Turning Points (1754 to 1877)

1754 v. 1763:1754: The French and Indian War erupts as a result of disputes over land in the Ohio River Valley. In May, George Washington leads a small group of American colonists to victory over the French, then builds Fort Necessity in the Ohio territory. In July, after being attacked by numerically superior French forces, Washington surrenders the fort and retreats. First war fought using the colonists and showed their alleigence to the British.

1763: The French and Indian War, known in Europe as the Seven Year's War, ends with the Treaty of Paris. Under the treaty, France gives England all French territory east of the Mississippi River, except New Orleans. American strength is evident. The Proclamation of 1763, signed by King George III of England, prohibits any English settlement west of the Appalachian mountains and requires those already settled in those regions to return east in an attempt to ease tensions with Native Americans. This starts the ball rolling on American independence.

Best Choice: 1763; this is when American's began to resent the English and push against their colonial reign and realized they had changning feelings about themselves as a separate entity from England.

1763 v. 1776:
1763: The French and Indian War, known in Europe as the Seven Year's War, ends with the Treaty of Paris. Under the treaty, France gives England all French territory east of the Mississippi River, except New Orleans. American strength is evident. The Proclamation of 1763, signed by King George III of England, prohibits any English settlement west of the Appalachian mountains and requires those already settled in those regions to return east in an attempt to ease tensions with Native Americans. This starts the ball rolling on American independence.

1776: United States issues the Declaration of Independence, listing their grievances with the British rule and calling for independence. George Washington crosses the Delaware.

Best Choice: 1776; Americans declared their independence for their nation and became united under the goal to win the war against the British; things seemed positive in that respect.

1789 v. 1800:
1789: Congress passes its first tax, an 8.5 percent protective tax on 30 different items, with items arriving on American ships charged at a lower rate than foreign ships. The U.S. Army is established by Congress. The Bill of Rights is added to the Constitution of the United States. George Washington is inaugurated as President.

1800: Jefferson beats Adams in the race for the Presidency; the Federalist party is all but dead. First peaceful transition of power. The Quasi-War ends.

Best Choice: 1789; America is tasked with constructing a new nation after the failure of the Articles of Confederation; the very first president is elected to office; it was the most crucial year for establishing America's success as a thriving nation.

1828 v. 1844:
1828: U.S. President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of 1828/Tariff of Abominations into law to protect industry in the North; sparked the Nullification crisis in South Carolina. South Carolina declares right of states to nullify federal laws. Saw the birth of the two-party system, Jackson won the Election of 1828.

1844: Texan envoys sign Treaty of Annexation with the United States. James K Polk elected 11th president of US. Henry Clay loses as a Whig candidate and strongly disagrees with Polk's plans. 

Best Choice: 1844; with the election of Polk, his ideologies such as the Manifest Destiny and continentialism changed the landscape of America forever; his presidency would push for the annexation of California, Texas, and much of the Southwest, as well as the Mexican-American War.

1848 v. 1850:
1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends Mexican War; US acquires Texas, California, New Mexico & Arizona for $15 million. Zachary Taylor is elected president; gold is found in California. Convention at Seneca Falls is held by Stanton & Mott.

1850: Henry Clay introduces Compromise of 1850 on slavery. California admitted to Union as 16th free state. Fugitive Slave Act was passed. Territories of New Mexico & Utah created. Millard Fillmore is sworn into office.

Best Choice: 1850; set the stage for the beginnigs of tension between the North & South; the Compromise of 1850 would soon be ignored and nonhelpful, and the slavery question would further polarize the two halves of the US.

1860 v. 1865:

1860: Abraham Lincoln elected. South Carolina secedes from the United States of America. Secession for the rest of the South is imminent and Civil War is on the horizon; it will begin. 

1865: Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in America. American Civil War ends with the surrender of the Confederate states. Abraham Lincoln is assassinated. KKK forms. President Andrew Johnson proclaims reconstruction of Confederate states.

Best Choice: 1865; with the end of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln, America was on the edge of a huge change. Reconstruction would bring about numerous changes for America and African-Americans particularly, launching the United States into a struggle for civil rights and economic struggle alike.

1865 v. 1877:

1865: Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in America. American Civil War ends with the surrender of the Confederate states. Abraham Lincoln is assassinated. KKK forms. President Andrew Johnson proclaims reconstruction of Confederate states.

1877: Compromise of 1877 ends the Reconstruction Era. Rutherford B. Hayes is elected as president. 

Best Choice: 1865; with the end of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln, America was on the edge of a huge change. Reconstruction would bring about numerous changes for America and African-Americans particularly, launching the United States into a struggle for civil rights and economic struggle alike.

Primary Sources

Primary Source for Immigrants!

DOCUMENT #4:  Delegate C. C. O’Donnell, December 11, 1878.
Doctor C.C. O'Donnell likewise came from a prominent family, having Alexander Hamilton and Charles Carroll (two signers of the Declaration of Independence) for ancestors. He came to San Francisco in 1850 and stayed there. He was Active early in the "anti-coolie" crusade and was elected on the Workingman's ticket.
"Now, Mr. Chairman, I am not going to detain you but a few moments. I only want to refer to the record ... According to the Custom House report, from eighteen hundred and sixty-eight and seventy-six -- eight years -- we have drawn from that country over one hundred thousand Chinese/ Over one hundred thousand of these Chinese have come to this coast for the last eight years. Now, think of that! They have taken from this State two hundred and forty million dollars. Do you wonder at the cry of hard times in the State of California? Take one hundred and fifty thousand of these Chinese in this state, getting wages from a dollar and a half a day, and out of the dollar they send seven bits to China. Over ninety thousand dollars leaves the state every day and goes to China, never to return. They do not pay taxes sufficient..."

1. The Chinese have been migrating to western America for eight years from 1868 to 1876 and in those years have taken $240 million from the state and send $90,000 a day to China.
2. The intended audience is anti immigrant citizens such as the Know Nothing party, pro white labor Unions, and others who dislike the influx of immigrants.
3. The authors point of view is anti- Chinese immigrants or just anti-immigrants in general. They feel this way because of the impacts they have had on the economy. He feels that they are taking money and bringing it out of circulation which counts as a loss of money for the Americans and Californians.
4. This relates to the recent immigration reform bill released to the senate in 2013 that will put millions of immigrants contributing to Americas growing economy on the road to citizenship. This offers immigrants who come here as children a five year path to becoming a citizen and gives immigration judges more decision based on what they think. However this bill requires thousands of tax payers money to pay for more borderland security, surveillance, mandated checkpoints, etc. This also relates to the McCarran-Walter Act, otherwise known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 which was supposed to exclude certain immigrants entering the United States post-World War II. This act denied immigrants who were unlawful, immoral, diseased in any way, politically radical etc. and accepted those who were willing and able to assimilate into the United States economic, social, and political structures. People affiliated with communism were denied since then communism was a big threat to American democracy.
5. This document could also be linked to the farmers and miners (just a few examples) desire for more money circulating the economy. They want silver coins to have more value. Having more money in circulation would help the farmers pay back debts and borrow more money. However this would decrease the value of the dollar. These people were essentially the Hard Money Advocates.

 Primary Source for Women

http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/resources/wompolls.html
1. This article displays the amount of women who attempted to vote after the fourteenth and fifteenth amendment made it seem like they were entitled to the right to vote.
2. The intended audience would most likely be the public of that time especially the women to promote suffrage movements.
3. The passage of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendment gave unclear messages to the women making them believe that they could vote just like anybody else. This should have been the case but women were not seen as an equal.
4. The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an organization that is fighting for women's rights. They are attempting to win economic equality and securing it with an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This will guarantee equal rights for women; championing abortion rights, reproductive freedom and other women's health issues; opposing racism; fighting bigotry against the LGBT community and ending violence against women. This relates to some of the various reform groups of the gilded age who were trying to achieve the right for women to vote and to have equal labor/job opportunities.
5. This brings to mind the increase in voter turnout when African Americans were treated as citizens. However this significantly decreased when states began establishing poll taxes and literacy tests which was required of men to take. Since the blacks had just gained their freedom they did not have much money and were often unable to pay the poll taxes. As a result of this African Americans and poor white men were thus unable to vote. This just adds to the inequalities of that period which continues, sadly enough.

Primary Source for African Americans

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5741/
1. This article is arguing for a pro-white labor force, saying that the white people have worked hard for years in factories however now that the African Americans will work for cheap methods they fear that they will take all of their job opportunities away.
2. Factory owners who should recognize all the white labor force has done for the factories as well as labor unions.
3. The author has a pro-white labor point of view because their jobs are being taken by cheap black labor forces.
4. Many workers from the Customs Department have admitted that they rely on racial characteristics when deciding whether to inspect someone's bags when they enter the country or detain them when they cross the border. African Americans lack opportunity and safety, black intellectualism, and blacks unemployment rates remained twice that of whites.
5. This brings to mind the issues women went through until society accepted them into factories and other work opportunities.

Gilded Age Notes

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1guWt7nuf0w_PZifpf5Mleq7OHLj6C2oc6FO9NfjcGcI/edit?usp=sharing

Interpreting Secondary Sources

1. Women in Industrializing America

2. Stacy A. Cordery

3. The origins of modern Americas effect on women.

4. Thesis: The increased number of women in the labor force, in the westward movement, and the breakdown of the separation of men and women inspired women to have political campaigns and to push for women's rights. The women of this age were typically white, middle classed, Protestant, native born, married, and living in a small town that has better education opportunities. There was also a decrease in the amount of children being born during this time.

5.

• Women were mainly confined to staying home but during Industrialization they obtained time saving appliances giving then time to have other jobs.
• Organizations were formed to provide charitable relief. These reform groups used willing workforces to raise money, petition state and local governments, and raised awareness for the less fortunate. For example, the Women's Christion Temperance Union (WCTU) fought to prevent the abuse and usage of alcohol by praying bars and other forms of awareness.
• Women spent most of their days caring for their children. Her only opportunity to join a womans club was if she had a servant or her kids were grown.
• By the turn of the century one in seven women were employed as a way to supplement their husbands insufficient income. Those that began working attempted to correct the wretched living and working conditions.
• Anne Firor Scott credits club women with "inventing Progressivism" where women began putting themselves into the world around them by creating study clubs among other groups and objects. These women advocated education such as parent education, vacation schools, and special education for disabled children. They also created innovations such as visiting nurses, libraries, school sanitation and public health, calling for the regulation of water and milk, pure food and drug administration, sanitary garbage disposal legislation, dental clinics, hospitals, baby clinics, school lunch programs, and public facilities such as laundries.
• Anna J. H. Pennybacker was known for being leaders of many women's clubs, dedicating herself to organized womanhood
• Black women were denied access to politics, the legal system, and governmental support. Their various clubs would do many actions to help the less fortunate such as The Art and Study Club of Moline, Illinois, visited the sick and clothed the poor. Ag=frican American women elsewhere organized home for the elderly, juvenile delinquents, working women, unwed mothers, and orphans. The first club to organize was the COLORED WOMEN'S LEAGUE. They combined with THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF AFRO-AMERICAN WOMEN to form THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATIONOF COLORED WOMEN.
• Women began to express their political voices as associations speaking infront of hostile crowds, lobbying male politicians, managed finances and wrote platforms. There was increasing membership and rapidly multiplying women's associations,.
• The Gilded Age the older natural-rights justification for suffrage gave way to an ideology that emphasized differences between men and women. Women by emphasizing their "true womanhood".
• Suffrage was the most important topic when concerning education, religion, property rights, and marriage and divorce laws.
• NATIONAL WOMENS SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION- wanted a federal amendment for women's suffrage. Combined with AWSA to form the MAWSA. none ever had any real success during the gilded age.
• Numbers of women began living among the poor to create a safe environment for families against crime, disease, unhygienic living conditions, unsafe work places and unscrupulous employers who would take advantage of the newly arrived. One of the most famous being the HULL HOUSE who fought to have 8 hour work days, uplift working immigrants, and a minimum wage.
• Females provided labor to fuel industrialization comprising 14% of workforce in 1870; 16%-1890. Women's wages were much lower than men's barely giving them enough to live on.
• Foreign born women had the most domestic positions even though employers sought for native born white women.
• Working conditions included 10 hour days (8 at turn of century), no safety codes and no regulations regarding breaks, vacations, retirement, workers' compensation, injury pay or time off, or sexual harassment. Began striking (usually unsuccessful).
• Increase in college educated women. Most who earned doctoral degrees from 1877 to 1924 remained single. Could have careers more easily in medical fields rather than law. Science remained closed to women as well as ministry.
• Increased participation in sports.
• Industrialization, immigration, and urbanization caused a population increase in the East, the Homestead Acts and the lure of quick riches drew Americans to the West. Some women established their own homesteads. Or they built community structures- womens clubs, belonged to other clubs like The Populists, The Grange, and the Farmers Alliance.
• Native American women did not really hear about the cult of true womanhood. Native Americans, both men and women, would share a lot of tasks that were seen as "womans" work since they were not as touched by industrialization. Some enjoyed higher stuses because of religious or medical skills.
• Reform efforts had demonstrated the ability of women not only to survive but also prosper outside of their "proper" field.
• Women worked a lot as farmers to help with their families low income.

6.

• Were there any movements to stop the women's reform groups?
• Where did the money come from? Donations?
• Why did the women put a lot of focus into alcohol prevention?
• What was the non-typical woman like?
• Why did numbers of children decrease? Bad fertility or were the women given more of a choice on their family size?
• What were the major blowbacks from increased campaigning for women's rights?
• How did the women's place in society chance at the end of the 1900's- was it permanent?

1. The Immigrant Experience in the Gilded Age

2. Roger Daniels
3. The treatment of the immigrants during the Gilded Age.
4. Treatment of the immigrants during this time period is very significant in describing the Gilded Age. The various immigrants lived in different regions of America based on where their family lived and where they had available work opportunities. Some immigrants (such as the Irish) seemed to dominate two crucial institutions which were municipal politics and the Roman Catholic Church. These various groups differed from each other with where they lived, how they interacted with people, labor unions, politics, and the movements occurring at the time.
5.

• Immigrants included people from Italy, Germany, China, Ireland, Britain, Southern and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia,  French Canadians, Slovakia, people of Greco Latin descent, and Asiatic.
• Between 1866 and 1900, 13,259,469 immigrants entered America. Throughout this period, the foreign-born population was predominantly male.
• three fifths of the immigrants came from Western Europe, most from Germany, Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia. Pre-civil war these immigrants made up 95% of the total but twenty years after they were just two fifths.
• Old Immigrants: western European immigrants that mainly contained that of Irish and other Britons, Germans, and Scandinavians ending in early 1800's. New Immigration: Eastern and Southern Europeans that of Italians, Poles, Southern Slavs, Jews, and Greeks ending in 1914 with WWI.
• Most immigrants paid for their way to America during the Gilded Age hoping to improve their life.
• Transportation improved from sail to steamship which meant shorter crossing times, better conditions and usually lower fares. Tickets could be paid in the New World so that a member in the Old World could travel to there.
• Most seeked employment which was mostly in urban and industrial occupations.
• 1/2 of immigrants lived in Northeast which had less than 1/3 of nations population. More than 2/5ths lived in North central states- almost 1/3 of Americas population. In the nine of the cities that have more than 25,000 people, immigrants made up more than 40% of them- N.Y, Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Scranton, Pennsylvania, Lawrence, Massachusetts and Detroit.
• The largest ethnic groups were the Irish and Germans comprised 14.5 and 11.5% of large cities.
• By 1900 the Census Bureau was dividing the foreign born population into 8 groups (Teutons, Irish, British Americans, British, Slavs, Scandinavians, Greco Latin's, and Asiatics).
• Scandinavian immigration became urban. British immigrants=the invisible immigrants. Some were capitalists, others tradesmen, industrial workers, and remittance men. Overrepresented in commercial and skilled worker categories.
•  Southern and eastern immigrants dominated immigration flows in the final decade of the century came mostly at the very bottom of American urban industrial society.
• Chinese- crucial in Far West. They built railroads, engaged in mining, cleared land, and were pioneers in market gardening and other forms of agriculture.
• French Canadians- only group who migrated chiefly by rail.
• IMPORTANT. Those that entered US during this period were first to deal with federal restriction and regulation of immigrants.
• The Protestant Know Nothings thought catholic immigrants to be a great threat to the Republic. They never won restriction of the immigrants and tightening of naturalization laws.
• HOMESTEAD ACT OF 1862- those that declared their intention of becoming an American citizen could have the same rights as American citizens. After the war the naturalization statues expanded to include blacks.
• US and China allow citizens to migrate freely and to change their homes as they please. The treaty was mainly supposed to support trade put immigration and foreign policy at loggerheads. A new regulation allowed the US to regulate, limit and suspend Chinese immigration and residence. So in 1882 Chester Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act suspending Chinese immigration (laborers) for 10 years and after that another 10 years were added.
• The French Canadians became the eastern Chinese, said they did not care anything of the American Institution.
• The Anglo Saxon Complex- campaigned for an immigration policy based on discrimination. Chief spokesman=Henry Cabot Lodge, settled on a literacy test to bring the best ethno culture balance. All the literacy bills were denied.

6.

• Were the French Canadians the most despised immigrant groups?
• What was the naturalization process like? Was its basis the Homestead Act?

1. The African American Experience

2. Leslie H. Fishel Jr.
3. How the post-civil war changes affected the African Americans.
4. The affect of social, political, and economic changes/decisions on the African Americans during the Gilded Age and in what ways they responded to them.
5.

• Country experienced revolutions in economic activity, territorial expansion, demography, class structure, education, and politics.
• The African American people had power and influence which combined with perseverance brought leverage for them in the Reconstruction years. They began to serve in Congress and state legislatures and in federal, state, and local governments at varying levels of authority.
• With the blacks newfound freedom they gained the ability to move to another plantation/region which caused a great population boom as families were reunited. They also gained the ability to find higher paying jobs which included farming, building railroads, mining coal and phosphate, making turpentine, and lumbering.
• Migration into North increased the growth of urban centers.
• Blacks had little political support and less economic opportunity.
• The biggest migration post-civil war was the migration of Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana into Kansas. "Kansas Fever" This founded a black town.
• Slave Plantation turned into TENANT PLANTATION SYSTEM  which let farmers empty black workers but they had to pay rent  while credit system gave him money for seeds. Sharecropping slit return into shares for landlord and tenant. Kept tenants poor and in debt. Major crop was COTTON.
• Sugar plantations of Louisiana and cotton of Virginia and N.C. hired workers for wages not tenants. Instead they had seasonal employment and low pay.
• Civil Rights Cases: Through Justice Joseph P. Bradley they said public accommodations shouldn't have to be protected against racial discrimination which is inconsistent with previous cases such as Prigg v. Pennsylvania and Minn v. Illinois where the court held that both civil rights and public nature of public accommodations were limited and that neither the 13 or 14th amendment permits congressional implementation of the Act. Justice John Marshall Harlan said congress did have protective legislation.
• Garfield- chasm closed through education. Chester A. Arthur didn't really care for blacks.
• South wanted to cancel blacks votes. Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida introduced the poll tax, multiple box voting, or the secret ballot in late 1800s. Next decade a flurry of laws restricted the franchise by requiring a literacy and/or property test. By 1908 former confederate states had removed most blacks and a number or poor or illiterate whites from the electorate.
• Afro-American National League- wanted to act on economic issues. Was a victim of bad organizing and financing.
• ^^^ Competition popped up with the popular farmers movement, The Grange, which formed cooperatives and lobbied state legislators for a graduated income tax and railroad and telegraph regulation.
• The Wheels, Alliances, and Knights initially welcome black members but as the Farmers Alliance grew to become the dominant agricultural organization it yielded to white majority pressure and spurned black members.
• Blacks at one time had their own Colored Farmers Alliance and wanted to cooperate with the white farmers but the whites unacceptance of the blacks voting refrained them from doing so.
• When the Alliance movement formed into POPULISM and that into the POPULIST PARTY blacks found white men like Tom Watson who voiced for economic interests. Election of 1892- some blacks voted for democratic or populist party. The parties defeat led to its demise ending the black effort to cooperate on economical and political issues with southern whites. There were no political measures- bills or elections, to help blacks up to WWI.
• African Americans established schools that were nondiscriminatory but they were underfunded during reconstruction. 2/5ths black children were enrolled in school. Schools would stay open a month or two then close so children could pick cotton.
• Tuskagee was the first industrial school manage by blacks and taught agricultural skills such as farming, brickmaking, carpentering, printing, black-smithing, and house keeping and sewing for girls. Booker T. Washington added as future offerings, tinsmithing, shoemaking, painting and broom making. It had little to do with expanding industries, iron steel, and textiles. Focused on traditional manual trades.
• Buffalo soldiers strung wire, had military posts, opened roads, mapped unknown territories, and located water sources for new settlers.
• Southern whites justified violence against blacks out of fear of color and denial of brain. From 1882-1899 over 2500 blacks were lynched. Excuses included rapes, abuse of white women, and occasional murder.
• Convicts in prison were leased to railroad builders, planters, and mine owners for a pittance b/c of escalated costs. People were starved, beat, murdered, and raped.
• Blacks defensive mechanisms against violence included maturing social stratification and an expanding adherence to the church.
• Some major cities had a lot of African American aristocracy within them.
• Blacks had an impulse of intellectual pursuits making them form literacy clubs. They had dances and cotillions, elaborate weddings, and banquets. The light blacks made up the social elites whereas darker ones were the rank and file. There was no middle class. The black elite: barbering, teaching, government service, small business, and agriculture or at the low income end of professions could be counted as the middle class. The black elite didn't believe it. Northern and southern blacks lacked access to cash, credit, good jobs and upward mobility.
• Northern black elitists feared the influx of southern blacks because they felt it would threaten their fragile power. The southern blacks had different speeches, less educated, farm oriented, darker, and different religious patterns.
• Churches were the largest and most elaborate economic, social, and political institutions organized by African Americans.
• Upper class church services were more participatory and warmer in feeling. Underclass services was more open and inclusive; sermons invited response, hymns were sung with abandon. A center of social life and intercourse.
• Segregated schools in North nut by 19-- most northern states had prohibited separate schools based on race. The south usually segregated schools, housing, and businesses.
• Key case was PLESSY V FERGUSON in 1896 in which a majority found a Louisiana segregation laws constitutional. Law required separate RR's for whites and blacks. Court said this restriction didn't infringe on the liberty of black people enunciated by 13th amendment or rights as citizens. Said it wouldn't lead to expansion of segregation.
• Booker T. Washington said social segregation is okay but whites and blacks should cooperate in economic spheres. Atlanta Compromise: Don't permit our (blacks) grievances to overshadow our opportunities. Said millions could pull the load upward or force it down.
• 1896 marked the first Harvard Ph.D. to a black person, W. E. B. Du Bois, powerful race studies and detailed historical and sociological study.
• Black women wanted same career opportunities as white women.
• A low point in the lives of blacks and whites was when the Northern whites perpetrated physical violence, economic repression, political exclusion, narrowed educational opportunities, and social ostracism.