1. 1877
   1. Year where black would be put back, strikes of white workers not tolerated, industrial and political elites of North and South would take control
      1. Do it with the aid of and expense of black labor, white labor, chinese labor, european immigrant, female
         1. Different rewards for sex, class, origin
            1. Creates separate levels of oppression
2. Changing industry
   1. Steam and electricity replaced human muscle
      1. Machines could now drive steel tools
         1. steal drove textile mill spindles
            1. Sewing machines
      2. Oil could lubricate machines and light homes, factories, steets
         1. People and goods can be transported by trains
            1. Changes the way people live
   2. Iron replaced wood
   3. Steel replaces iron
      1. More coal meant more steel
   4. Telephone, typewriter speeds works of business
      1. This opens endless new forms of doing business and communication
   5. Machines change farming
      1. Ice enables transport of food over long distances
         1. Spirals into meat business
   6. Most of the fortune building was done legally
      1. Help from government and courts
         1. Of course there was illegal activity
3. Immigrants
   1. Immigrants would come from Europe and China
      1. Come specifically to work
         1. Puts together this new labor force
      2. Desperate economic competition
         1. Rigorous labor and low pay
            1. Workers clearly unhappy
   2. New immigrants became laborers, housepainters, stonecutters, ditchdiggers
      1. Usually imported in large groups
         1. Poor conditions
            1. Led to rebellions
         2. Child labor develops
            1. Children involved in a form of slavery
   3. In 1890s 4 million immigrants
      1. create a labor surplus
         1. keeps wages down
            1. easy to control because more helpless
            2. long work hours
            3. unfair conditions
      2. Women immigrants become servants, prostitutes, housewives, factory workers
         1. Knights of Labor
            1. Leonora Barry joins - paid very little and has to provide for a family
            2. Became master workman
         2. Women's assemblies of textile workers and hatmakers went on strike
            1. Saw a series of similar strikes
4. Cities
   1. Farmers unable to buy new machinery or pay new railroad rates would move to the cities
      1. Population rates increased dramatically in cities
5. New inventions
   1. Thomas Edison- electrical devices
      1. Revolutionizes the way in which we live
   2. James Duke
      1. Uses a new cigarette rolling machine to roll, cut, paste, and cut tubes of tobacco that results in a large quantity of cigarrettes
   3. Transcontinental railroad
      1. Construction done by 3000 Irish and 10000 Chinese
         1. They work for 1-2 dollars per day
            1. Worked in all elements of the weather, cold, rainy, etc.
         2. Longer, twisted routs
            1. Wild fraud on the railroads
            2. Leads to more control of railroad finances by bankers
   4. Farming becomes mechanized
      1. Steel plows, mowing machines, reapers, harvesters, improved cotton gins
         1. Specialization developed by region- south= cotton, tobacco, midwest= wheat and corn
         2. Farmers have new costs, hope prices of harvest would stay high
            1. loans of transportation, machines,
            2. they can't control prices, but the monopolized transporters could
            3. Not fair that farmers get the short end of it
            4. Could not pay for their homes
            5. land gets taken away
            6. Government helps bankers and hurts farmer
            7. Texas farmers alliance movement begins
            8. Farmers could get things they needed from the merchant
6. The elite
   1. JP Morgan
      1. Son of a banker
         1. In 1895, gold reserve of the US was depleted
            1. Meanwhile, JP Morgan bank offered to give gold in exchange for bonds
            2. Make profit off of this
            3. Billions in assets
            4. "They control the people through the people's own money"
   2. John D Rockefeller
      1. Became a merchant and decided to go into the industry of oil
         1. Controlled oil refineries
            1. Set up Standard Oil Company
            2. Made secret agreements with railroads to ship his oil in return for discounts to drive other competitors of business
            3. This seems unethical
            4. Controlled the stock of many other companies
            5. Foreign competition kept out by high tariff
   3. Common theme: efficient businessmen build empires and control it
      1. Eliminates competition
         1. Turns into monopolies
   4. Andrew Carnegie
      1. Broker in wall street selling railroad bonds for huge commissions
         1. Quickly became a millionaire
   5. Citizens Committee of businessmen in Chicago
      1. Met daily to map strategy
7. Role of government
   1. U.S. government was behaving like a capitalist state
      1. Serving the interests of the rich
   2. Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
      1. Supposed to regulate railroads on behalf of the consumers
         1. Good intentions, but we know that there is always going to be alterior motives
   3. Sherman Anti-trust act
      1. passed in 1890
         1. Tried to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints
            1. Makes it illegal of "combination and conspiracy"
            2. The wealthy always seem to take advantage of the system
   4. Members generally wealthy
      1. How can they serve the interests of the poor when they don't have the same perspective?
         1. Continues the cycle and grows the wealth gap
         2. Control people not only by force, but laws
   5. 1877 Supreme Court decision approved state laws regulating the prices charge to farmers for the use of grain elevators
      1. Not simply private property but invested with a public interest
         1. So it could be regulated...
   6. 2 yrs after McKinley became president
      1. US declare war on Spain
8. Public School Education
   1. Enabled learning, writing, reading, arithmetic
      1. Literate work force of the new industrial age
   2. Development of a factory-like system in 19th century schoolroom
      1. Continues into 20th century
         1. Curriculum includes history to foster patriotism
            1. Loyalty oaths, teacher certification, citizenship introduced
            2. School officials were given control over textbooks
            3. Some states ban certain books
            4. This creates inequality for students
9. Idea of control
   1. As people become educated, they contemplated the systems and way govt and other outlets try to control their thinking
      1. Formed into great movements of workers and farmers
         1. Beyond scattered striks
            1. Became nationwide movements- threatened the elite
            2. Riots and hatred form among immigrant groups
            3. Irish riot against Jews and funeral
   2. Socialist Labor party forms
      1. Quotes Communist Manifesto
         1. Asks for equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race
      2. Chicago- International Working People's Association forms
         1. Powerful influence in the 22 unions that made up Central Labor Union of Chicago
   3. Idea of 8 hour work day develops
      1. American Federation of Labor calls for nationwide strikes whenever 8 hr work day was refused
         1. Railroad workers support this movement
            1. Can you really imagine longer days than that?
10. Haymarket Square
    1. Radical movement
       1. Young radicals bomb things
          1. Class conflict and violence continues
             1. Stikes, lockout, blacklist
    2. Many people assemble
       1. Police orders crowd to disperse
          1. Bomb explodes
             1. Many injured, several die
             2. Led to international excitement
             3. No evidence who threw bomb, but likely an anarchist
             4. Later on several convicted and hung
11. Trade unions
    1. Formed an Independent Labor party
       1. demands police don't interfere with peaceful protests, grand jurors chosen from lower class as well, sanitary inspections of bulding be conducted, equal pay for women, contract labor eliminated
          1. All reasonable demands
    2. Year of 1886 becomes known as the year of the uprising of labor
       1. Many strikes involving workers
12. South
    1. Blacks dispersed in their work in cotton fields, sugar fields done in gangs
       1. Organized action
          1. They struck to get a dollar a day instead of 75 cents
             1. Violence errupts, strikers arrested and jailed
    2. Native born whites who were poor not doing well
       1. They were tenant farmers not landowners
          1. Slums of southern cities were dirty, unpaved, filled with garbage
             1. No one should live under these conditions
    3. Racism was strong
       1. Southern states draw up new constitution to prevent blacks from voting, segregation
          1. Took the vote away from blacks- poll taxes, literacy, property requirements
             1. This is completely unfair
13. Time of strikes
    1. 1892 strikes all over the country
       1. New Orleans general strike
       2. Coal miners strike in Tennessee
       3. Buffalo railroad strikes
       4. Copper miners stike in Idaho
          1. Many deaths, federal troops brought it
             1. It's scary to see so much military involvement in these strikes
       5. Homestead Steel srike
          1. Henry Clay Frick decided to reduce workers wages and break their union
             1. Workers did not accept pay cut
             2. Frick then laid off entire workforce
             3. Pinkerton detective agency hired to protect strikebreakers
             4. Turns violent, deaths
             5. High sense of injustice
    2. Depression
       1. Lasts for years and brings wave of strikes throughout country
          1. Pullman railroad strike
             1. fight for wages
             2. Turns into huge deal
             3. I would almost be afraid of striking
             4. Appeals to a convention of the American Railway Union
             5. Asks its members not to handle Pullman cars
             6. Boycotting is a peaceful strategy
             7. Militia called in, deaths, wounded people
             8. Debs writes in the Railway times
             9. Issue is socialism vs capitalism
             10. Radical literature begins to surface
       2. Group of white farmers gather to form Farmers Alliance
          1. form cooperatives, buy together, keep prices lower
             1. Grange movement develops- laws passed to help farmers
             2. Farmers are key part, should be treated with respect
             3. Alliances form
             4. Spreading new ideas
             5. Become Populist party
             6. Want abolition of national banks
             7. Turns into Populist party movement
             8. Focus on voting system
             9. Beliefs for racial unity formed
             10. attempt to create a new and independent culture for the country's farmers
             11. Poured out books and pamphlets
             12. Class movement
             13. Farmers and workers were the same material position in society
             14. There was racism and nativism in their thinking
             15. Economic system was the most important thing
             16. Class resentment was high
14. Homestead Act
    1. Move Americans west
       1. fails to bring peace to farm country
          1. free land is gone
    2. Btw 1860-1910, US army wiping out the Indian villages in Great Plains
       1. Provides room for railroads
          1. Eliminate a rich culture for industrialization?