History Lectures 1-8 - Lecture notes 1-8 PDF

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Caleb Wittum as professor...

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Lecture 1: Emancipation and Reconstruction (1865-1877) Overview ➢ Time of great changes and new opportunities ➢ Social revolution of sorts ➢ Advances in education, democracy, and economic opportunity ➢ Tragedy: Rise of racial violence ➢ Robert Smalls ➢ Different visions: ○ Freedmen (want jobs, land, marriage, voting) ○ Andrew Johnson (President ‘65-’69, took over after Licoln’s assassination, racist views) ○ Republicans: radical (loudest advocates for Reconstruction, wanted to give the freedmen what they wanted) and moderates (in between) ○ Democrats (did not want changes in the South) ○ Women (very early suffragists) Early Challenges ➢ Stubborn Southern states ➢ Black codes in the South ○ Meant to continue to restrict African Americans ➢ Andrew Johnson obstructions ○ Vetoed Civil Rights Bill of 1866 ○ Slowed down Reconstruction ➢ Divided opinions among radical and moderate Republicans Black Codes ➢ Laws passed under Johnson’s Reconstruction ➢ Intended to regulate the lives of freedpeople ➢ Gave limited freedoms: marriage, property rights, access to courts ➢ Restrictions: militia, voting, work requirements Reconstruction Restarted ➢ Johnson impeached, not re-elected ➢ Ulysses S. Grant elected ➢ Process of recreating a post-war society begins ➢ Legislation enacted: Civil Rights Bill, Reconstruction Act, 13th, 14th, and

15th amendments Enacting Reconstruction ➢ Freedmen’s Bureau (1865-1869) ➢ Carpetbaggers: Northerners who moved South ➢ Scalawags: Southerners who sided with Republicans during Reconstruction 13th Amendment (1864) ➢ Abolishes slavery ➢ First of the three major Reconstruction amendments 14th Amendment (1868) ➢ Defines citizenship and outlines right for African Americans 15th Amendment (1870) ➢ Outlines right to vote for African Americans New Opportunities for African Americans ➢ Opportunity to vote ➢ Serve as politicians ➢ Education (expanded public education, although segregated) ➢ Economic freedom ➢ Land ownership ➢ Social freedoms: religion, civil societies, political party Robert Smalls ➢ Born (1839) into slavery in Beaufort, SC ➢ Escaped by commandeering the CSS Planter (confederate ship) ➢ Purchases former owner’s house ➢ Gave speeches in English and Gullah dialect (spoke easily to formerly enslaved people) ➢ Elected to SC state legislation ➢ US House of Representatives (1874) Robert B. Elliot ➢ Born (1842) in England, moves to SC (1860s) ➢ Editor of The South Carolina Leader ➢ Practiced law in Columbia, SC ➢ Organized local Republican party ➢ Elected into US Congress (1873) ➢ Gave passionate speech about the 14th amendment

Lecture 2: Reconstruction and It’s Unraveling Richard T. Greener ➢ First African American graduate at Harvard University ➢ Studied philosophy, Latin, and Greek ➢ First African American professor at USC (1873-1877) ➢ Graduated from USC Law School Growing resentment in many Southern communities Tragedy of Reconstruction ➢ Gains of Reconstruction were eroded ➢ Persistence of pre-Civil War social/labor arrangements ➢ Racism Sharecropping ➢ Landowner allows tenant to farm land in exchange for part of the crop ➢ Grow cash crops (cotton/tobacco) and food crops ➢ Allowed some division of labor ➢ Reality vs. William Sherman’s Field Order 15 Resurgent Racism ➢ Racism always existed, but it is openly exhibited in 1870s ➢ Political cartoons ➢ James Shepard Pike ○ Negative views of Reconstruction ○ Journalist who condemned African Americans ○ The Prostrate State 1874 (his book) Reign of Terror ➢ Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the White League, the Red Shirts ➢ Used terror tactics: whipping, murder, lynching ➢ Targeted Republicans, scalawags, carpetbaggers, and African Americans Hamburg Massacre ➢ Hamburg, SC ➢ July 1876 ➢ Ones series of violent act in 1870s ➢ Attacked an all-black militia ➢ 7 men killed

Republican Fatigue ➢ Grant and National Guard ➢ Enforcement ➢ New vs old Republicans ➢ Leave the South to govern itself Compromise of 1877 ➢ Disputed 1876 election ➢ Samuel J. Tilden vs Rutherford B. Hayes ➢ Hayes wins ➢ Federal troops removed from South ➢ Ends Reconstruction in the South

Lecture 3: Indigenous People of the American West (1870-1900) American West ➢ Eastern growth and expanding frontier ➢ Farms and agriculture ➢ Railroads and a national market ➢ Indigenous societies and growing conflict Transformation of the American West ➢ The frontier thesis and manifest destiny ➢ Moving West ➢ Push factors: cheap land, gold rush, more welcoming to some immigrants Railroads ➢ Mass growth of railroads following the Civil War ➢ 1869 completed the first transcontinental railroad ➢ Tripled from 1860 to 1880 and again by 1920 ➢ Facilitated westward expansion ➢ Created conditions for national market Agriculture ➢ The middle border ➢ Homestead Act (1826) ➢ 10% of US land given out between 1862-1934

➢ Population diverse and rough existence ➢ Wheat and corn Modern Agriculture ➢ Homesteads vs corporate farms ➢ Bonanza farms (industrial farms) ➢ Rise of industrial crops ➢ California’s large-scale agriculture Ranching ➢ Depletion of buffalo and rise of cattle ➢ The idea of the “cowboy” ➢ Open ranges enclosed by 1880 ➢ Railroads and beef culture Plains Indians ➢ West not an unpopulated area ➢ Thousands of indigenous people lived there when these transformations were underway ➢ Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Kiowa, Sioux ➢ Treaties and sovereignty Sioux ➢ Broad collection of indigenous societies of Midwest ➢ Sioux language and dialects ➢ Dakotas and Lakota ➢ Seven council fires ➢ 1805 signed first treaty with US government ➢ Fort Laramie Treaty 1851 ➢ Pike’s Peak Gold Rush 1858 (Colorado) ➢ Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud (famous leaders) ➢ Battle of Little Big Horn 1876 (Sioux won) Pressures on Sioux ➢ Rise of Western population ➢ Assault on buffalo (main food source) ➢ Dawes Act 1887 ➢ Senator Henry Dawes of Massacussetts and Indian Affairs Committee ➢ Break up land and land rushes ➢ Rise of reservations

Ghost Dance ➢ Pan-Indian elements/inclusive ➢ Agenda: buffalo, land, ancestral customs, autonomy ➢ Large numbers gather at ghost dance in 1890 ➢ US military opens fire and kills 150-200 Native Americans, mostly women and children (Wounded Knee Massacre) Lost Bird ➢ Infant who survived Wounded Knee ➢ Adopted by General Leonard Colby and his wife ➢ Difficult life: racism, abuse, disease, poverty ➢ Between two worlds (American vs Native American)

Lecture 4: America’s Gilded Age (1870-1890) Overview ➢ Mark Twain - America’s Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) ➢ Second Industrial Revolution ○ Factory work ○ Capitalism and wage labor ○ Growing labor force ○ Growth in railroad, mines, and steel production ➢ Railroads and national market ○ Transportation ○ National brands: Quaker oats ○ Consumer culture ○ Growing population and urbanism ➢ Boom-bust cycles ○ Dramatic economic growth, highly volatile, large labor pool (immigration), 1873-1897 “First Great Depression” ➢ How the Other Half Lives Robber Barons/Captains of Industry ➢ Most rose from modest backgrounds ➢ Example of genius and business sense

➢ Dictatorial attitudes: 12 hour workdays, no days off, poor working conditions ➢ Unscrupulous methods: monopolies and price fixing ➢ “Wealth against commonwealth” (Henry Lloyd) Andrew Carnegie ➢ Emigrated from Scotland ➢ Steel industry ➢ Vertical integration (do not need to buy parts, make own) ➢ Gospel of wealth - philanthropy ➢ Ruthless businessman and boss John D. Rockefeller ➢ Oil refining ➢ Horizontal expansion ➢ Standard oil company ➢ Controlled 90% of the nation’s oil industry ➢ Richest man in the world ➢ Manipulated market, reduced employees, bribed legislators

Lecture 5: Immigration (in the Gilded Age) Immigration By the Numbers ➢ Approximately 20 million immigrants came to the US during the Gilded Age ➢ Most came from Southern and Eastern Europe ➢ Significantly altered US population: made up 1/10 of population Factors For Immigration ➢ Push: famines during 1870-1890, overcrowding, political unrest, pograms against Jewish families ➢ Pull: steam ships, “land of opportunity,” jobs, growing immigrant communities, freedom Immigrant Trends ➢ Young men usually came first ➢ Rise of community neighborhoods: Little Italy, Chinatowns ➢ Roman Catholic, Jewish, Eastern Orthodox ➢ Less educated, few spoke English, unskilled

Opportunities for Immigrants ➢ Most were used to urban living ➢ Worked in factories ➢ Construction ➢ Low-paying jobs ➢ Jobs in ethnic enclaves: shops and restaurants What They Brought ➢ Not much in terms of goods ➢ Way of life, customs and traditions, religion, food preferences Lower East Side ➢ Melting pot for immigrant communities ➢ Tenement housing (low-income) ➢ East Village, Little ITaly, Nolita, Alphabet City, The Bowery, Two Bridges, and Chinatown ➢ Jewish and Ukrainian Jacob Riis ➢ Journalist and social reformer ➢ Born in Denmark ➢ Immigrated to US at 20 years old ➢ Worked odd jobs until he eventually got a job with newspaper ➢ New York tribune and Evening Sun ➢ Police Beat ➢ Lower East Side ➢ Photography ➢ How the Other Half Lives (1890) ○ Exposed the living conditions in the tenements Rising Nativism ➢ Social darwinism and eugenics ➢ Immigrant stereotypes (disease, poor hygiene, Italians-garlic) ➢ Chinese Exclusion Act 1882 ➢ American Protective Association 1887 and Immigration Restriction League 1894 ➢ Henry Cabot Lodge (senator from Massachusetts) New Orleans Lynching ➢ March 14, 1891

➢ Anti-immigrant and anti-Italian atmosphere ➢ Death of police chief David Hennessey ➢ 11 Italian Americans lynched (America’s largest collective lynching)

Lecture 6: Resistance from Below: Labor and Labor Organizing Labor Conditions in the Gilded Age ➢ 12 hour workday ➢ Cheap wages ➢ Child labor (18% of work force under 16) ➢ Deplorable conditions ➢ Made robber barons’ wealth possible Upton Sinclair ➢ Social reformer and activist ➢ Spent 7 weeks in Chicago stockyards and meatpacking factories ➢ The Jungle (expose) Pushback from Workers ➢ Frustrated by conditions and pay ➢ Complements the work done by white collar reformers like Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine ➢ Form labor unions and organizations ➢ Strikes, marches, sometimes violence Knights of Labor ➢ Most important labor organization of 1880s ➢ Unskilled laborers ➢ Women and men, African Americans and whites ➢ Membership of 800,000 in 1886 ➢ Goals: 8 hour workday, public employment during depressions, currency reform, defined freedom with economic rights May Day March ➢ May 1, 1886 ➢ 350,000 workers marched in cities across the US ➢ 8 hour workday goal ➢ Largely ignored at the time

➢ Becomes important global holiday for workers Chicago Labor and Capital ➢ Large and vibrant worker community ➢ Strong Knights of Labor/Labor Organizations ➢ History of successful striking, marching, and gaining working rights ➢ Iron Moulders Union vs Company Haymarket Affair ➢ May 3, 1886: 4 strikers killed by police ➢ Rally in Haymarket Square in response ➢ Someone in the crowd threw a bomb ➢ Set off panic and riot ➢ 4 hanged, 1 suicide in prison, 3 imprisoned ➢ Agenda: workers rights and better conditions, child labor laws

Lecture 7: Populism (1890-1900) Overview ➢ Populist era and continuation of Gilded Age ➢ Different regions: South and trans-Mississippi ➢ Search for answers to Gilded Age problems ➢ Election of 1896 Problems in South and Midwest ➢ Sharecropping system and perpetual poverty ➢ Glut of cotton in world market ➢ High railroad freight costs ➢ Farming debt: new machinery, buying land, etc ➢ Gold standard Rise of the Farmers Alliance ➢ 4 million people at its peak ➢ Open to all races ➢ Becomes the people’s party/Populist party Populist Party ➢ Starts in early 1890s

➢ Uses foundation and connections of Farmers Alliance ➢ 3rd party (Democrat, Republican, Populist) ➢ Era’s greatest political insurgency had greatest success in cotton and wheat belts of South and West Populist Party Agenda ➢ Increased the money supply ➢ Graduated income tax ➢ Election reform, secret ballots and senator elections ➢ 8 hour work day ➢ Immigration restrictions Populist Strategies ➢ Traveling speakers to reach rural communities ➢ Some African Americans, but not many in coalition ➢ Pamphlets and newspaper ➢ Religious imagery and social gospel ➢ Blamed industry and politics for farmers plight Mary Elizabeth Lease ➢ Homesteader turned activist ➢ Looked out for underdogs: Kansas ➢ One of first female lawyers in Kansas ➢ “Raise less corn and more Hell” 1893 Economic Downturn ➢ Panic of 1893 ➢ Depression 1894 ➢ Silver and gold debate (important issue in 1896 election) Populist and Politics ➢ Democratic party adopts Populist platform ➢ Republican: William McKinley ➢ Democrat: William Jennings Bryan

Lecture 8: US Imperialism: Spanish-American WAr (1898) Background on Cuba

➢ In 1800s, Cuba and Puerto Rico were the world’s largest sugar producers ➢ Large slave plantations in Western Cuba ➢ Slave and animal labor in smaller plantations in Eastern Cuba ➢ Spain is weak Jose Marti ➢ Promotes and expands the idea of racelessness USS Maine ➢ Blows up in Havana Harbor ➢ February 15, 1898 ➢ Blamed Spain, but it actually sank because of a coal fire Yellow Journalism ➢ William Randolph Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer US Involvement ➢ April 21, 1898 to August 13, 1898 ➢ Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders ➢ Battle of San Juan Hill Treaty of Paris ➢ 1898 ➢ Death of Spanish Empire ➢ Cuba left out of negotiations ➢ Rise of the US as a world power Platt Amendment ➢ 1901 ➢ US military access to the Isle of Pines ➢ US right to intervene in Cuban government ➢ Cuba gains independence in 1901...