1775- English (49%), African (19%), Dutch, German, Scots-Irish, Scottish

Immigrants

1790 Census- 4 million

1798 Alien Laws (Adams)

President could deport dangerous foreigners in times of peace + deport/imprison in times of war
This law expired in 1801

1802 Naturalization Law (Jefferson)

Reduced 14 years of residence to 5 years

1840- Irish and German Immigrants

They came because Europe was running out of room
The US had acres of land
Intro of transoceanic steamships meant immigrants could come speedily and cheaply
Irish- Potato Famine
Tammany Hall attracted these newcomers (Irish stayed on east coast since too poor to go west)
Germans- uprooted farmers and liberal political figures
Germans had modest amount of material goods and pushed west
Immigrants and the American economy needed one another and hence the lack of frequent and very violent battles between immigrants and nativists
Most came North which added man power and wealth to the North at the expense of the South

1877- Chinese

Came to dig in the goldfields and to work on railroad tracks
Forced to work menial jobs- cooks, laundrymen, domestic servants
Following the gold supply being petered out and track already laid, ethnic clashed between Irish and Chinese grew
Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882
Prohibited further immigration from China.
Door stayed shut until 1943
Current Chinese in America were protected by U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)
14th Amendment- birthright citizenship

1870-1920: New Immigrants

Came from southern and eastern Europe.
Italians, Jews, Croats, Slovaks, Greeks, and Poles
Anti-foreign organizations such as the American Protective Association (APA) formed in 1887

1900 Census- of the 76 million Americans, 1/7 of them was foreign born
Women

During American Revolution, women were camp followers (pg. 129)

1776- Abigail Adams- “Remember the Ladies”

Republican Motherhood

aftermath of the Revolutionary War
moral education of the young

1850s- women went from working on the farms to becoming “factory girls” (textile mills)- Lowell

single women worked in the factories
Upon marriage, women assumed the homemaker role (cult of domesticity)
Love replaced arrangement in many cases and the fertility rate dropped (less farm work)

1848- Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls

Lucretia Mott
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Crusade for women’s rights eclipsed by campaign against slavery

During Civil War, women gained new opportunities

Women took men’s jobs
Govt clerks, aka- “government girls”
Industry jobs, spy missions, nurses
Clara Barton, Dorothea Dix

Women’s Loyal League

Gathered signatures on petitions asking Congress to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery
Women focused their efforts on helping African Americans before, during, and after the Civil War
Hoped to eventually receive acceptance of their own
Eventually realized it was the “Negro’s hour” and not theirs
Helped the passage of 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
For the first time, the word “male” was added to 14th Amendment
Women pushed for the word “sex” in 15th Amendment but to no avail

Women in the Industrial Age

Due to growth of technology, women assumed new social and economic opportunities
Gibson Girls
Symbol for growing independence
Career opportunity as typewriters, telephone switchboard operators, and stenographers

Influential Women during the Gilded Age and Onward

Victoria Woodhull
female propagandist, believer of free love, ran for presidency in 1872, and proponent of “new morality”
Jane Addams
Reformer who established the Hull House (in Chicago)
Offered instruction in English, counseling to help newcomers cope with American big-city life, child-care services for working mothers, and cultural activities for neighborhood residents
Other women founded settlement houses in other cities
Florence Kelly
Battler for the welfare of women, children, blacks, and consumers
Worked with the National Consumers League (NCL)
Ida B. Wells
Crusaded against the lynching of African Americans.

1874- Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

Led by Francis E. Willard, a champion of planned parenthood, and crusader against alcohol
Carrie Nation- the bar room smasher

1881- The American Red Cross

Led by Clara Barton

1890- National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

Founders were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

1908- Muller v. Oregon

Law protecting women workers by presenting evidence of the harmful effects of factory labor on women’s weaker bodies

1911- Triangle Shirtwaist Company

146 workers, many women, were killed
Result was better workplace safety measures

WWI

National American Women’s Suffrage Association supported Wilson’s war
The fight for democracy abroad was women’s best hope for winning true democracy at home
Wilson endorsed woman suffrage
19th Amendment was ratified in 1920

African Americans

1600s Plantation Colonies in South relied on slave labor

Tobacco = chief crop; rice was also prominent
Slaves were in demand due to death from Native American population and coast of indentured servants competing for land.
By 1680, rising wages in England and the risk of an early death as an indentured servant kept poor whites from coming to America.
1662 Slave Codes

Slave trade was stopped in 1808

Internal market developed from 1808-1863
Following the end of legal importation of African slaves to the U.S. in 1808, the increase in slave population came not from imports, but from natural reproduction
Slaves were seen as investments (each costing an average of $1200) and were the primary form of wealth

American Revolution

5,000 slaves enlisted in armed forces

Federal Govt. checks on expansion of slavery

Banned slavery in Old Northwest Territory (1787)
Prohibited importation of slaves after 1808
Declared Missouri Compromise of 1820- no slavery north of Missouri

Ei Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in the 1790’s increased dependence on slave labor

Lands acquired from Mexico reopened the question of opening slavery to western states

American Colonization Society (1817) - tried sending African American’s to Liberia

Some 15,000 free blacks were transported there over 4 decades
By 1860, virtually all southern slaves were no longer Africans, but native born African Americans

Black Abolitionists- Sojourner Truth, David Walker, Frederick Douglass

Underground Railroad- Harriet Tubman

Compromise of 1850

Fugitive Slave Law of 1850

Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852

Bleeding Kansas

John Brown- Harper’s Ferry

Preston Brooks caning Charles Sumner in 1856

Post Civil War:

African Americans were “freed in South” following the Emancipation Proclamation
Many moved in large numbers looking for opportunity
From 1878-1880, some 25,000 blacks from Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi left to Kansas
Westward flood of “Exodusters”
Freemen’s Bureau (1765)
Freedmen were unskilled, unlettered, without property or money, not knowing how to survive
Bureau was set up to provide food, clothing, medical care, and education
Also authorized to help former slaves get their promised 40 acres of land
Bureau was controversial. Helped some but took advantage of many
Expired in 1872

African Americans(cont)

Black Codes

African Americans were basically being re-enslaved

Sharecropper Farmers

Slaves to the soil and their creditors
Made the war seem meaningless to the North since things were practically back to pre-war levels in South

Big Changes:

Civil Rights Bill (1866)
13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

Hayes-Tilden Standoff of 1876

Hayes (R) v. Tilden (D)
The Compromise of 1877 essentially ended Reconstruction
Hayes was given the win but in return, the Dems of the South wanted the withdrawal of Federal troops in Louisiana and SC
Political peace came at a price- Republican party abandoned it commitment to racial equality
Tried passing the Civil Rights Act of 1875 (racial equality in public places and prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection) but this was toothless

End of Reconstruction (1877)

Compromise of 1877
Democrats accepted Hayes (Rep) as president in return for the removal of federal troops in the south
With no federal support in the south, blacks were forced into sharecropping

Jim Crow- legal codes of segregation
Literacy requirements, voter registration laws, poll taxes
Supreme Court supported the South’s segregationist social order with Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Separate but equal

Booker T. Washington (1860s- )

Champion of black education
Believed in social equality
Believed economic independence would result in black political and civil rights

W.E.B. DuBois (1860s- )

Demanded complete equality for blacks, social as well as economic, and helped found the NAACP in 1909

World War I

Great Migration- filled jobs in North when white men were sent to war in Europe
Mixing of races led to interracial violence

Native Americans

Thinly spread across the continent- that explains why Europeans felt they “discovered” North America

See map on pg 9

First Anglo-Powhatan War (1614)

Ended after marriage of Pocahontas to colonist John Rolfe

Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1644-1646)

Peace treaty offered no assimilation or peaceful coexistence
Instead, banished Natives from their land (later would be called reservation system)

Once Natives no longer served an economic function (no needed labor or any valuable commodities) they could be disposed of. All they had that a colonist wanted was their land

Indians on Atlantic seaboard felt the most ferocious effects of Euro contact

Inland natives had time, space, and #’s on their side

Wall Street, NY- well constructed to keep Indians out

Following the French and Indian War, with France removed from the picture, the Native Americans could no longer play rival European powers against one another. Had to deal exclusively with Great Britain

Pontiac’s Uprising (1763)

British provided Native American’s with blankets with smallpox
Bloody episode convinced Native American’s and Great Britain to try to stabilize relations
Britain issued the Proclamation of 1763
Colonists had none of it
British also supplied Native American’s in the aftermath of Revolutionary War to reek havoc in Northwest Territory

Indian Removal Act (1830)

Trial of Tears (1830-1846)
Bureau of Indian Affairs est. in 1836

Black Hawk War of 1832

First Seminal War

Second Seminal War (1835-1842)

Receding Native Population

Native Americans numbered 360,000 in 1860

Treaties of Fort Laramie (1851) and Fort Atkinson (1853) marked the beginnings of the reservation system
The railroad and massacre of bison really effected Native American Life
A Century of Dishonor- Helen Hunt Jackson

Indian Wars (1860-1890)

1864- Colonel J.M. Chivington massacred 400 Indians
1866- Sioux massacred Captain William J. Fetterman’s command of 81 soldiers and civilians in response
1874- George Custer lost at the Battle of Little Bighorn
U.S. Army relentlessly hunted down the Indians who had humiliated Custer
1890- Battle of Wounded Knee- the U.S. Army crushed the Sioux

New Direction

Following years of fighting, the U.S. adopted a new Indian policy called the Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
“Kill the Indian and save the man”
Forced assimilation
Remained the government’s official Indian policy for nearly half a century, until the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 which tried to restore the tribal basis of Indian life

Industrialization

Embargo Act of 1807 (Jefferson)

Repealed in 1809 by Congress

Non-Intercourse Act

Opened trade with world except France and GB
Jefferson takes heat for this but actually was a blessing in disguise since and North and South focus on self

An agricultural society was becoming a manufacturing due to the British blockade

Tariff of 1816- for protection; not revenue. In other words, a protective tariff

20-25% on imports
Part of Henry Clay’s American System

Tariff of 1828- tariff of abominations (Jackson)

South felt the tariffs hurt them since they consumed manufactured goods without industry of their own

Compromise Tariff of 1833- tariff reduced by 10% over 8 years (1832-1840). By 1842, rates go back to 1816

1750- Industrial Revolution

Mass production of textiles
Prior, land was cheap and people rather work their own plot of land than work in a factory.
There wasn’t the necessary labor (immigrants) or the capital investment

Samuel Slater- father of the Factory System in America

Production was in the north because capital in the south was bound up in slaves

Samuel Colt- firearms

Eli Whitney- interchangeable parts (link to Ford)

Samuel Morse- telegraph (1844)

National Road in 1812 (aka- Cumberland Road)

Steamboats in 1807

East-West, North-South

Erie Canal (1825)

Railroad (first in 1828)

Fast, reliable, cheaper than canals to construct and didn’t freeze in water
Steel made it efficient

Pony Express (1860)

Antebellum- pre Civil War

Saw transportation revolution, market revolution, and industrial revolution

Tariff of 1842- signed by John Tyler and put rates at 32%

Walker Tariff of 1846- reduced tariff on 1842 from 32% to 25%

Tariff of 1857- during presidency of James Buchannan

Responding from pressures from South reduced duties to 20% (lowest since 1812)

Morrill Tariff Act (1861)- increased the existing duties 5-10% back to almost the Walker Tariff

Protective tariffs became identified with the Republican Party

During Civil War:

Excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol
Also, an income tax was levied for the first time
Helped the North with greater finances than the South

Industrialization (cont)

With Southern leaders out of Congress for four years, the Northern Congress passed tons of one-sided legislation
Morrill Tariff Act
Pacifica Railroad Act
Homestead Act

Due to high tariffs during the Civil War, the US Treasury by 1881 had an annual surplus of $145 million

Lowered tariffs in 1887 but it cost Grover Cleveland his presidency
Republicans united to get Cleveland out of office

McKinley Tariff Act of 1890- raised tariffs to 48%

Protected Republican industrialists from foreign competition

Gilded Age

Three decade post-Civil War era
Age of economic growth
Growth of cities, railroads, industry
Natural Resources
Liquid Capital- European investment
Emergence of the mining industry
Fifty-Niners
The metals helped finance the Civil War, the building of railroads, and enabled the Treasury to resume specie payments in 1879 and injected the silver issue into American politics.

Business

Crusaders were looking for either conquest or trade- sweet tooth for exotic delights

Due to primogeniture (oldest sons were eligible to inherit landed estates) ambitious younger sons (Raleigh, Drake, etc.) sought fortunes elsewhere

Early 1600s – Joint Stock Companies

Investors (aka- adventurers) pooled their capital

Mercantilism- export more than import

Following American Revolution, the Continental Congress printed “continental” paper money in great amounts, rendering it worthless once metallic money was drained away

Inflation = rising prices

Alexander Hamilton

Favored the wealthy
In turn, they would lend the govt. monetary and political support
Prosperity would trickle down to the masses
He got the U.S. out of debt after the American Revolution in two ways:
Excise Revenue (on whiskey)
Custom Duties (tariffs)
Collect taxes, regulate trade, national bank- all fell under the “necessary and proper clause”

1st Panic- aftermath of Revolutionary War

2nd Panic- Panic of 1819- over speculation in frontier lands

Between 1791-1819 nine frontier states joined the original 13
Cheap land and removal of Indians drove people west

Andrew Jackson distrusted the monopolistic banks and over big business

National Government minted gold and silver coins

Paper notes were printed by private banks

Value fluctuated with health of bank + amount printed (private bankers had power over nation’s economy)
Bank of U.S. had most power
The govt deposited their money into this bank
It was a source of credit and stability
As a private institution, it was accountable to its circle of moneyed investors; not the people

Bank War of 1832

Henry Clay presents bill to Congress to renew bank charter in 1832 (4 years before necessary- 1836)
Jackson vetoed the bill calling it unconstitutional in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
Jackson regarded the executive as more powerful than the judicial and legislative branch
After Jackson was re-elected in 1832, he felt he had a mandate from the voters to bury the bank now rather than wait until 1836 when it was due to expire
AJ removed federal deposits from its vaults
AJ authorized the Treasury to issue a Specie Circular
Required all public lands to be purchased with hard (metallic) money
No more speculative boom
Contributed to panic and crash in 1837 (by then Jackson was gone)
Opponents to “King Andrew” formed the Whig Party

Panic of 1837- MVB inherited this from Andrew Jackson

Symptom of financial sickness- rampant speculation and get rich quickism
Other contributors- Speculation of western lands, Jackson’s Bank War, and Specie Circular
Europe was also having financial woes which also affected the US
Fed money was kept in Pet Banks- several dozen state institutions who had Jackson’s sympathy

Business (cont)

Panic of 1857

In pouring California gold helped to inflate the currency
Over stimulated growing of grain
Frenzied speculation in land and railroads

During Civil War

Washington treasury issued greenbacked paper money (supported by gold)
Greenbacks
Grain in North helped dethrone King Cotton and the sale of it contributed to more munitions and supplies

National Banking System (1863)

Launched to stimulate the scale of government bonds
Also helped to establish a standard bank-note currency
National Banking Act
First significant step towards a unified banking system since 1836
Functioned for 50 years until replaced by the Federal Reserve System in 1913

Banking in South

didn’t work out in the South due to the preference of states’ rights and custom duties being choked off by the Union blockade

confederates printed blue-backed paper money
poorly backed, therefore runaway inflation
by the time Lee surrendered, the money was worth 1.6 cents

Following the Civil War the South was a mess