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Gilded Age. Pulling it all together…. Gilded Age and Race/Ethnic Conflict. African-Americans Civil Rights Cases (1883) Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Lynchings Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” Anti-Chinese Agitation in West Dennis Kearny Chinese Exclusion Act Nativism in the East
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Gilded Age Pulling it all together…
Gilded Age and Race/Ethnic Conflict • African-Americans • Civil Rights Cases (1883) • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) • Lynchings • Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” • Anti-Chinese Agitation in West • Dennis Kearny • Chinese Exclusion Act • Nativism in the East • New immigrants • Restrictions: 1882 Immigration Law; 1885 Contract Labor Law • American Protective Association – wants a literacy test • Labor unions seen as “foreign” / un-American
Reform • Political • Civil Service Reform – Pendleton Act • City Bosses / Corruption exposed • Municipal services begin • Beginning of regulation of businesses: • Interstate Commerce Act / ICC • Sherman Anti-Trust Act • Social • Social Gospel: YMCA; Salvation Army; • WCTU; Carrie Nation • Philanthropy
Politics • Major trends • Close elections; consensus on most major issues • Big issues that divide: • Tariffs & Surplus • High tariffs: McKinley Tariff (1890) • Cleveland fights for a lower tariff, but fails. Wilson-Gorman Tariff includes an income tax (struck down) • Civil Service Reform • Stalwarts and Halfbreeds • Garfield assassination • Pendleton Act • Monetary Policy • Inflationary aka “soft money” (paper money or bimetalism) • Deflationary aka “hard money” (gold standard) • Major issue in the 1896 election
Organized Labor • Organizes in response to conditions in workplace: • NLU = first union; one big union for all workers; 8 hour day; crushed by Panic of 1873 • Knights of Labor = broadly organized; Terrence Powderly; women, men, African-Ams; skilled/unskilled; gets into bigger economic issues: safety concerns; cooperatives; etc. Hurt by 1886 Haymarket Riot • AFL: federation of smaller craft-based unions; skilled workers only; “bread and butter issues” (hours, wages, conditions)
Strikes • Great Strike 1877 • Homestead Strike 1893 • Pullman Strike 1894
Debtors Organize • Coxey’s Army (1894) • Reaction to the Panic • Called for government action (jobs creation) to help unemployed • Coxey’s Army marches to Washington, D.C.; arrested • Populist Party (1892) • Political party formed to address concerns of farmers. • Roots in the Grange and Farmer’s Alliance movements. • Platform: calls for “free silver” (bimetallism) to spark inflation; graduated income tax; government loans to farmers; regulation of RRs; and Australian (secret) ballot. • Runs a presidential candidate in 1892; gains seats in western state legislatures and governerships. • 1896 “fusion” with Democratic Party both PP and DP endorse William Jennings Bryan; free silver is the major issue; fails to draw in urban/industrial workers.