard
76
Ruby Slippers
In the book they were Silver So they represent?
77
Parable of the Populists?

• Tornado ? ?
• Dorothy ? ?
• Toto ? ?
• Kansas ? ?
• Wicked Witch of theEast ? ?
• Tin Woodsman ? ?
• Scarecrow ? ?
• Cowardly Lion ? ?
• Yellow Brick Road ? ?

• Silver Slippers ? ?
• Emerald City ? ?
• Oz ? ?
• The Wizard ? ?
• Munchkins ? ?
• Wicked Witch of the West ? ?
• Flying Monkeys ? ?
• Yellow Winkies ? ?

78
(No Transcript)