Commonwealth and Empire1870 - 1900

Buschistory.net - Topic 16

Based on Chapter 20 – Faragher’s Out of Many

The Growth of Government• Local governments financed police,

school systems, libraries, and parks; taxes rose

• Federal government expanded :– Department of Agriculture established

in 1862 to provide information farmers and consumers of farm products

– Interstate Commerce Commission created in 1887 to bring order and uniformity to railroads

The Spoils System and Civil Service Reform

• 1883: Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act allowed the president to create a 3-person commission to draw up a set of guidelines for executive and legislative appointments;

• Circuit Courts of Appeals Act of 1891, Congress granted US Supreme Court the right to review cases at will

The Grange• In 1867 farmers on the Great Plain formed the Patrons of

Husbandry, led by Oliver H. Kelley.• Grangers blamed hard times on “thieves of the night” who

charged exorbitant fees for service, harming the farmers• Several states passed Granger laws establishing maximum

shipping rates• In 1873 Illinois passed the Warehouse Act establishing

maximum rates for storing grains• In Munn v. Illinois (1887), the Supreme Court upheld the law,

ruling that states had the power to regulate private property in the public interest

Alliances of Farmers and Women

• In 1889, the National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union had 3 million white members.

• The Colored Farmers’ Alliance and Cooperative Union spread across the South and soon had 1 million members

• Mary E. Lease advised farmers to raise less corn and more hell

• Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was a major force behind the campaign for woman suffrage, led by Frances E. Willard

Workers Search for Power• Tompkins Square Riot, 1874,

inaugurated an era or unprecedented labor conflict

• Great Uprising of 1877 was the first nationwide strike, lasting for nearly a week. Hayes called in the US Army to suppress the strike.

• Henry George wrote Progress and Poverty, advocating a sweeping tax on all property to generate revenue to allow all Americans to live in comfort.

Financial Collapse and Depression

• In March 1883, the stock market crashed

• In 1893 the nation’s major rail lines went bankrupt

• Few starved, but millions suffered from inadequate diets and diseases. Vagrancy laws forced many into prison

• “Coxey’s Army” marched on Washington D.C. to demand a public works program; they were clubbed and arrested but voiced the public’s impatience with government apathy toward the unemployed

Strikes and Labor Solidarity• Amalgamated Iron Steel and Tin

Workers, the most powerful union of the AFL, was defeated by Carnegie and Frick in 1892 – Homestead strike

• The American Railway Union brought railroad workers across the nation into one organization. In May 1894 the union supported a nationwide boycott of all Pullman cars in response to cut wages, prompting federal marshals to arrest the leaders

The Social Gospel• Washington Gladden (Pastor -Ohio)

warned churches about ignoring social problems He advised businesses to return to Christ’s teachings.

• If Christ Came to Chicago and If Jesus Came to Boston questioned social inequalities and the conditions in cities.

• The Young Women’s Christian Association sponsored services for needy Christian women (homes, vocational instruction)

Free Silver• The Coinage Act in 1873 -

replaced silver with gold for minting purposes (“the Crime of ’73”)

• The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 returned to free silver in exchange for the Westerners’ support of the McKinley Tariff of 1890

• Cleveland demanded the repeal of the Sherman Act and succeeded in October 1893

The Election of 1896• Democrat William Jennings Bryan

supported free silver and agrarian ideals

• Republican William McKinley, Civil War veteran, had 10 times the amount spent on his campaign than Bryan

• McKinley won because Bryan supported free silver and because of Bryan’s Protestant moral piety; also, workers didn’t believe Bryan’s reform vision really included them

• Populists dwindled away

Nativism and Jim Crow• Patriotism became

nationalistic and anti-foreign• Jim Crow laws,

discriminatory and segregationalist legislation, upheld by the Supreme Court in Civil Rights Cases (1883, overturned Civil Rights Act of 1875) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896, upheld segregation)

• “grandfather clauses” and literacy tests

Limits of Democracy

• Foreigners constantly used as scapegoats• Ida B. Wells• Jim Crow Laws, Plessy v. Ferguson

Imperialism of Righteousness• Frederick Jackson Turner implied that

America needed a new frontier if democracy were to survive

• Josiah Strong linked economic and spiritual expansion by arguing that the US should help other countries

• Missionaries spread the gospel, taught school, provided medicine (rice-Christians)

• Improved seapower• Hawaii became an American

protectorate• Boxer Rebellion• War in Cuba• War in the Philippines

The Spanish American War

• Causes– Imperialism– Yellow Press– Remember the Maine

• US troops invade Philippines– Phillipino war 1899-1902- 200,000 dead

• Cuba surrenders July 17th, 1898