Reconstruction 1865-1877
Only lasted five years from1865 to 1870,
How long did Freedman's bureau last?
A. A legal organization where the affairs of rival companies or competitors are managed by one single director.
B. This banned any practices that restricted free trade. Although the confines of the act were vague and often difficult to enforce, it helped establish the precedent that the government could regulate certain aspects of the economy to promote the public's well-being.
A. What is a trust?
B. What is the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?
A. High-profile businessmen, were either labeled as “captains of Industry”
B. This was an attempt to put in place acts before voting that seemingly only white people could possess. Such as a poll tax (which was a fee people had to pay to retain their right to vote), literacy tests, and demonstrations to election officials of ones understanding of the state constitution.
A. What is a Robber Baron?
B. What is disenfranchisement?
A period of explosive economic growth, increasing production, and rising population
The economy grew by 85%
Progressive politics focused mainly on cities and urban areas because that's where most of the population resides
What is the progressive era?
- Reached its greatest point of influence in the progressive era
- Called for free education, improving the condition of laborers, and mostly democratic control over the economy through public ownership of railroads and factories.
What is the socialist party?
A government experiment to place agents in the southern states to help further the advancement of African Americans.
What is Freedmen's Bureau?
Ensures that railroad rates did not favor specific shippers and were “reasonable” for farmers and merchants so they could continue to transport goods.
What is Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)?
- There was an escalation for demands that the U.S intervene and on February 15th 1898 an explosion board the battleship USS Maine killed nearly 270 sailors and destroyed the warship.
- To this day there is debate whether the explosion was an accident or an actual act of aggression.
- The war lasted only 4 months and resulted in less than 400 U.S. combat deaths.
- The war ended in December of 1898 when Spain conceded control of Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in the signing of the 1898 Treaty of Paris.
What is the Spanish – American War?
What is the 17th Amendment?
Negotiation of wages or other conditions of employment by a body of employees.
What is Collective Bargaining?
There were less than 1,000 agents dispersed amongst the entirety of the southern states.
What happened at the peak of the bureau’s operations?
- A famous financer who combined ten different steel companies to create what would be the first Billion-dollar enterprise in 1901.
- His involvement in both standard oil and International Harvester (manufacturing agricultural machinery) also dominated their industries.
Who is J.P. Morgan?
They took a different approach as they have seen that protesting against massive corporations made little to no progress.
They believed that labor unions should not seek economic independence and a “cooperative commonwealth”. But they should focus more on negations for higher and reasonable wages as well as better and safer working conditions.
What is the American Federation of Labor (AFL)?
- Established by congress in 1914, the purpose was to prohibit unfair business activities such as price-fixing or monopolistic practices.
- It was welcomed by many business owners as they believed these additions would help restore the order of the economic marketplace.
- Reflected the remarkable expansion of the federal role in the economy during the Progressive era.
What is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)?
- Democrat
- Called his program the New Freedom. He envisioned federal government strengthening anti trust laws, protecting workers rights to unionize, and encouraging small business which would lead to a renewal for economic
competition.
Who is Woodrow Wilson?
- establishing schools
- providing aid to the elderly and those struggling financially
- settle disputes and conflicts that may arise between now free people and white southerners
- practice equal treatment especially within the court system.
What were freedmen's bureau agents were often tasked with?
- Established a steel company that used Vertical Integration which is when a company owns every phase of the business from raw material to final product.
- He dominated the steel industry in the 1890s and his steel mills were regarded as the most technologically advanced in the world.
- With no corporate income taxes during this time, it meant that he would establish enormous wealth and economic power and his worth quickly grew to the hundreds of millions.
- His rise from humble beginnings reinforced the rags to riches ideology that spread amongst Americans during the Gilded Age
Who is Andrew Carnegie?
- A group founded in 1894 and spread rapidly across the country making distinctions of who was an “old” or “new” immigrant.
- They called for reducing immigration by prohibiting those who were illiterate from entering the United States as a way of adding to the “quality” of the American population.
- In addition to refusing to accept people who were illiterate, this league also prohibited the acceptance of people who were labeled as insane, epileptics, or anarchists.
- Although they restricted immigrants from entering the United States based on some of these personal attributes, they excluded all Chinese immigrants all together.
What is the Immigration Restriction League?
- Part of the republican party
- Supported Wilson's New Nationalism program
Who is Theodore Roosevelt?
With democrats now in control of congress Wilson moved to implement his version of progressivism.
• The Underwood Tariff – Reduced taxes on imports to make up for lost revenue.
• Imposed an income tax on the richest 5% of Americans.
• Clayton Act of 1914 – Exempted labor unions from Anti Trust laws and prohibited courts from issuing injunctions outlawing the right to strike or protest.
What did Woodrow Wilson do in his first term of presidency?
President Andrew Johnson, a sympathizer for the South, now ordered all federal land to be returned to its former owners.
What contributed to the failure of the land reform and Freedman's bureau?
- Dominated the oil industry by driving out complete oil firms with fierce competition, secret deals with railroad companies, and fixing prices and quotas.
= He used Horizontal Expansion – buying out complete oil refineries
- He also used vertical integration and soon established a monopoly on the oil industry.
- During the 1880s his Standard Oil company controlled 90% of the entire nations oil industry.
Who is John D. Rockefeller?
After defeating the Spanish and deciding to keep control of the Philippines with a constitution modeled on the United States the Philippines fight for freedom soon turned against the Americans.
- The conflict lasted from 1899-1903 and claimed the lives of 4,200 Americans and nearly 100,000 Filipino natives.
- Once in control of the Philippines again, modernization of the islands took place.
- The United States expanded railroads and harbors, brought in school teachers and public health officials, and sought out to modernize the agriculture.
- Some United States officials claimed that President McKinley had an obligation to help modernize the islands and their people.
What was The Philippine War?
- A railroad union leader (jailed after the Pullman Strike) and spent years traveling the country spreading his ideas within the Socialist party.
- For the 1912 presidential election ____ would receive 900,000 votes (6% of the population).
Who is Eugene Debs?
This system consisted of twelve regional banks and were overseen by a central board of commissioners appointed by the President and were tasked with:
• Dealing with the issuance of currency
• Supporting banks in danger of failing
• Influencing interest rates to promote economic growth