Gilded Age And Progressive Era

Gilded Age and Progressive Era **While the North was going through its Second Industrial Revolution during the Gilded Age, the South was still trying to reconstruct itself. Eventually a “New South” emerged with a few industries, such as textiles. The West saw the expansion of railroads and pioneer settlements, as well as wars between Indians and the government.

Definition

Presidents

Politics/ Government

Business

Gilded Age (1865-1900) Economy was prosperous, but there were problems with social inequality and corruption in politics & business.

Progressive Era (1890-1920) Fix the problems caused by industrialization: trusts, consumer protection, gov’t reform, environment

Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, B. Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley

Progressive Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson

-patronage = spoils system -political machines (Boss Tweed & Tammany Hall) -Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) = “separate but equal” constitutional -big issue of elections = high tariffs

-Pendleton Civil Service Act = take tests to get gov’t jobs -Populist Party (1892 & 1896 elections) -Robert LaFollette = reform governor -16th Amendment = settles tariff issue with income tax -make government more democratic = 17th Amendment, initiative, referendum, recall, 19th Amendment -TR’s “Square Deal” reforms -Wilson’s “New Freedom” reforms -Federal Reserve = regulate $ supply and interest rates

-Corruption in railroads: -pools -rebates -stock watering -Credit Mobilier -Wabash case = states cannot regulate interstate railroad commerce -laissez-faire = gov’t policy toward business -Industrialists/Big Businessmen (known as either Robber Barons or Captains of Industry): Andrew Carnegie (Steel) -vertical integration -Gospel of Wealth J.P. Morgan (Banks) George Pullman (Sleeping Cars) John D. Rockefeller (Oil) -horizontal integration -trust

-Labor unions = go on strike to improve wages, hours, and working conditions -American Federation of Labor (Samuel Gompers) -Pullman Strike -Haymarket Riot -Railroad regulation: -Interstate Commerce Act (1886) -Hepburn Act -Elkins Act -Regulate big business: -“trustbusting” -Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) -Clayton Anti-Trust Act -Federal Trade Commission -Consumer protection: -Meat Inspection Act -Pure Food and Drug Act -Wilson attacked banks, businesses, & tarriffs

Gilded Age (1865-1900)

Society/Culture

-New Immigrants: -from S & E Europe -very poor and most illiterate -come through Ellis Island on East Coast -rise in nativism -Chinese Exclusion Act -other immigration restrictions -Life in cities: -tenements (overcrowded apts.) -sewage problems -Social Darwinism = millionaires are a product of natural selection -Yellow journalism (Pulitzer & Hearst) = exaggerating or fabricating stories to sell newspapers

Progressive Era (1890-1920) -Improve society & morality: -settlement house movement (Jane Addams & Hull House) -Social Gospel -Prohibition (18th Amendment, Carrie Nation) -Florence Kelley = child labor -Conservation of environment -Get rid of racial inequality: -Booker T. Washington = accommodationist; Tuskegee Institute -W.E.B. DuBois = NAACP -Muckrakers (journalists) -Upton Sinclair = meat-packing; The Jungle -Jacob Riis = How the Other Half Lives -Ida Tarbell = Standard Oil Co. -Lincoln Steffens = city gov’t

Foreign Policy/Affairs: William McKinley
Imperialist Annexation of Hawaii (1898) Spanish-American War (1898) Platt Amendment Annexation of the Philippines (1899) Philippine-American War (1899-1901) Open Door Policy (Sec. of State John Hay) Boxer Rebellion Theodore Roosevelt
Imperialist, Roosevelt Corollary, “Big Stick” Diplomacy Panama Canal (1904-1914) “Bad Neighbor” Policy in Latin America Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) = TR mediated the end to the war and received Nobel Prize Gentlemen’s Agreement (1905) = prohibited immigration from Japan The Great White Fleet (1907) William H. Taft
Dollar Diplomacy Woodrow Wilson
Missionary Diplomacy World War I (1914-1918) US enters war in 1917 Treaty of Versailles (1919) = never signed by US