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    United States History: 1877 to 1912 Essentials
    United States History: 1877 to 1912 Essentials
    United States History: 1877 to 1912 Essentials
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    United States History: 1877 to 1912 Essentials

    By Salvatore Prisco

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    About this ebook

    REA’s Essentials provide quick and easy access to critical information in a variety of different fields, ranging from the most basic to the most advanced. As its name implies, these concise, comprehensive study guides summarize the essentials of the field covered. Essentials are helpful when preparing for exams, doing homework and will remain a lasting reference source for students, teachers, and professionals. United States History: 1877 to 1912 includes the New Industrial Era, the reaction to corporate industrialism, the emergence of a regional empire, the Spanish-American War, the Americanization of the world, Theodore Roosevelt and progressive reforms, the regulatory state and the ordered society, and the election of Woodrow Wilson.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherResearch & Education Association
    Release dateJan 1, 2013
    ISBN9780738671550
    United States History: 1877 to 1912 Essentials

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      United States History - Salvatore Prisco

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      CHAPTER 1

      THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ERA, 1877 – 1882

      The structure of modern American society was erected by democratic, capitalistic and technological forces in the post-Civil War era. Between the 1870s and 1890s, Gilded Age America emerged as the world’s leading industrial and agricultural producer.

      1.1 POLITICS OF THE PERIOD, 1877 – 1882

      The presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt mark the boundaries of a half century of relatively weak executive leadership, and legislative domination by Congress and the Republican Party.

      1.1.1 Disputed Election of 1876

      In 1877 the unresolved presidential election between the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and the Democrat Samuel J. Tilden was decided by a special electoral commission in favor of Hayes as a result of the award of 20 disputed electoral college votes from 4 states. With southern Democratic acceptance of the new Republican Hayes presidency, the last remaining Union troops were withdrawn from the Old Confederacy (South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana), and the country was at last reunified as a modern nation-state led by corporate and industrial interests. The Hayes election arrangement also marked the government’s abandonment of its earlier vague commitment to African-American equality.

      1.1.2 Republican Factions

      Stalwarts led by New York Sen. Roscoe Conkling favored the old spoils system of political patronage. Half Breeds headed by Maine Senator James G. Blaine pushed for civil service reform and merit appointments to government posts.

      1.1.3 Election of 1880

      James A. Garfield of Ohio, a Half-Breed, and his vice presidential running mate Chester A. Arthur of New York, a Stalwart, defeated the Democratic candidate, General Winfield S. Hancock of Pennsylvania and former Indiana congressman William English. Tragically the Garfield administration was but an interlude, for the President was assassinated in 1881 by a mentally disturbed patronage seeker, Charles Guiteau. Although without much executive experience, the Stalwart Arthur had the courage to endorse reform of the political spoils system by supporting passage of the Pendleton Act (1883) which established open competitive examinations for civil service positions.

      1.1.4 The Greenback-Labor Party

      This third party movement polled over 1 million votes in 1878, and elected 14 members to Congress in an effort to promote the inflation of farm prices, and the cooperative marketing of agricultural produce. In 1880, the party’s presidential candidate, James Weaver of Iowa, advocated public control and regulation of private enterprises such as railroads in the common interest of more equitable competition. Weaver theorized that because railroads were so essential, they should be treated as a public utility. He polled only 3 percent of the vote.

      1.2 THE ECONOMY, 1877 – 1882

      Industrial expansion and technology assumed major proportions in this period. Between 1860 and 1894 the United States moved from the fourth largest manufacturing nation to the world’s leader through capital accumulation, natural resources, especially in iron, oil, and coal, an abundance of labor helped by massive immigration, railway transportation and communications (the telephone was introduced by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876), and major technical innovations such as the development of the modern steel industry by Andrew Carnegie, and electrical energy by Thomas Edison. In the petroleum industry, John D. Rockefeller controlled 95 percent of the U.S. oil refineries by 1877.

      1.2.1 The New South

      By 1880, northern capital erected the modern textile industry in the New South by bringing factories to the cotton fields. Birmingham, Alabama emerged as the South’s leading steel producer, and the introduction of machine-made cigarettes propelled the Duke family to prominence as tobacco producers.

      1.2.2 Standard of Living

      Throughout the U.S. the standard of living rose sharply, but the distribution of wealth was very uneven. Increasingly an elite of about 10 per cent of the population controlled 90 per cent of the nation’s wealth.

      1.2.3 Social Darwinism

      Many industrial leaders used the doctrines associated with the Gospel of Wealth to justify the unequal distribution of national wealth. Self-justification by the wealthy was based on the notion that God had granted wealth as He had given grace for material and spiritual salvation of the select few. These few, according to William Graham Sumner, relied heavily on the survival-of-the-fittest philosophy associated with Charles Darwin.

      1.2.4 Labor Unrest

      When capital over-expansion and over-speculation led to the economic panic of 1873, massive labor disorders spread through the country leading to the paralyzing railroad strike of 1877. Unemployment and salary reductions caused major class conflict. President Hayes used federal troops

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