AP Chapter 26

The American

Pageant

Chapter 26

The Great West and

the Agricultural

Revolution,

1865-1896

Cover Slide

Copyright Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Red Cloud's Delegations, 1868

Red Cloud (seated, second from left), with other Oglala Sioux, visited President

Grant at the White House to argue for his people's right to trade at Fort Laramie,

Wyoming. His clothing, unlike the traditional Native American dress of the other

chiefs, reflected his desire to negotiate with whites on equal terms. ( National

Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.)

Red Cloud's Delegations, 1868


Map: Agricultural Regions, 1889-1900

Agricultural Regions, 1889-1900

In the Pacific Northwest and east of the 28-inch-rainfall line, farmers could grow a greater variety of crops. Territory west of

the line was either too mountainous or too arid to support agriculture without irrigation. The grasslands that once fed buffalo

herds now could feed beef cattle.


Map: Mining and Cattle Frontiers, 1860-

1890

Mining and Cattle Frontiers, 1860-1890

The western mining and ranching bonanzas lured thousands of Americans hoping to get rich quick.


Map: Settlement of the Trans-Mississippi West, 1860-

1890

Settlement of the Trans-Mississippi West, 1860-1890

The West was not settled by a movement of peoples gradually creeping westward from the East. Rather, settlers first

occupied California and the Midwest and then filled up the nation's vast interior.


Map: The Development and Natural Resources of the West

The Development and Natural Resources of the West

By 1890 mining, lumbering, and cattle ranching had penetrated many areas west of the Mississippi River, and railroads had

linked together the western economy. These characteristics, along with the spread of agriculture, contributed to the Census

Bureau's observation that the frontier had disappeared; yet, as the map shows, large areas remain undeveloped.


Map: The Oklahoma Land Rush, 1889-1906

The Oklahoma Land Rush, 1889-1906

Lands in Oklahoma not settled by "Sooners" were sold by lotteries, allotments, and sealed-bid auctions. By 1907 the major

reservations had been broken up, and each Native American family had been given a small farm.


Map: U.S. Territorial Expansion in the Late Nineteenth Century

U.S. Territorial Expansion in the Late Nineteenth Century

The major period of U.S. territorial expansion abroad came in a short burst of activity in the late 1890s, when newspapers

and some politicians beat the drums for empire.


Map: Western Indian Reservations, 1890

Western Indian Reservations, 1890

Native-American reservations were almost invariably located on poor-quality lands. Consequently, when the Dawes

Severalty Act broke up the reservations into 160-acre farming tracts, many of the semiarid divisions would not support

cultivation.


Plains Indians

Nomadic warriors Lifestyle centered around the Buffalo (wigwams, food, clothing, etc)

Resisted white encroachment-skilled and aggressive fighters (use of horse)

Warfare: often great cruelty & massacres on both sides

Revenge, punish whites for breaking treaties, defend lands & preserve way of life

Reservations

Some of the most arid lands were set aside for the Indians as their Reservation

Indian agents often corrupt one w/ annual salary of $1,500 saved $50,000 in 4 years

Indian Reservations

Clash of

Cultures Chivingtons Sand

Creek massacre 1864 Battle of the Washita

1868 Custer killed Black Kettle and his people

Wounded Knee 1890 200 Indians killed

Fettermans Massacre Sioux killed 81 soldiers and civilians along the Bozeman Trail 1866 (Government abandoned the Bozeman Trail)

Custers Last Stand

Battle of the Little Big Horn 1876 (Montana)

Custer and 264 Officers and men killed

7th Calvary

Sitting Bull: And 2,500 Sioux

Buffalo Bill Cody Killed over 4,000 Buffalo in 18 months Kansas Railroad

Clash of Cultures Ghost Dance 1890

outlawed bring back all buffalo & warriors - led to battle of wounded Knee

Chief Joseph: Nez Perce led US troops on 1,300 circuitous attempted escape to Canada: finally captured I will fight no more forever 1877 symbolized the end of the Indian Wars

Indians forced to surrender after the end of the buffalo (white butchery) & the Coming of the RR Unlimited troops and supplies; helped defeat the Indians

Indians now placed on the Reservation

Clash of Cultures Geronimo Apache

resisted US & Mexican troops in Arizona and New Mexico

Indian boarding schools Carlisle School for Indians (Pennsylvania) effort to educate Native Americans

Government efforts to assimilate the Indians: Dawes-Severalty Act 1887 dissolved some tribes break up reservations = took away tribal ownership of land - 160 acres of land given to individuals (Indians) who farm for 25 years & give-up tribal ways of life

Class of Cultures

A Century of Dishonor By Helen Hunt Jackson Outlined the many

broken treaties by the US to the Indians

Dawes Severalty Act Promise of citizenship in 25

years of they renounced their way of life make them rugged individuals (farms) assimilation

Wipe out tribal ownership of land & dissolve many tribes as legal entities

Only effort until 1934 Indian Reorganization Act (Indian New Deal) tried to restore tribal ownership of the reservations

Buffalo Soldiers

Mining Pikes Peak gold discovered

Denver Boom Towns fifty niners or

Pikes Peakers Thousands go west 1858 Comstock Lode

Nevada $340 Million Black Hills (Gold) Mining brought large white

populations West Boom town to ghost towns

Individuals Vigilante committees Law and order

responsible citizens, churches, schools farmers

Large mining corporations begin mining Quartz mining deep in the ground - expensive

Gold miners with sluice, c. 1850

At first, gold miners worked individually, each with a shovel and pan. By the 1850s devices

like the one shown here, a "long tom," were making mining a cooperative venture. Miners

shoveled clay, dirt, and stone into a long and narrow box, hosed in water at one end, stirred the

mixture, and waited for the finer gravel, which might include gold, to fall through small holes

and lodge under the box. (The Hallmark Photographic Collection, Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Kansas City, Missouri)

Gold miners with sluice, c. 1850


Women = found work

running boarding

houses Gained

equality sooner:

Wyoming1869

Utah1870

Colorado 1893

Idaho 1896

Cattle Kingdom

After Civil war Texas Longhorns Long Drive From

Texas to cow towns the RR terminals of: Abilene, Kansas Dodge City, Ogallala, Nebraska Cheyenne, Wyoming etc.

of cowboys are black

Range Wars vs. Cattlemen and sheep herders

Homestead Act of 1862 160 acres given was not enough in the West

Winter of 1886-7 cowherds die out

End of the Cattle Kingdom & the cowboy era

Great Plains

Homestead Act 1862 160 acres of land- too small to be productive

Sodbusters sod homes soddies

Hard life lack of water dry farming,

Fencing: barbed wire-Joseph F. Glidden 1874

Farm tenancy renters

Oklahoma 1889 opened for homesteading Sooners jumped the gun staked claims eighty niners 10,000 in one day

Farmers began to rely on one crop Wheat or Corn

Poor market and harsh winters ended the era by 1890s

Large Bonanza Wheat farms begin to take over: Farms owned by corporations not individuals

Frederick Jackson Turner Frontier thesis Significance of the

Frontier in American History American character: result of the West

individualistic, independent, hard-working West also served as a safety valve

immigrants who would have overcrowded cities, forced Easterners to pay higher wages, land of opportunity for farmers & Easterners, farmers could sell for a profit $$$

Farmers

Isolation on farms, drought, winds, floods, early and late frosts - tough life

National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry Oliver H. Kelly social, educational and finally a political organization- Regulation of Railroads Granger laws in some states: over-ruled by Wabash Case 1886 which will lead to the

Interstate Commerce Act (Federal control of trade) Huge problem overproduction This leads to tenant farming in Midwest & South

Greenback-Labor Party

Want greenbacks still in circulation cheap money

Too little money in circulation and this would lead to inflation (felt problems were because of deflated currency)

High-water mark: 1878: pooled 3% of population, their presidential candidate was James B. Weaver

Farmers Alliances

Northwestern Farmers Alliance formed to try to break the grip of the Railroads by cooperative buying and selling

Southern Farmers Alliance split :Southern Colored Farmers Alliance

Meet in Ocala, Florida several populist demands of reform

Peoples (Populists) Party

Successor to Greenback-Labor Party

Omaha Platform 1892

1. Sub-treasures warehouses

2. End national banks 3. End absentee

ownership of land 4. Direct election of

Senators

5. Government ownership of RR, telephone, telegraphs

6. Government ownership of postal savings banks

Graduated income taxes

Inflation of currency More socialistic-like

Peoples (Populists) Party

Successes controlled 12 states, 6 governors, 3 Senators, 50 members of congress

James B. Weaver Presidential Candidate in 1892 won 1 million votes 22 electoral votes

Mary Elizabeth Lease,

farmers should raise

more hell and less corn

Panic of 1893

Most severe depression to date 18% or higher unemployment

Philadelphia and Reading RR went bankrupt

Stock market crashes Cause: RR expansion & speculation 8,000 business go under 156 railroads,

400 banks

Coxeys Army 1894

March on Washington DC to protest the economic situation

Demands 1. more money in circulation and 2. government works programs to get people working again

Coxey's Army

Jacob Coxey's "army" of the unemployed reaches the outskirts of Washington, D.C.,

in 1894. Note the new electrical or telephone poles. (Library of Congress)

Coxey's Army


Pullman Strike 1894

The Pullman Strike: nationwide conflict between labor unions and railroads in 1894.

The conflict began in the town of Pullman, Illinois on May 11 when approximately 3,000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages, bringing traffic west of Chicago to a halt.

Pullman Strike

The American Railway Union, the nation's first industry-wide union, led by Eugene V. Debs, subsequently became embroiled in what The New York Times described as "a struggle between the greatest and most important labor organization and the entire railroad capital" that involved some 250,000 workers in 27 states at its peak.

Labor unions, Populists & debtors saw the strike as proof of an alliance between business, federal government & courts against working class

Pullman Strike 1894

John Peter Altgeld Governor of Illinois supported the strike

Richard Olney US Attorney General (former RR Attorney) held that the strike interfered with the US Mail

President Grover Cleveland supported this idea & Federal troops were sent in : Also, 1st use of a government Court injunction to end the strike

Eugene v. Debs is sentenced to 6 months jail he had defied a court injunction

King Debs This famous cartoon about the Pullman strike, originally published July 14, 1894, in Harper's Weekly, shows Eugene Debs, head of the American Railway Union, sitting atop a railway bridge that has been turned to cut off all rail traffic. The railroad cars behind him are labeled "fresh vegetables," "beef," and "fruit," to emphasize the perishable nature of the products that could not be delivered, and others are identified as "U.S. Mail." In the background, factories have "closed" signs on them. This cartoon, and others like it, helped to mobilize opinion against the strikers. (Library of Congress)

King Debs


1896 Election

Republican William McKinley

supported by the wealth of Marcus Alonzo Hanna

Gold bugs support gold standard some Democrats bolt the party and vote McKinley

McKinley wins 271 EV to 176 (close popular vote)

Democrats William Jennings Bryan 36

Nebraska Energetic & charismatic, great

orator, radiated honesty and sincerity

Famous Cross of Gold speech you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of Gold

promoting silverites: cause Unlimited coinage of silver major issue of election

Front Porch Campaign

William Jennings Bryan

Bryan depicted as a Populist snake swallowing the Democratic Party; 1896 cartoon

A Republican satire on Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech 1896

Aftermath of the 1896

election Republican victory a

victory for big business, big cities, middle-class values & financial conservatives.

McKinley was an ear-to-the-ground politician but did have ability

Dingley Tariff passed to raise more revenue (46.5%)

Prosperity returned & Republicans took credit

Gold Standard Act 1900 paper $ redeemed in Gold

Gold discoveries in Alaska, the Klondike, Africa (more gold in world market) loosened monetary supply

Cheap cyanide process for extracting gold

AP Chapter 26

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