Gilded Age Rise of Industry and Transformation of the West
Mark Twain From a satirical novel written with Charles D. Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today 1873. Meaning the prosperity and culture seen is only on the surface Major problems lurk beneath the surface. Why a Gilded Age?
Industrialization
New inventions helped the growth of industry, including the Bessemer process, electric bulb, telegraph, and telephone. For example, better steel created by the Bessemer process led to big business as demand for steel increased construction, for example, railroads and skyscrapers. Other inventions allowed factories to produce more faster. Rapid immigration provided more factory workers. Industrialization
Entrepreneur- someone who organizes, manages, and takes on the risks of a business. Many new businesses sprung up in the U.S. including many begun by immigrants using their trade skills. Free enterprise-business can operate with little government influence. laissez-faire The U.S. promoted this idea during the Gilded Age. Brought growth and new challenges. Rise of Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise
Industrialists reduced competition through monopolies and trusts. Monopoly-control of one group over service or product Trust-companies come together and agree to control aspects of a business They used vertical and horizontal integration to control industries. Vertical-group controls many parts of the supply chain Horizontal-groups monopolizes a portion of an industry Big Business
A cartoon from the magazine Puck
A Scottish immigrant who amassed a fortune through vertical integration in the steel industry. By the 1890s, his factories in Homestead, PA were the most technologically advanced in the world. Although ruthless in business, he promoted philanthropy in The Gospel of Wealth. Andrew Carnegie
Through cutthroat competition, fixing prices, and making deals with railroads, he ruined rival companies to become one of the richest men in history. He mastered horizontal integration, and by the 1880s Standard Oil Company controlled 90% of America s oil business. John D Rockefeller
How rich were the robber barons compared to Microsoft founder Bill Gates? 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 $ billions $ Rockefeller Carnegie Vanderbilt Bill Gates Jay Gould JP Morgan James H. Hill
Go to Appendix A Read the excerpt from The Gospel of Wealth and complete the questions. APPENDIX A
Some people viewed them as great assets to the growth of American industry. Others saw them as ruthless men only interested in their profit. Class divisions became more visible with a growing middle class and the gap between rich and poor widened as industry grew. By 1890, the richest 1 percent of Americans received the same total income as the bottom half of the population and owned more property than the remaining 99 percent. Captains of Industry vs. Robber Barons
Closing the Frontier Prior to Civil War, the Great Plains were considered the Great American Desert Manifest Destiny! Post-Civil War increased migration west, esp. with Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and increased immigration. By 1890, the Census Bureau was able to claim that the entire western frontier was now occupied.
Cattle Industry Boom Lure of Mineral Wealth Adventure! Cheap land New Innovations Improved Transportation Why West?
Homestead Act (1862) allowed settlers to acquire as much as 160 acres of land by living on it for 5 years, improving it, and paying a nominal fee. The discovery of gold, silver, and other precious minerals sparked an influx of prospectors and miners. Nevada and Colorado in the 1850s, South Dakota in the 1870s Klondike in the 1890s Railroad expansion and the invention of barbed wire and improvements in windmills and pumps attracted ranchers and farmers to the Great Plains in the 1860s and 1870s. Contributing Factors
May 10, 1869, Union and Central Pacific Railroads joined their rails at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. Transcontinental RR
More land came into cultivation in the thirty years after the Civil War ever before in American history. Large-scale Western farming used irrigation, chemicals, and machines, all of which required capital investments beyond the means of most family farmers. These farms increasingly grew for national and international markets and specialized in one crop. The West s incorporation in the American and world economy sealed the fate of the Plains Indians. West Transformed
Sitting Bull--Sioux Chief Joseph--Nez Perce Crazy Horse--Lakota Geronimo--Apache Native American Leaders
Desire to avenge savage massacres and punish whites for breaking treaties; Defend land against white invaders; Preserve their nomadic way of life against forced settlement. Late 1880s-some Natives practiced the Ghost Dance in an effort to rid themselves of white culture through singing, dancing, and religious ceremonies. Goals and Final Efforts
Factors: Arrival of railroads in the West Disease Destruction of the buffalo and Plains Culture; (fewer than a 1000 by 1885) Warfare with the United States Army Defeat of the Plains Indians
Major conflicts include: Sand Creek Massacre (1864) brutal attack on Cheyenne by Colorado Volunteer regiment, Little Big Horn (1876) Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse killed General George A. Custer and 250 of his men. Wounded Knee (1890) final conflict in the Indian Wars. Ultimately leads to Indian Removal and the Reservation System Effects on Native Americans
The Battle of the Little Bighorn
Read and analyze the two excerpts about the Wounded Knee Massacre and answer the accompanying questions. APPENDIX B
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed...the old men are all dead...it is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of whom have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are--perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever. Chief Joseph (1877)
Compare the two images.
Religious orders like Quakers removed Native American children to boarding schools to civilize Dawes Act took tribal lands to re-distribute as individual homesteads; designed to turn Native Americans into farmers Indian Citizenship Act (1924) was passed by Congress. Native American pupils at Carlisle Indian School, c. 1900. Americanization and Assimilation
Historian who wrote "The Significance of the Frontier in American History in 1893. Argued that the West was instrumental in forming a unique American identity of independence and resourcefulness, more important than European influences. Frederick Jackson Turner
Read the two interpretations and complete all three sections using complete sentences. APPENDIX C