VUS 8.a & b, Western Settlement, Immigration, and

Industrialization

Mrs. Saunders

The American WestThe region between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean became populated by settlers at a rapid rate following the Civil War.The time period following the Civil war was the era of the American Cowboy and was characterized by long cattle drives across vast open ranges for hundreds of miles, the only way to get cattle to market.

Cowboys posed by the chuck wagon in a roundup at Belle Fouche, Sturgis, Dakota Territory, 1887. The romantic myth of the cowboy portrayed him as a man working largely alone. While ranch laborers did some of their herding work by themselves, the roundup of cattle ready for market and the long overland cattle drives to the nearest railheads provided opportunity for social interaction.

The American West

Many of the men who found employment working with the western herds on the cattle frontier were former slaves who sought economic independence by moving west. This group of African-American cowboys is posed at a fair at Bonham, Texas, in 1909.

Many Americans had to rebuild their lives after the Civil War and moved west to take advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave free public land in the western territories to settlers who would live on and farm the land.

The American WestLt. Col. George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876), a West Point graduate and a Union officer during the Civil War, was by 1874 an experienced Indian fighter. He had the dubious distinction of having led his 7th Cavalry in the attack against Black Kettle's peaceful band of Cheyenne Indians in November 1867, killing 102 men, women and children in the Washita Massacre.

Sitting Bull (ca. 1831-1890), Chief of the Oglala Sioux Sitting Bull joined forces with the great Sioux warrior Crazy Horse (1849-1877) and rallied 4,000 warriors from the Northern Cheyenne and all of the Sioux bands. He set up camp along the Little Big Horn River, and called unsuccessfully on the Canadian Blackfeet to join him in opposing Lt. Col. George Custer's army force.

The American WestBig Foot was a leader of a small band of Sioux. An advocate of the ghost dance, he led his band of 340, of whom 200 were women and children, off the reservation in 1890. In December of that year they were forced to surrender to the 7th Cavalry. Encamped near Wounded Knee Creek at the instruction of Colonel Forsyth, Big Foot's warriors were ordered to give up their weapons. When there was resistance from some of the younger men, Forsyth's troops opened fire on the camp with volleys from Hotchkiss machine guns . The massacre at Wounded Knee ended with the deaths of Big Foot and most of his band, and ended the last resistance of the Plains Indians.

The bodies of the Indian dead at Wounded Knee (now South Dakota). A storm after the massacre froze the bodies, which were then thrown into mass graves.

The American WestA Sioux camp near the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota, where the population had reached 6,000 in 1890. The destruction of the buffalo herds left the plains Indians dependent upon Indian agents for beef and other food supplies. Such agents were often political appointees who short-changed the Indians of rations and cash payments.

Passage of the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887 attempted to break up the tribal control of reservations by enforcing individual rather than group ownership of land. Any surplus reservation lands remaining when each family head had received his 160-acre allotment was to be sold to white settlers. (1891)

The American WestNew Technologies such as railroads and mechanical reapers opened new lands in the West for settlement and made farming more prosperous. By the turn of the century the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains were no longer a mostly unsettled frontier, but was fast becoming a region of farms, ranches and towns.

Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809-1884), the inventor of the first American mechanical reaper. Cyrus McCormick's 1831 invention of an efficient harvesting machine came to symbolize the technological changes and inventions in agriculture that transformed the prairies from buffalo grazing grounds into vast wheat fields.

His combination rodeo/vaudeville/circus shows helped feed an avid interest in the myths of the old West, even as the frontiers and the "wild Indians" that they supposedly recreated were rapidly disappearing under the pressures of settlement. Chief Sitting Bull spent 1884 touring with Buffalo Bill.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West show was the creation of William Frederick Cody (1846-1917), an army scout and buffalo hunter from Iowa who had worked at railroad camps before organizing his Wild West Show in 1883.

Immigration• Before 1880, most immigrants to America came from northern

and western Europe. Historians have called this first phase of immigration the “old immigration.” Thus, immigrants prior to 1880 usually came from Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries of Norway, and Sweden.

• Between 1880 and World War I, most immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe. This second wave of “new immigrants” came from Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, present-day Hungary and Yugoslavia, as well as the Asian nations of China and Japan. Like their predecessors (those who came earlier), these “new” immigrants came to America seeking freedom (political and religious) and better lives for their families (economic opportunity).

• During the “new immigration,” immigrants from Europe usually entered the United States through Ellis Island in New York harbor. Their first view of America was often the Statue of Liberty, standing nearby, as their ships arrived from their Atlantic voyage.

Immigration

Chinese immigrants at the San Francisco custom house, 1877. Large numbers of Chinese immigrants entered the United States through California ports in the middle of the 19th century. The first wave, mostly of men, came as laborers during the gold rush; a second major wave came during the railroad-building boom in the 1870s. In 1876 alone, 20,000 Chinese immigrants arrived in San Francisco.

Ellis Island, a primary U.S. immigration port. From 1855 to 1892, immigrants who reached New York had arrived by ferry at Castle Garden, where many of the admission procedures were designed to protect immigrants from exploitation and hardship. The explosion of immigration in the 1880s created the need for a more systematic processing center for the millions of newcomers.

Immigration

• Immigration contributed to the rapid growth of such cities, as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and New York. These cities became both manufacturing and transportation centers.

• The rapid growth of cities caused housing shortages and the need for new public services, such as sewage and water systems and public transportation. New York City began construction of the world’s first subway system at the turn of the twentieth century, and many other cities built trolley and streetcar lines.

Immigration

• Immigrants often faced hardship and hostility. Many Americans resented immigrants. They feared immigrants would take jobs for lower pay than American-born workers.

• There was also great prejudice against immigrants based on religious and cultural differences.

• Mounting resentment led Congress to limit immigration through both the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921. The 1921 law effectively cut off most immigration to America until the end of World War II.

Immigrant Contributions

• Chinese workers helped to build the transcontinental railroad. They often faced severe racial prejudice and discrimination, especially in areas like California where they formed a sizeable minority.

• Slavs, Italians and Poles worked in the coalmines of the mid-Appalachian Mountains. Immigrants often worked for very low pay and in dangerous working conditions to help build the nation’s industrial strength.

• Immigrants also worked in textile and steel mills in the Northeast and the clothing industry in New York City.

• Factories in the large cities provided jobs, but workers’ families often lived in harsh conditions crowded into tenements (run-down, low rental apartment buildings) and slums.

Melting Pot or Tossed Salad?

Immigrants began the process of assimilation (making similar/molding) into what some American historians have termed the American “melting pot.” Under the “melting pot” thesis (idea), immigrants from throughout the world have brought their distinct cultures to America. These cultures have then melted together – much like the ingredients in a cake – to form a new and unique American culture. While often settling in ethnic neighborhoods (with people from the same country or culture), immigrants and their children have worked hard to learn English, adopt American customs, and become American citizens. Under the “melting pot” thesis, the public schools have served an essential role in the process of assimilating (absorbing) immigrants into American society.

Melting Pot or Tossed Salad?

Most recent historians have disagreed with all or part of the “melting pot” thesis. These historians compare American society to a “salad bowl” rather than a “melting pot.” These historians argue that many immigrants have worked hard to preserve and pass to their children part of their old world customs and traditions. Therefore, they argue American society is like a “salad bowl.” Likewise, in a salad bowl each type of vegetable (ethnic group) keeps its individual flavor; at the same time, the mixture of vegetables with the addition of a salad dressing (American culture) creates something new.

Melting Pot or Tossed Salad?

Finally, critics of the “melting pot” thesis have argued that institutions like public schools have hurt, as well as helped, immigrants to America. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant native-born Americans (WASPS) usually have both controlled public schools and insisted that public schools teach white Protestant values, history and customs. These critics claim native-born white Protestants have wanted immigrant children to lose their old world customs and adopt WASP culture as their own. For that reason, Roman Catholics started parochial schools (schools run by religious groups) in the United States. Thereby, Roman Catholic leaders hoped to prevent the Protestant-controlled public schools from forcing the children of Roman Catholic immigrants to learn and practice Protestant values and traditions.

Reconstruction to 1920

During the period from the Civil War to World War I, the United States underwent an economic transformation that involved:

• a developing industrial economy

• the expansion of big business

• the growth of large-scale agriculture

• the rise of national labor unions and industrial conflict.

Economic Transformation of America• First, the federal government generally followed a policy of

laissez faire capitalism. (Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership and free competition.) Under capitalism the goal of businesses is to make a profit. The Scottish philosopher Adam Smith had first introduced the policy of laissez faire in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations. Laissez faire was the theory that government should not interfere in economic affairs. Government should leave business alone. It should neither help nor hinder business. Throughout the nineteenth century, the United States government followed laissez faire in that it never hindered business by government regulation. However, the federal government did give business special consideration through such practices as protective tariffs and land grants to railroad builders in the West. In short, the American government’s version of laissez faire did not regulate business, but it did help it.

Economic Transformation of AmericaSecond, the increasing labor supply, caused by both immigration and migration of Americans from the farms to the cities, caused the economic transformation of America.

Third, America’s possession of a wealth of natural resources and navigable rivers also contributed to economic change in the United States.

Inventions and Innovations

Technological change spurred growth of industry primarily in the northern cities. Both inventions and innovations caused this technological change.

The Corporation

One major innovation was the development of the modern corporation:

• replaced family owned businesses as the main form of business organization• a type of business that raises capital (money) through the sale of stock. Stock is shares of ownership in a corporation, and stockholders are part owners of the corporation. •Two advantages of a corporation are its ability to raise large amounts of money and limited liability.

The Corporation

Limited liability (responsibility) means the corporation acts as an artificial legal person. It can sue and be sued, pay taxes, go into debt. Therefore, the corporation itself, rather than the individual stockholders, is responsible for the business’s actions. For example, cancer victims, who were smokers, have successfully sued tobacco companies for damages. However, only the tobacco corporation itself is liable; the individual stockholders are not personally responsible for causing the smokers to develop cancer.

InventionsBessemer steel process made possible the large-scale production of steel. Since steel is both lighter and stronger than the iron from which it is made, steel permitted the construction of skyscrapers in modern American cities.

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) transformed the iron and steel industry by organizing it, introducing new technologies and the economies of large scale investment and manufacture. Born in Scotland, Carnegie served a management apprenticeship at the Pennsylvania Railroad. He took the risk of investing in the expensive technology of the Bessemer steel process, and in 1872 built a giant steel plant just south of Pittsburgh, winning the contract to supply steel for the Brooklyn Bridge in 1878. In 1901 he sold it for $500 million to capitalist J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), under whom it became U. S. Steel. He spent the rest of his life giving the money away.

InventionsThomas Edison invented the light bulb. Soon electricity became a major source of power and light. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.

Telephone and electric wires on a New York City Street, 1884. Like other new industries, the electric industry grew rapidly. Edison supplied his first 85 customers with electricity in 1881; by the mid-1880s, the electric light industry was a highly visible fixture in urban areas. The telephone, invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, also depended upon electric overhead wires to transmit its services to customers. The result was a tangle of overhead wires in most major cities in the nation.

InventionsWright brothers flew the first successful airplane. on December 17, 1903, with the first powered flight of a heavier than air machine, at Kill Devil Hill, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville Wright (1871-1948), a bicycle maker from Dayton, Ohio, piloted the airplane on a flight that lasted twelve seconds and covered 120 feet (less than the 196-foot wingspan of today's Boeing 747 airliner). Later that day, Wilbur Wright managed to stay aloft for 59 seconds, covering 852 feet.

The Wright 1903 airplane engine. The Wrights were unable to find a light-weight engine which would produce the necessary power, so they built this one in their bicycle shop. Photographed at the Wright shop in 1928.

Inventions

Henry Ford used the first conveyor belt assembly line in the manufacture of automobiles. The conveyor belt brought the cars to the workers, each of whom performed a specific task in the assembly process.

At the new Ford plant at Highland Park, Michigan, in 1913, Henry Ford introduced to automobile production the principle of the moving assembly line which was already revolutionizing the meat packing industry. Rewarding his workers with the highest minimum wage in the industry and a profit-sharing plan, Ford pushed them to a rate of production in which a car could be assembled in 93 minutes. In 1914 he produced 248,000 Model T's.

Captains of Industry

The expansion of big business in the late nineteenth century produced several extremely wealthy businessmen, or captains of industry.

– Andrew Carnegie in steel– J.P. Morgan in finance– John D. Rockefeller in oil– Cornelius Vanderbilt in railroads.