Post on 24-Feb-2016
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Industrializing a Continent
“The Gilded Age”
• Coined by Mark Twain in 1873• Economic and population growth• Industrialization• Westward expansion• Corruption• “Robber barons”
The Second Industrial Revolution
• First: textiles in England and New England• Second: steel, machinery, chemicals• Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit
New Inventions
• Phonograph, light bulb, movies, telephone• Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
The New Working Class
• 1890: 2/3 work for wages• Vs. farming, craft, owning a business• Immigration• Movement to cities
The Reality
• 60 hours or more a week• No protection• 35,000 die a year in work accidents (1880-
1900)
Go West!
• The idea of the “frontier”• Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis (1893)– “safety valve”– Freedom, democracy, economic mobility
The Myth of the West
• Empty• Blank slate• Free enterprise• Individualism
The Reality
• Family migration• Dispossession of Indians• Labor– Chinese and Mexican migrants– Large-scale agriculture in Cali
• The Homestead Act (1862)– 160 acres of federal land for free– Lived on land 5 years, make improvement– 1.6 million homesteads given out– 270 million acres
The Western Economy
• Mining• Cattle• Fruits and veggies in Cali• Wheat• Oil• Tourism in SoCal• Manufacturing in San Francisco & other cities
From Civil War to Indian War
• US Army adapts methods to destroy Indian economy
• Buffalo already reduced by overhunting, demand for hides
Fighting Back
Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse resist US Army
• Resistance broken• Forced onto reservations• Indian children taken from families to
boarding schools
The End
• Dawes Act (1887)– Broke Indian lands into small farms– Sold off much of it to whites– Offered citizenship to “civilized” Indians
• “Ghost Dance” and Wounded Knee Massacre
Global Process
• “Settler societies”• Newcomers move into new territory– Canada– Australia– Argentina– American West
Big Picture
• Westward expansion and industrialization linked• Civil War settled questions and opened up West
to full exploitation• Creation of truly national market through:– new technologies– railroads– settlement– conquest of Indians