2024 State of Marketing Report – by HubspotMarius Sescu
https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
· Scaling relationships and proving ROI
· Social media is the place for search, sales, and service
· Authentic influencer partnerships fuel brand growth
· The strongest connections happen via call, click, chat, and camera.
· Time saved with AI leads to more creative work
· Seeking: A single source of truth
· TLDR; Get on social, try AI, and align your systems.
· More human marketing, powered by robots
ChatGPT is a revolutionary addition to the world since its introduction in 2022. A big shift in the sector of information gathering and processing happened because of this chatbot. What is the story of ChatGPT? How is the bot responding to prompts and generating contents? Swipe through these slides prepared by Expeed Software, a web development company regarding the development and technical intricacies of ChatGPT!
Product Design Trends in 2024 | Teenage EngineeringsPixeldarts
The realm of product design is a constantly changing environment where technology and style intersect. Every year introduces fresh challenges and exciting trends that mold the future of this captivating art form. In this piece, we delve into the significant trends set to influence the look and functionality of product design in the year 2024.
How Race, Age and Gender Shape Attitudes Towards Mental HealthThinkNow
Mental health has been in the news quite a bit lately. Dozens of U.S. states are currently suing Meta for contributing to the youth mental health crisis by inserting addictive features into their products, while the U.S. Surgeon General is touring the nation to bring awareness to the growing epidemic of loneliness and isolation. The country has endured periods of low national morale, such as in the 1970s when high inflation and the energy crisis worsened public sentiment following the Vietnam War. The current mood, however, feels different. Gallup recently reported that national mental health is at an all-time low, with few bright spots to lift spirits.
To better understand how Americans are feeling and their attitudes towards mental health in general, ThinkNow conducted a nationally representative quantitative survey of 1,500 respondents and found some interesting differences among ethnic, age and gender groups.
Technology
For example, 52% agree that technology and social media have a negative impact on mental health, but when broken out by race, 61% of Whites felt technology had a negative effect, and only 48% of Hispanics thought it did.
While technology has helped us keep in touch with friends and family in faraway places, it appears to have degraded our ability to connect in person. Staying connected online is a double-edged sword since the same news feed that brings us pictures of the grandkids and fluffy kittens also feeds us news about the wars in Israel and Ukraine, the dysfunction in Washington, the latest mass shooting and the climate crisis.
Hispanics may have a built-in defense against the isolation technology breeds, owing to their large, multigenerational households, strong social support systems, and tendency to use social media to stay connected with relatives abroad.
Age and Gender
When asked how individuals rate their mental health, men rate it higher than women by 11 percentage points, and Baby Boomers rank it highest at 83%, saying it’s good or excellent vs. 57% of Gen Z saying the same.
Gen Z spends the most amount of time on social media, so the notion that social media negatively affects mental health appears to be correlated. Unfortunately, Gen Z is also the generation that’s least comfortable discussing mental health concerns with healthcare professionals. Only 40% of them state they’re comfortable discussing their issues with a professional compared to 60% of Millennials and 65% of Boomers.
Race Affects Attitudes
As seen in previous research conducted by ThinkNow, Asian Americans lag other groups when it comes to awareness of mental health issues. Twenty-four percent of Asian Americans believe that having a mental health issue is a sign of weakness compared to the 16% average for all groups. Asians are also considerably less likely to be aware of mental health services in their communities (42% vs. 55%) and most likely to seek out information on social media (51% vs. 35%).
AI Trends in Creative Operations 2024 by Artwork Flow.pdfmarketingartwork
This article is all about what AI trends will emerge in the field of creative operations in 2024. All the marketers and brand builders should be aware of these trends for their further use and save themselves some time!
2024 State of Marketing Report – by HubspotMarius Sescu
https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
· Scaling relationships and proving ROI
· Social media is the place for search, sales, and service
· Authentic influencer partnerships fuel brand growth
· The strongest connections happen via call, click, chat, and camera.
· Time saved with AI leads to more creative work
· Seeking: A single source of truth
· TLDR; Get on social, try AI, and align your systems.
· More human marketing, powered by robots
ChatGPT is a revolutionary addition to the world since its introduction in 2022. A big shift in the sector of information gathering and processing happened because of this chatbot. What is the story of ChatGPT? How is the bot responding to prompts and generating contents? Swipe through these slides prepared by Expeed Software, a web development company regarding the development and technical intricacies of ChatGPT!
Product Design Trends in 2024 | Teenage EngineeringsPixeldarts
The realm of product design is a constantly changing environment where technology and style intersect. Every year introduces fresh challenges and exciting trends that mold the future of this captivating art form. In this piece, we delve into the significant trends set to influence the look and functionality of product design in the year 2024.
How Race, Age and Gender Shape Attitudes Towards Mental HealthThinkNow
Mental health has been in the news quite a bit lately. Dozens of U.S. states are currently suing Meta for contributing to the youth mental health crisis by inserting addictive features into their products, while the U.S. Surgeon General is touring the nation to bring awareness to the growing epidemic of loneliness and isolation. The country has endured periods of low national morale, such as in the 1970s when high inflation and the energy crisis worsened public sentiment following the Vietnam War. The current mood, however, feels different. Gallup recently reported that national mental health is at an all-time low, with few bright spots to lift spirits.
To better understand how Americans are feeling and their attitudes towards mental health in general, ThinkNow conducted a nationally representative quantitative survey of 1,500 respondents and found some interesting differences among ethnic, age and gender groups.
Technology
For example, 52% agree that technology and social media have a negative impact on mental health, but when broken out by race, 61% of Whites felt technology had a negative effect, and only 48% of Hispanics thought it did.
While technology has helped us keep in touch with friends and family in faraway places, it appears to have degraded our ability to connect in person. Staying connected online is a double-edged sword since the same news feed that brings us pictures of the grandkids and fluffy kittens also feeds us news about the wars in Israel and Ukraine, the dysfunction in Washington, the latest mass shooting and the climate crisis.
Hispanics may have a built-in defense against the isolation technology breeds, owing to their large, multigenerational households, strong social support systems, and tendency to use social media to stay connected with relatives abroad.
Age and Gender
When asked how individuals rate their mental health, men rate it higher than women by 11 percentage points, and Baby Boomers rank it highest at 83%, saying it’s good or excellent vs. 57% of Gen Z saying the same.
Gen Z spends the most amount of time on social media, so the notion that social media negatively affects mental health appears to be correlated. Unfortunately, Gen Z is also the generation that’s least comfortable discussing mental health concerns with healthcare professionals. Only 40% of them state they’re comfortable discussing their issues with a professional compared to 60% of Millennials and 65% of Boomers.
Race Affects Attitudes
As seen in previous research conducted by ThinkNow, Asian Americans lag other groups when it comes to awareness of mental health issues. Twenty-four percent of Asian Americans believe that having a mental health issue is a sign of weakness compared to the 16% average for all groups. Asians are also considerably less likely to be aware of mental health services in their communities (42% vs. 55%) and most likely to seek out information on social media (51% vs. 35%).
AI Trends in Creative Operations 2024 by Artwork Flow.pdfmarketingartwork
This article is all about what AI trends will emerge in the field of creative operations in 2024. All the marketers and brand builders should be aware of these trends for their further use and save themselves some time!
A report by thenetworkone and Kurio.
The contributing experts and agencies are (in an alphabetical order): Sylwia Rytel, Social Media Supervisor, 180heartbeats + JUNG v MATT (PL), Sharlene Jenner, Vice President - Director of Engagement Strategy, Abelson Taylor (USA), Alex Casanovas, Digital Director, Atrevia (ES), Dora Beilin, Senior Social Strategist, Barrett Hoffher (USA), Min Seo, Campaign Director, Brand New Agency (KR), Deshé M. Gully, Associate Strategist, Day One Agency (USA), Francesca Trevisan, Strategist, Different (IT), Trevor Crossman, CX and Digital Transformation Director; Olivia Hussey, Strategic Planner; Simi Srinarula, Social Media Manager, The Hallway (AUS), James Hebbert, Managing Director, Hylink (CN / UK), Mundy Álvarez, Planning Director; Pedro Rojas, Social Media Manager; Pancho González, CCO, Inbrax (CH), Oana Oprea, Head of Digital Planning, Jam Session Agency (RO), Amy Bottrill, Social Account Director, Launch (UK), Gaby Arriaga, Founder, Leonardo1452 (MX), Shantesh S Row, Creative Director, Liwa (UAE), Rajesh Mehta, Chief Strategy Officer; Dhruv Gaur, Digital Planning Lead; Leonie Mergulhao, Account Supervisor - Social Media & PR, Medulla (IN), Aurelija Plioplytė, Head of Digital & Social, Not Perfect (LI), Daiana Khaidargaliyeva, Account Manager, Osaka Labs (UK / USA), Stefanie Söhnchen, Vice President Digital, PIABO Communications (DE), Elisabeth Winiartati, Managing Consultant, Head of Global Integrated Communications; Lydia Aprina, Account Manager, Integrated Marketing and Communications; Nita Prabowo, Account Manager, Integrated Marketing and Communications; Okhi, Web Developer, PNTR Group (ID), Kei Obusan, Insights Director; Daffi Ranandi, Insights Manager, Radarr (SG), Gautam Reghunath, Co-founder & CEO, Talented (IN), Donagh Humphreys, Head of Social and Digital Innovation, THINKHOUSE (IRE), Sarah Yim, Strategy Director, Zulu Alpha Kilo (CA).
Trends In Paid Search: Navigating The Digital Landscape In 2024Search Engine Journal
The search marketing landscape is evolving rapidly with new technologies, and professionals, like you, rely on innovative paid search strategies to meet changing demands.
It’s important that you’re ready to implement new strategies in 2024.
Check this out and learn the top trends in paid search advertising that are expected to gain traction, so you can drive higher ROI more efficiently in 2024.
You’ll learn:
- The latest trends in AI and automation, and what this means for an evolving paid search ecosystem.
- New developments in privacy and data regulation.
- Emerging ad formats that are expected to make an impact next year.
Watch Sreekant Lanka from iQuanti and Irina Klein from OneMain Financial as they dive into the future of paid search and explore the trends, strategies, and technologies that will shape the search marketing landscape.
If you’re looking to assess your paid search strategy and design an industry-aligned plan for 2024, then this webinar is for you.
5 Public speaking tips from TED - Visualized summarySpeakerHub
From their humble beginnings in 1984, TED has grown into the world’s most powerful amplifier for speakers and thought-leaders to share their ideas. They have over 2,400 filmed talks (not including the 30,000+ TEDx videos) freely available online, and have hosted over 17,500 events around the world.
With over one billion views in a year, it’s no wonder that so many speakers are looking to TED for ideas on how to share their message more effectively.
The article “5 Public-Speaking Tips TED Gives Its Speakers”, by Carmine Gallo for Forbes, gives speakers five practical ways to connect with their audience, and effectively share their ideas on stage.
Whether you are gearing up to get on a TED stage yourself, or just want to master the skills that so many of their speakers possess, these tips and quotes from Chris Anderson, the TED Talks Curator, will encourage you to make the most impactful impression on your audience.
See the full article and more summaries like this on SpeakerHub here: https://speakerhub.com/blog/5-presentation-tips-ted-gives-its-speakers
See the original article on Forbes here:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2016/05/06/5-public-speaking-tips-ted-gives-its-speakers/&refURL=&referrer=#5c07a8221d9b
ChatGPT and the Future of Work - Clark Boyd Clark Boyd
Everyone is in agreement that ChatGPT (and other generative AI tools) will shape the future of work. Yet there is little consensus on exactly how, when, and to what extent this technology will change our world.
Businesses that extract maximum value from ChatGPT will use it as a collaborative tool for everything from brainstorming to technical maintenance.
For individuals, now is the time to pinpoint the skills the future professional will need to thrive in the AI age.
Check out this presentation to understand what ChatGPT is, how it will shape the future of work, and how you can prepare to take advantage.
A brief introduction to DataScience with explaining of the concepts, algorithms, machine learning, supervised and unsupervised learning, clustering, statistics, data preprocessing, real-world applications etc.
It's part of a Data Science Corner Campaign where I will be discussing the fundamentals of DataScience, AIML, Statistics etc.
Time Management & Productivity - Best PracticesVit Horky
Here's my presentation on by proven best practices how to manage your work time effectively and how to improve your productivity. It includes practical tips and how to use tools such as Slack, Google Apps, Hubspot, Google Calendar, Gmail and others.
The six step guide to practical project managementMindGenius
The six step guide to practical project management
If you think managing projects is too difficult, think again.
We’ve stripped back project management processes to the
basics – to make it quicker and easier, without sacrificing
the vital ingredients for success.
“If you’re looking for some real-world guidance, then The Six Step Guide to Practical Project Management will help.”
Dr Andrew Makar, Tactical Project Management
Unlocking the Power of ChatGPT and AI in Testing - A Real-World Look, present...Applitools
During this webinar, Anand Bagmar demonstrates how AI tools such as ChatGPT can be applied to various stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC) using an eCommerce application case study. Find the on-demand recording and more info at https://applitools.info/b59
Key takeaways:
• Learn how to use ChatGPT to add AI power to your testing and test automation
• Understand the limitations of the technology and where human expertise is crucial
• Gain insight into different AI-based tools
• Adopt AI-based tools to stay relevant and optimize work for developers and testers
* ChatGPT and OpenAI belong to OpenAI, L.L.C.
More than Just Lines on a Map: Best Practices for U.S Bike Routes
This session highlights best practices and lessons learned for U.S. Bike Route System designation, as well as how and why these routes should be integrated into bicycle planning at the local and regional level.
Presenters:
Presenter: Kevin Luecke Toole Design Group
Co-Presenter: Virginia Sullivan Adventure Cycling Association
Ride the Storm: Navigating Through Unstable Periods / Katerina Rudko (Belka G...DevGAMM Conference
Has your project been caught in a storm of deadlines, clashing requirements, and the need to change course halfway through? If yes, then check out how the administration team navigated through all of this, relocating 160 people from 3 countries and opening 2 offices during the most turbulent time in the last 20 years. Belka Games’ Chief Administrative Officer, Katerina Rudko, will share universal approaches and life hacks that can help your project survive unstable periods when there seem to be too many tasks and a lack of time and people.
This presentation was designed to provide strategic recommendations for a brand in decline. The deck also incorporates a situational assessment, including a brand identity, positioning, architecture, and portfolio strategy for the Brand.
Presentation originally created for NYU Stern's Brand Strategy course. Design by Erica Santiago & Chris Alexander.
Good Stuff Happens in 1:1 Meetings: Why you need them and how to do them wellSaba Software
According to the latest State of the American Manager report from Gallup, employees who have regular meetings with their managers are almost three times as likely to be engaged as those who don’t. These regular check-ins keep managers and employees in sync and aligned. Want to see better manager/employee relationships in your organisation? Then make an all-in commitment to 1:1 meetings. Not sure how? You’ve come to the right place.
In this webinar with Jamie Resker, Founder and Practice Leader for Employee Performance Solutions (EPS), and Teala Wilson, Talent Management Consultant at Saba Software, you’ll get the inside track on how to hold effective 1:1 meetings, including tips for getting managers on board.
• Go beyond discussing the status of everyday work to higher level topics, including recognition, performance, development, and career aspirations
• Learn how to decide meeting frequency, what to cover, as well as roles and responsibilities of the manager and employee
• Understand how managers can build trust and make it comfortable for employees to provide upward feedback
• Unite your organisation with a unified approach to 1:1 meetings
Join us for this 1-hour webinar to get practical tips for building better manager-employee relationships with intention and purpose.
About the Speakers
Jamie Resker - Founder and Practice Leader for Employee Performance Solutions (EPS)
Jamie Resker, Practice Leader and Founder of Employee Performance Solutions, is a recognized innovator in performance management. She is the originator of the-the Performance Continuum Feedback Method® and Conversations to Optimize Employee Performance training program; tools and training that reshape communications between managers and employees to drive and align performance. Jamie is on the faculty for the Northeast Human Resources Association, is a contributor to Halogen Software's Talent Space Blog, and is an editorial advisory board member for HR Examiner.
Teala Wilson - Senior Consultant, Strategic Services, Saba Software
Teala is a Talent Management Consultant at Halogen Software, now a part of Saba Software. She has worked with teams on a national and global level supporting human resources in areas such as performance management, recruitment, employee benefit programs, training and talent development, workforce planning and internal communications. Teala also has a personal passion for visual arts and design.
Want to learn more? Join us for an upcoming Product Tour!
http://bit.ly/2yitfqu
A report by thenetworkone and Kurio.
The contributing experts and agencies are (in an alphabetical order): Sylwia Rytel, Social Media Supervisor, 180heartbeats + JUNG v MATT (PL), Sharlene Jenner, Vice President - Director of Engagement Strategy, Abelson Taylor (USA), Alex Casanovas, Digital Director, Atrevia (ES), Dora Beilin, Senior Social Strategist, Barrett Hoffher (USA), Min Seo, Campaign Director, Brand New Agency (KR), Deshé M. Gully, Associate Strategist, Day One Agency (USA), Francesca Trevisan, Strategist, Different (IT), Trevor Crossman, CX and Digital Transformation Director; Olivia Hussey, Strategic Planner; Simi Srinarula, Social Media Manager, The Hallway (AUS), James Hebbert, Managing Director, Hylink (CN / UK), Mundy Álvarez, Planning Director; Pedro Rojas, Social Media Manager; Pancho González, CCO, Inbrax (CH), Oana Oprea, Head of Digital Planning, Jam Session Agency (RO), Amy Bottrill, Social Account Director, Launch (UK), Gaby Arriaga, Founder, Leonardo1452 (MX), Shantesh S Row, Creative Director, Liwa (UAE), Rajesh Mehta, Chief Strategy Officer; Dhruv Gaur, Digital Planning Lead; Leonie Mergulhao, Account Supervisor - Social Media & PR, Medulla (IN), Aurelija Plioplytė, Head of Digital & Social, Not Perfect (LI), Daiana Khaidargaliyeva, Account Manager, Osaka Labs (UK / USA), Stefanie Söhnchen, Vice President Digital, PIABO Communications (DE), Elisabeth Winiartati, Managing Consultant, Head of Global Integrated Communications; Lydia Aprina, Account Manager, Integrated Marketing and Communications; Nita Prabowo, Account Manager, Integrated Marketing and Communications; Okhi, Web Developer, PNTR Group (ID), Kei Obusan, Insights Director; Daffi Ranandi, Insights Manager, Radarr (SG), Gautam Reghunath, Co-founder & CEO, Talented (IN), Donagh Humphreys, Head of Social and Digital Innovation, THINKHOUSE (IRE), Sarah Yim, Strategy Director, Zulu Alpha Kilo (CA).
Trends In Paid Search: Navigating The Digital Landscape In 2024Search Engine Journal
The search marketing landscape is evolving rapidly with new technologies, and professionals, like you, rely on innovative paid search strategies to meet changing demands.
It’s important that you’re ready to implement new strategies in 2024.
Check this out and learn the top trends in paid search advertising that are expected to gain traction, so you can drive higher ROI more efficiently in 2024.
You’ll learn:
- The latest trends in AI and automation, and what this means for an evolving paid search ecosystem.
- New developments in privacy and data regulation.
- Emerging ad formats that are expected to make an impact next year.
Watch Sreekant Lanka from iQuanti and Irina Klein from OneMain Financial as they dive into the future of paid search and explore the trends, strategies, and technologies that will shape the search marketing landscape.
If you’re looking to assess your paid search strategy and design an industry-aligned plan for 2024, then this webinar is for you.
5 Public speaking tips from TED - Visualized summarySpeakerHub
From their humble beginnings in 1984, TED has grown into the world’s most powerful amplifier for speakers and thought-leaders to share their ideas. They have over 2,400 filmed talks (not including the 30,000+ TEDx videos) freely available online, and have hosted over 17,500 events around the world.
With over one billion views in a year, it’s no wonder that so many speakers are looking to TED for ideas on how to share their message more effectively.
The article “5 Public-Speaking Tips TED Gives Its Speakers”, by Carmine Gallo for Forbes, gives speakers five practical ways to connect with their audience, and effectively share their ideas on stage.
Whether you are gearing up to get on a TED stage yourself, or just want to master the skills that so many of their speakers possess, these tips and quotes from Chris Anderson, the TED Talks Curator, will encourage you to make the most impactful impression on your audience.
See the full article and more summaries like this on SpeakerHub here: https://speakerhub.com/blog/5-presentation-tips-ted-gives-its-speakers
See the original article on Forbes here:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2016/05/06/5-public-speaking-tips-ted-gives-its-speakers/&refURL=&referrer=#5c07a8221d9b
ChatGPT and the Future of Work - Clark Boyd Clark Boyd
Everyone is in agreement that ChatGPT (and other generative AI tools) will shape the future of work. Yet there is little consensus on exactly how, when, and to what extent this technology will change our world.
Businesses that extract maximum value from ChatGPT will use it as a collaborative tool for everything from brainstorming to technical maintenance.
For individuals, now is the time to pinpoint the skills the future professional will need to thrive in the AI age.
Check out this presentation to understand what ChatGPT is, how it will shape the future of work, and how you can prepare to take advantage.
A brief introduction to DataScience with explaining of the concepts, algorithms, machine learning, supervised and unsupervised learning, clustering, statistics, data preprocessing, real-world applications etc.
It's part of a Data Science Corner Campaign where I will be discussing the fundamentals of DataScience, AIML, Statistics etc.
Time Management & Productivity - Best PracticesVit Horky
Here's my presentation on by proven best practices how to manage your work time effectively and how to improve your productivity. It includes practical tips and how to use tools such as Slack, Google Apps, Hubspot, Google Calendar, Gmail and others.
The six step guide to practical project managementMindGenius
The six step guide to practical project management
If you think managing projects is too difficult, think again.
We’ve stripped back project management processes to the
basics – to make it quicker and easier, without sacrificing
the vital ingredients for success.
“If you’re looking for some real-world guidance, then The Six Step Guide to Practical Project Management will help.”
Dr Andrew Makar, Tactical Project Management
Unlocking the Power of ChatGPT and AI in Testing - A Real-World Look, present...Applitools
During this webinar, Anand Bagmar demonstrates how AI tools such as ChatGPT can be applied to various stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC) using an eCommerce application case study. Find the on-demand recording and more info at https://applitools.info/b59
Key takeaways:
• Learn how to use ChatGPT to add AI power to your testing and test automation
• Understand the limitations of the technology and where human expertise is crucial
• Gain insight into different AI-based tools
• Adopt AI-based tools to stay relevant and optimize work for developers and testers
* ChatGPT and OpenAI belong to OpenAI, L.L.C.
More than Just Lines on a Map: Best Practices for U.S Bike Routes
This session highlights best practices and lessons learned for U.S. Bike Route System designation, as well as how and why these routes should be integrated into bicycle planning at the local and regional level.
Presenters:
Presenter: Kevin Luecke Toole Design Group
Co-Presenter: Virginia Sullivan Adventure Cycling Association
Ride the Storm: Navigating Through Unstable Periods / Katerina Rudko (Belka G...DevGAMM Conference
Has your project been caught in a storm of deadlines, clashing requirements, and the need to change course halfway through? If yes, then check out how the administration team navigated through all of this, relocating 160 people from 3 countries and opening 2 offices during the most turbulent time in the last 20 years. Belka Games’ Chief Administrative Officer, Katerina Rudko, will share universal approaches and life hacks that can help your project survive unstable periods when there seem to be too many tasks and a lack of time and people.
This presentation was designed to provide strategic recommendations for a brand in decline. The deck also incorporates a situational assessment, including a brand identity, positioning, architecture, and portfolio strategy for the Brand.
Presentation originally created for NYU Stern's Brand Strategy course. Design by Erica Santiago & Chris Alexander.
Good Stuff Happens in 1:1 Meetings: Why you need them and how to do them wellSaba Software
According to the latest State of the American Manager report from Gallup, employees who have regular meetings with their managers are almost three times as likely to be engaged as those who don’t. These regular check-ins keep managers and employees in sync and aligned. Want to see better manager/employee relationships in your organisation? Then make an all-in commitment to 1:1 meetings. Not sure how? You’ve come to the right place.
In this webinar with Jamie Resker, Founder and Practice Leader for Employee Performance Solutions (EPS), and Teala Wilson, Talent Management Consultant at Saba Software, you’ll get the inside track on how to hold effective 1:1 meetings, including tips for getting managers on board.
• Go beyond discussing the status of everyday work to higher level topics, including recognition, performance, development, and career aspirations
• Learn how to decide meeting frequency, what to cover, as well as roles and responsibilities of the manager and employee
• Understand how managers can build trust and make it comfortable for employees to provide upward feedback
• Unite your organisation with a unified approach to 1:1 meetings
Join us for this 1-hour webinar to get practical tips for building better manager-employee relationships with intention and purpose.
About the Speakers
Jamie Resker - Founder and Practice Leader for Employee Performance Solutions (EPS)
Jamie Resker, Practice Leader and Founder of Employee Performance Solutions, is a recognized innovator in performance management. She is the originator of the-the Performance Continuum Feedback Method® and Conversations to Optimize Employee Performance training program; tools and training that reshape communications between managers and employees to drive and align performance. Jamie is on the faculty for the Northeast Human Resources Association, is a contributor to Halogen Software's Talent Space Blog, and is an editorial advisory board member for HR Examiner.
Teala Wilson - Senior Consultant, Strategic Services, Saba Software
Teala is a Talent Management Consultant at Halogen Software, now a part of Saba Software. She has worked with teams on a national and global level supporting human resources in areas such as performance management, recruitment, employee benefit programs, training and talent development, workforce planning and internal communications. Teala also has a personal passion for visual arts and design.
Want to learn more? Join us for an upcoming Product Tour!
http://bit.ly/2yitfqu
7. Lecture Preview
• The Second Industrial Revolution
• The Transformation of the West
• Politics in a Gilded Age
• Freedom in the Gilded Age
• Labor and the Republic
80. Review
• The Second Industrial Revolution
Focus Question: What factors combined to make the United States a
mature industrial society after the Civil War?
• The Transformation of the West
Focus Question: How was the West transformed economically and
socially in this period?
• Politics in a Gilded Age
Focus Question: Was the Gilded Age political system effective in
meeting goals?
81. Review
• Freedom in the Gilded Age
Focus Question: How did the economic development of the Gilded
Age affect American freedom?
• Labor and the Republic
Focus Question: How did reformers of the period approach the
problems of an industrial society?
82. MEDIA LINKS
—— Chapter 16 ——
Order Title Filename Media link
1
Eric Foner on the
treatment of native
peoples in the 19th
century
foner_liberty10 http://wwnorton.com/common/mplay/6.7/?p=/college
2
Eric Foner on ideas of
industrial expansion in
the late 19th century
industrial_workers
_freedom
http://wwnorton.com/common/mplay/6.7/?p=/college
_freedom
3
Eric Foner on ideas of
freedom following the
Civil War
question088 http://wwnorton.com/common/mplay/6.7/?p=/college
4 Eric Foner on the late-
19th-century industrial
economy in the West
question089 http://wwnorton.com/common/mplay/6.7/?p=/college
5 Eric Foner on court
decisions in the Gilded
Age
question090 http://wwnorton.com/common/mplay/6.7/?p=/college
83. Next Lecture PREVIEW:
—— Chapter 16 ——
Freedom’s Boundaries, at
Home and Abroad, 1890-1900
• The Populist Challenge
• The Segregated South
• Redrawing the Boundaries
• Becoming a World Power
84. Norton Lecture Slides
Independent and Employee-Owned
http://wwnorton.com/college/history/give-me-liberty4/
by
Eric Foner
This concludes the Norton Lecture Slides
Slide Set for Chapter 16
Give Me Liberty!
AN AMERICAN HISTORY
FOURTH EDITION
Editor's Notes
Chapter 16America's Gilded Age, 1870–1890
In 1886, the Statue of Liberty, meant to celebrate the friendship between France and the United States and the triumph of freedom in the Civil War, was dedicated in New York Harbor. The statue, which welcomed generations of immigrants to the United States, came to symbolize American freedom. But 1886 also saw one of the greatest waves of strikes and labor protests and violence in the nation’s history, events that exposed deep social divisions in an industrializing society. The questions of what social conditions enabled freedom and what role the government should play in defining and protecting the rights of citizens took center stage.
The subtopics for this lecture are listed on the screen above.
The purpose of the focus questions is to help students find larger themes and structures to bring the historical evidence, events, and examples together for a connected thematic purpose.
As we go through each portion of this lecture, you may want to keep in mind how the information relates to this larger thematic question. Here are some suggestions: write the focus question in the left or right margin on your notes and as we go through, either mark areas of your notes for you to come back to later and think about the connection OR as you review your notes later (to fill in anything else you remember from the lecture or your thoughts during the lecture or additional information from the readings), write small phrases from the lecture and readings that connect that information to each focus question AND/OR are examples that work together to answer the focus question.
In the late nineteenth century, the United States experienced perhaps the fastest and most far-reaching economic revolution in history. Abundant natural resources, a growing labor supply and market for manufactured goods, and new capital for investment all fostered massive economic expansion. The federal government also spurred industrial and agricultural development by enacting tariffs protecting U.S. industry from foreign competition, giving land to railroads, and using the army to remove Indians from western lands wanted by farmers and mining companies.
Every region except the South saw a rapid expansion of manufacturing, mining, and railroad construction, ending an earlier America based on small farms and artisan workshops. By 1913, the United States produced a third of the world’s entire industrial output. Half of all industrial workers labored in plants with more than 250 employees. By 1890, two-thirds of Americans worked for wages, making dreams of economic independence—owning a farm or workshop—unattainable for most. Between 1870 and 1920, a new working class developed, with 11 million Americans moving from farm to city and 25 million immigrating from overseas. Most new jobs were in industrial cities, whose rapid growth was best symbolized by New York, a city whose banks and stock exchange financed railroads, mines, and factories, thus sponsoring industrialization and westward expansion. The Great Lakes region was the center of industrialization, with iron, steel, machinery, chemicals, and food production in large cities like Pittsburgh and Chicago and countless smaller cities.
Railroads enabled the “second industrial revolution.” Private investment and huge grants of land and money by federal, state, and local governments tripled the number of miles of rail between 1860 and 1880 and tripled it again over the next forty years. This opened vast new areas to commercial farming and created a national market for manufactured goods. By the 1890s, five transcontinental railroad lines carried western mine, farm, ranch, and forest products to markets in the East, which in turn made factory goods for the West. Railroads were so critical to economic growth and the national market that financial crisis in the rail industry directly shocked the entire national economy.
An expanding population became an ever-larger market for mass production, mass distribution, and mass marketing of goods, all of which are the basis of a modern industrial economy. National brands, national stores, and mail-order firms, such as Sears, Roebuck & Co., emerged for the first time.
Extraordinary technological innovations helped quicken communications and economic expansion. Telegraph lines crossed the Atlantic to Europe, and the telephone, typewriter, and handheld camera began to be used in the 1870s and 1880s. Thomas A. Edison’s inventions, such as the phonograph, light bulb, and motion picture, revolutionized private life, public entertainment, and economic activity. Edison also created systems for distributing electric power, and soon entire cities had electricity for homes, factories, and streetcars. Electricity enabled industrial and urban growth by providing a more dependable and useful source of power than water or steam. The newly invented electric motor harnessed the power of this innovation for industry and households.
Economic growth was remarkable, but quite volatile. With markets inundated by goods and federal monetary policies that removed money from the national economy and reduced prices, a series of severe economic recessions and depressions occurred, notably in the 1870s and 1890s. Businesses competed ruthlessly. To stabilize prices and profits, railroads and other companies formed “pools” to divide markets and fix prices and “trusts” that allowed a single director to manage the affairs of several competing companies. But the drive to compete often quickly disintegrated such schemes. Competition led some firms to control their entire industry by buying out the competition. Economic concentration culminated in the great merger wave from 1897 to 1904, in which 4,000 companies were incorporated into larger corporations that served national markets and thus wielded immense power. Giant corporations appeared, such as Standard Oil, International Harvester, and U.S. Steel, which was formed in 1901 by financier J. P. Morgan out of eight large steel firms.
With no personal or corporate income taxes, some businessmen accumulated massive wealth and economic power. One such “captain of industry” was Andrew Carnegie, who emigrated from Scotland as a teenager and labored as a factory worker and telegraph operator before he used a position with the Pennsylvania Railroad to build a steel empire. During the 1870s depression, Carnegie built a “vertically integrated” steel company—one that controlled every stage of production, from raw materials to transportation, manufacturing, and distribution. By the 1890s, Carnegie dominated the steel industry and amassed a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars. His steel factories at Homestead, Pennsylvania, were the most technologically advanced in the world. Although Carnegie’s upbringing instilled in him a commitment to democracy, social equality, and charity, he ran his factories ruthlessly.
More associated with extraordinary wealth was John D. Rockefeller, who rose from being a merchant clerk to oil industry titan. Through cutthroat competition he ruined rival oil companies, arranged deals with railroads, and fixed prices and production. He mastered “horizontal integration,” in which one firm acquires competing firms, but soon established a vertically integrated company, too, a monopoly that controlled the drilling, refining, storage, and distribution of oil. By the 1880s, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company controlled 90 percent of America’s oil industry.
Such figures and their wealth attracted the admiration and resentment of many Americans. While many rose from modest circumstances, their wealth, and their methods for treating workers and conducting business alienated many Americans, who thought their unregulated actions eroded political and economic freedom and damaged democracy. In Wealth against Commonwealth, his 1894 exposé of Standard Oil’s manipulation of markets and bribery of legislators, Henry Demarest Lloyd wrote that “liberty and monopoly cannot live together.”
The benefits of economic expansion were distributed highly unevenly. For a few workers, including skilled workers with some control over production processes such as miners and iron and steel workers, high wages were the norm. Most industrial workers, however, had semi-skilled jobs that required only managing a machine. These workers had no control over production and were easily replaced and dismissed during a strike or economic downturn. Regular and prolonged unemployment became widespread for these workers, some of whom became “tramps,” taking to roads and rail to search for employment. Though American workers earned more than their European counterparts, work was more dangerous in the United States. And because of the high unemployment and use of public and private police, most strikes in America failed. Many workers were extremely poor and relied on family to survive.
Class divisions became more visible in this period as more Americans became middle class and very wealthy. The rich began to retreat to their own neighborhoods and built fantastic mansions and estates in the cities and countryside. A growing number of urban middle-class professionals, office workers, and small businessmen moved to urban and suburban neighborhoods and used new streetcars and commuter railways to get to central business districts. By 1890, the richest 1 percent of Americans received the same total income as the bottom half of the population and owned more property than the remaining 99 percent. Many wealthy Americans conspicuously consumed an aristocratic lifestyle of luxury goods, exclusive clubs, colleges, and social events. Not far from the homes of the wealthy were the slums of the urban poor. The difference between the two worlds was captured in Matthew Smith’s 1868 best-seller, Sunshine and Shadow in New York, which began with an engraving contrasting a $2 million dollar mansion with the slums. Two decades later, Jacob Riis published a book of photographs, How the Other Half Lives, documenting the poor’s wretched existence in New York City.
The purpose of the focus questions is to help students find larger themes and structures to bring the historical evidence, events, and examples together for a connected thematic purpose.
As we go through each portion of this lecture, you may want to keep in mind how the information relates to this larger thematic question. Here are some suggestions: write the focus question in the left or right margin on your notes and as we go through, either mark areas of your notes for you to come back to later and think about the connection OR as you review your notes later (to fill in anything else you remember from the lecture or your thoughts during the lecture or additional information from the readings), write small phrases from the lecture and readings that connect that information to each focus question AND/OR are examples that work together to answer the focus question.
Capitalism advanced most quickly and dramatically in the trans-Mississippi West, whose lands now became absorbed by white settlement and whose resources became available for exploitation. In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner delivered a lecture, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in which he argued that the frontier had forged American culture’s distinctive qualities: individual freedom, political democracy, and economic mobility. Turner argued that the frontier had been a “safety valve,” which drew away the dissatisfied in the East, and therefore mitigated social unrest. Very influential at the time, Turner’s idea drew on long-standing notions that the West offered economic opportunity and freedom to newcomers. Many farmers, gold-rush miners, and immigrants did find economic opportunity in the West, but there the accuracy of Turner’s interpretation ended. Migrants to the West moved in groups, usually families, not as individuals; the West was not an empty space but rather was inhabited by Indians, who had to be dispossessed by whites for the frontier to be settled; and the West was not a paradise of small farms, but an area with industrial mining and agriculture, landlords, railroads, Chinese contract laborers, and, until the Civil War, African-American slaves.
The West was also not a single area but rather was incredibly diverse, ranging from the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains, the desert Southwest, the Sierra Nevada, and the verdant coasts and valleys of California and the Pacific Northwest. Its incorporation into the United States required the federal government’s intervention. The government acquired Indian land by purchase or force, regulated territories, and gave land and money to farmers, railroads, and mining companies. Despite the myth of the West’s rugged individualism, the area became part of the nation only by massive government activity.
More land came into cultivation in the thirty years after the Civil War than in the previous two and a half centuries of American history. Settlers acquired farmlands through the Homestead Act, and more bought land from speculators and railroad companies that had been given public lands by the federal government. A vast agricultural belt growing wheat and corn for national and international markets emerged in the Middle Border (Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas), with a diverse population of farmers who migrated from the East, South, and Europe. Farming in this region was difficult, and much of the burden fell on women, who faced severe isolation.
The Middle Border’s arid land required irrigation and thus made family farming difficult, but despite the emergence of a few large “bonanza farms” with thousands of acres and many agricultural wage workers, family farms prevailed. These farms increasingly grew for national and international markets and specialized in one crop. Railroads brought factory goods to rural farmers, who became more dependent on banks for loans, machinery, and products and subject to the ups and downs of international agricultural prices. American farms thus became part of a world market, in which farmers across the globe faced ongoing crises as competition increased and prices declined.
Western farming’s future was bound up with agricultural enterprises using irrigation, chemicals, and machines, all of which required capital investments beyond the means of most family farmers. This future was on display in California, where huge fruit and vegetable farms, owned by large corporations, were worked by migrant workers from China, the Philippines, Japan, and Mexico who never themselves expected to own land.
The decades after the Civil War also saw the golden age of cattle ranching and cowboys. Railroad stations at Abilene, Dodge City, and Wichita, Kansas, became destinations for now-legendary cattle drives from Texas. The cowboys who worked the drives, a diverse group of white, Mexican, and black men, became icons of freedom and were immortalized in fiction and film. But their life was far from romantic. They were mostly low-paid wage workers, and the long-distance cattle drives ended by the 1880s, when farmers fenced in lands with barbed wire and severe winters killed millions of cattle. The cattle industry that reappeared was dominated by large ranches close to railroads.
The West was also urban, with large cities such as San Francisco, and the growth of other cities, like Los Angeles, due to oil. Large corporate enterprises dominated the West, and particularly in industries such as lumber and mining and as sheep farming in New Mexico, independent owners and operators gave way to large, corporate firms.
In the 1840s, the Mormons moved to the Salt Lake area of the U.S. territory, now the capital of modern-day Utah. In 1857, after reports that the Utah territory’s appointed governor, Mormon leader Brigham Young, was interfering with federal judges in the area, POTUS James Buchanan removed Young and appointed a non-Mormon as governor. Young refused to comply, and federal troops were sent to occupy the territory and remained until the beginning of the Civil War.
Conflict between Mormons and non-Mormons continued in the region and during this period the Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred in which a group of Mormons attacked a group of non-Mormons traveling by wagon to settle in California. All adults and older children were killed, over 100 persons, with only a few small children surviving. More than two decades later, one of the leaders of the raid was tried and sentenced for murder.
Over the next few decades, tensions continued as Mormon communities moved to other areas of the American West, but much of the conflicts were similar to those with non-Mormon U.S. settlers to the region. For example, Mormons saw the freewheeling lifestyles of cowboys as the embodiment of immoral. In the 1880s, the Mormon leaders sought to keep from further antagonizing the U.S. government and banned polygamy and wrote the ban into Utah’s state constitution upon gaining statehood in 1896.
The West’s incorporation into the American economy sealed the doom of the Plains Indians and their world. Their lives had already been changed by the horse, and Indian migrants to the West helped form the nineteenth-century’s great tribes: the Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Kiowa, and Sioux. Incessant warfare engulfed the tribes and newcomers. Most whites moving to the Pacific Coast experienced little hostility from the Plains Indians, but the settlement of lands there in the 1850s and later brought bloody conflict. Although President Grant declared a “peace policy” in 1869, warfare soon resumed. Civil War generals like Philip Sheridan attacked the basis of the Indian economy, destroying villages, horses, and the buffalo to end Indian resistance. By the 1880s, army campaigns and buffalo hunters had nearly eradicated the buffalo in the West.
The army subjugated one tribe after another. In 1877, U.S. troops under former Freedmen’s Bureau commissioner O. O. Howard forced the Nez Percé to surrender and relocate from Oregon to an Oklahoma reservation. Two years later, Chief Joseph, that tribe’s leader, delivered a speech in Washington to President Rutherford B. Hayes and other notables that protested the reservation policy and used the language of freedom strengthened by the Civil War and Reconstruction: “Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself . . .”
Indians sometimes inflicted great costs on American forces, most notably in 1876 at Little Bighorn, where Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse killed General George A. Custer and 250 of his men. In the Southwest, the Apache leaders Cochise and Geronimo attacked white settlers and resisted army units well into the 1880s, when they surrendered. The Comanche, who had dominated other Indians in New Mexico and Colorado, also fell to American power in the 1870s. This resistance only temporarily delayed the advance of white soldiers, settlers, and miners. Between the end of the Civil War and 1890, eight new western states joined the Union (Nebraska, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming). The Indians were removed to reservations throughout the West, where they lived in poverty and were taken advantage of by traders and government agents.
Indians’ idea of freedom, resting on preserving their cultural and political autonomy and control of ancestral lands, clashed with the values and interests of most white Americans. Nearly all believed that the federal government should persuade or force the Plains Indians to give up their land, religion, communal property, nomadic way of life, and gender relations, and adopt Christianity, private property, and small farming on reservations, where men would work the fields and women would work in the home. In 1871, Congress ended the treaty system, in which the government had negotiated agreements whereby Indian tribes were regarded as independent nations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs established boarding schools where Indian children, removed from their parents and tribes, were given new names and educated in white ways.
In 1887, the Dawes Act was passed, which fragmented the lands of nearly all tribes into small parcels to be given to Indian families, with the rest of the land to be sold to white buyers. Indians who accepted the farms and “adopted the habits of civilized life” would be offered American citizenship. Though the policy led to the loss of much tribal land and the erosion of Indian cultural traditions, whites benefited enormously, taking much of the best Indian lands, including much of Oklahoma. In the fifty years after the Dawes Act’s passage, Indians lost 86 million of the 138 million acres they had possessed in 1887. While many nineteenth-century laws and treaties offered Indians the right to become citizens, few accepted, as most Indians wanted to retain their tribal identity. Western courts and later the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not apply to Native Americans. By 1900, about 53,000 Indians had become citizens by accepting land allotments. Most Indians would not be granted citizenship until 1919, after they served in World War I, or in 1924, when Congress made all Indians citizens.
In the late 1880s, some Indians practiced the Ghost Dance, a religious movement to revitalize Indian life. Ghost Dance leaders predicted that one day whites would disappear, the buffalo would return, and Indians would resume their cultural practices free from the ills introduced by whites. Large numbers of Indians gathered for singing, dancing, and religious ceremonies. When the government, fearing a revolt, sent troops to the reservations, soldiers opened fire on Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing as many as 200 Indians, mostly women and children. The massacre at Wounded Knee ended four centuries of armed conflict between native Americans and European settlers and their descendants. By 1900, the Indian population had reached a nadir of 250,000. But Indians survived and their numbers grew in the twentieth century.
The conquest of the West was part of a worldwide phenomenon in which settlers moved into the interior of regions in temperate climates all over the globe, bringing familiar crops and livestock and starting mining and other industries. Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States are thus called “settler societies” because immigrants from overseas rapidly outnumbered and displaced original inhabitants, unlike in India and much of colonial Africa, where only a few Europeans managed to dominate entire societies.
The purpose of the focus questions is to help students find larger themes and structures to bring the historical evidence, events, and examples together for a connected thematic purpose.
As we go through each portion of this lecture, you may want to keep in mind how the information relates to this larger thematic question. Here are some suggestions: write the focus question in the left or right margin on your notes and as we go through, either mark areas of your notes for you to come back to later and think about the connection OR as you review your notes later (to fill in anything else you remember from the lecture or your thoughts during the lecture or additional information from the readings), write small phrases from the lecture and readings that connect that information to each focus question AND/OR are examples that work together to answer the focus question.
The period between 1870 and 1890 is the only time in American history described in a derogatory way—as the Gilded Age, after the title of an 1873 novel co-authored by Mark Twain. “Gilded” means covered with a layer of gold, suggesting that the golden surface deceptively obscures a core of little real value. The Gilded Age thus referred to the extraordinary economic growth of the period and the corruption caused by corporate domination of politics, as well as the oppression of others in the competition for riches.
Americans in this period, in a world in which only a few European governments extended universal male suffrage, saw their nation as a beacon of democracy. Yet, the power of corporations, which seemed removed from democratic controls, raised unsettling questions for Americans’ belief that political freedom meant popular self-government. Political corruption was pervasive. New railroad corporations wielded great influence in state legislatures, and often legislators in the West held stock or directed mining and lumber companies. Urban politics was often dominated by corrupt political machines, such as the Tweed Ring in New York, led by “Boss” William M. Tweed, which both robbed the city of millions of dollars and built alliances with businessmen and labor, and also provided aid to the urban poor and unemployed. In national politics, many lawmakers supported bills benefiting companies in which they had invested or from which they received stock or salaries.
The most famous cases of corruption unfolded during the Grant administration. In the Crédit Mobilier scandal, a corporation formed by Union Pacific Railroad stockholders made contracts with itself, at government expense and for huge profits, and gave stock to influential politicians. And the Whiskey Ring in the Grant administration united Republicans officials, tax collectors, and whiskey manufacturers in a scheme that defrauded the federal government of millions in tax dollars.
The Civil War’s legacy powerfully shaped national politics and elections. Republicans found support in the North, Midwest, and agrarian West and among members of revivalist churches, Protestant immigrants, and blacks. Union veterans’ organizations were a strong Republican base. By the 1890s, pensions for Union soldiers and their widows and children was the largest item in the federal budget. After 1877, Democrats dominated the South and found support among Catholics, especially Irish-Americans, in cities.
The parties were closely divided, and in most presidential elections between 1876 and 1892, the margin separating the major candidates was less than 1 percent of the popular vote. In 1874, Democrats won control of the House of Representatives, which started a period of political stalemate in which little new legislation was passed for twenty years. Only briefly did either party control both the Congress and the White House. One-term presidents followed: Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, James A. Garfield in 1881 (succeeded by Chester A. Arthur after his assassination that year), Grover Cleveland in 1884, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and Cleveland again in 1892. American politics, with high numbers of eligible voters voting and contested elections, seemed healthy in a number of ways.
Yet, the political structure could not effectively confront rapid growth and economic transformation. The federal government remained small and had limited regulatory power, compared to today. Both parties became controlled by party managers closely aligned with business interests. Republicans supported a high tariff to protect American industry and pursued a fiscal policy based on reducing spending, paying off the nation’s debt, and withdrawing from circulation all greenbacks—the paper money issued during the Civil War. The Democrats opposed a high tariff, but because the leadership was still tied to New York banks and finance, they opposed demands from their agricultural base for an increase in the money supply. In 1879, the United States returned to the gold standard (paper currency could again be exchanged for gold at a fixed rate). Republican economic policies, which reduced foreign competition in manufacturing and left banks, not the government, to regulate the money supply, favored eastern industrialists and bankers and disadvantaged southern and western farmers, who had to pay high prices for factory goods while prices for their crops dropped.
There were a few reforms in the Gilded Age. In 1883, the Civil Service Act substituted a merit system for federal employees, which replaced political appointments with competitive examinations. In 1887, responding to protests against unfair railroad practices, Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission to ensure that rates charged to farmers and merchants were “reasonable.” The ICC was the first federal agency to regulate the economy, but it could not itself set rates, and thus had little effect. Though Congress soon passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which banned combinations and practices restraining free trade, its language was too vague for its laws to be enforced and it also had little effect.
Though national politics offered few solutions to economic problems, politics was vibrant and fluid at the state and local levels. After the Civil War, northern state governments expanded their role in the economy by launching public works programs that created jobs, and they assumed more responsibility for public health, education, and welfare. Third parties experienced some success. The Greenback Labor Party, which proposed that the federal government keep greenbacks in circulation, thus leaving money for investment and giving the government control over the money supply, led some local governments in the 1870s.
Protests over railroad policies among farmers and local merchants suffering very high freight rates led to the formation of the Patrons of Husbandry, known as the Grange. Founded in 1867, the Grange established cooperatives for storing and marketing farm goods in order to force railroads to lower their prices. In some states, the Grange pressured state legislatures to investigate railroad rates and, in some cases, regulate them. A resurgent labor movement also called for economic regulation, in the form of eight-hour laws limiting the workday. Although a few state legislatures passed these laws, they lacked means of enforcement and had little effect.
The purpose of the focus questions is to help students find larger themes and structures to bring the historical evidence, events, and examples together for a connected thematic purpose.
As we go through each portion of this lecture, you may want to keep in mind how the information relates to this larger thematic question. Here are some suggestions: write the focus question in the left or right margin on your notes and as we go through, either mark areas of your notes for you to come back to later and think about the connection OR as you review your notes later (to fill in anything else you remember from the lecture or your thoughts during the lecture or additional information from the readings), write small phrases from the lecture and readings that connect that information to each focus question AND/OR are examples that work together to answer the focus question.
As the nation industrialized, Americans tried to understand the ways in which their society was changing. Debates over political economy engaged millions of Americans, not just economists, politicians, and academics, and thousands of books and pamphlets were published regarding the ethical and social consequences of industrialization and highly technical issues such as currency reform and land taxation. Many Americans believed that something was terribly wrong in the nation’s social development, and their talk of “better classes” and “dangerous classes” became the rule as labor strife was recurrent. A number of states and even Congress established committees to investigate the changing relations between labor and capital, and many were shocked to learn that employers and workers distrusted each other and that workers complained of abuse and poverty.
The emergence of a permanent class of wage earners challenged traditional American ideas of freedom. Did America still offer opportunities to ordinary citizens to gain economic independence? To many, it seemed that wage labor was no longer a temporary condition on the way to economic autonomy, nor did the West seem a refuge from deprivation in the East. Many Americans saw the concentration of wealth in this period as natural and a sign of progress, however, and mainstream economics held that wages were determined by supply and demand and should not be artificially changed by government or labor unions. The link between freedom and equality forged in the Revolution and strengthened by the Civil War no longer seemed relevant. Reformers in the Liberal Republican movement, which challenged Grant in the 1872 elections, even argued that universal male suffrage was a mistake, as the poor and workers might use the vote to threaten property. Instead, they urged a return to property qualifications for the vote.
The idea that some groups were superior to others, once based in racialized slavery, now reappeared in a scientific guise as a means to explain the success and failure of individuals and entire social classes. In 1859, British scientist Charles Darwin published On the Origins of Species, in which he posited a theory of evolution where plants and animals best able to adapt to their environment supplanted those less adaptable. Different thinkers simplified Darwin’s theory and used his language of “natural selection,” “the struggle for existence,” and “the survival of the fittest” to address social problems.
According to this school of thought, termed “Social Darwinism,” evolution was a natural process in both nature and society. Government could only corrupt society by regulating the society or economy to the advantage of the poor or workers, who simply were less able to adapt to changing conditions. Social Darwinists believed giant corporations had evolved to become dominant in the economy because they had better adapted, and to restrict their operations would be to reverse progress. The depressions of the 1870s and 1880s did not dislodge popular opinion that the poor were responsible for their own poverty. In Gilded Age America, nearly half of all local governments offered no poor relief. Poverty, it was believed, was caused by a lack of character or absence of self-reliance. Thinkers such as Yale’s William Graham Sumner argued that no one in a free society could make a claim for help from any other person, including through government assistance.
Social Darwinism helped spread a “negative” definition of freedom, limited government and unrestrained free markets, which became popular among business and professional classes in the late nineteenth century. The idea liberty of contract was central to this definition of freedom. Labor contracts reconciled freedom and authority in the workplace, and as long as independent individuals freely contracted with each other, neither government nor unions had a right to interfere with working conditions. Nor could Americans legitimately complain that they had lost any freedom. Workers’ demands that government enforce an eight-hour day or provide unemployment relief struck liberals as a perversion of governmental authority that threatened liberty. The old idea of free labor as a celebration of the independent small producer in a society of equality and harmony became a defense of the unrestrained capitalist market.
The courts played an important role in making liberty of contract essential to ruling definitions of freedom. The Fourteenth Amendment allowed the federal government to overturn state laws that violated citizens’ rights. By the 1880s, liberty of contract, not equality before the law regardless of race, came to define the meaning of this amendment. State and federal courts regularly struck down state laws that regulated business, such as maximum-hour laws, as an illegal interference with the rights of employers to use their property as they saw fit and the rights of employees to choose the conditions of their work. Initially, the Supreme Court accepted laws regulating firms that represented a “public interest,” such as railroads. But the Supreme Court reversed itself, leading to the formation of the Interstate Commerce Committee (ICC), which lost many of its cases when they were taken to court. The courts generally favored businesses whenever they complained of a loss of economic freedom, struck down laws granting workers’ rights, and limited the reach of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Most famously, in Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court struck down a state law establishing maximum hours for bakers, arguing that it interfered with the right of contract between employers and employees.
The purpose of the focus questions is to help students find larger themes and structures to bring the historical evidence, events, and examples together for a connected thematic purpose.
As we go through each portion of this lecture, you may want to keep in mind how the information relates to this larger thematic question. Here are some suggestions: write the focus question in the left or right margin on your notes and as we go through, either mark areas of your notes for you to come back to later and think about the connection OR as you review your notes later (to fill in anything else you remember from the lecture or your thoughts during the lecture or additional information from the readings), write small phrases from the lecture and readings that connect that information to each focus question AND/OR are examples that work together to answer the focus question.
Public debate in the late nineteenth century, more than any other point in American history, divided along class lines. The shift from debates over slavery and the status of former slaves to what one politician called “the overwhelming labor question” was clear in 1877, when Reconstruction ended and the first national strike began—the Great Railroad Strike. Railroad workers protesting pay cuts paralyzed rail traffic in much of the country, militia units tried to force them back to work, and after troops fired on strikers and killed twenty in Pittsburgh, workers rioted and burned property, and strikes spread to other workplaces. General strikes brought Chicago and St. Louis to a halt. The events showed a new solidarity among workers and close ties between the Republican Party and a new class of industrialists. In the aftermath, the federal government built armories in major cities to help crush future uprisings.
There was a new wave of labor organizing in the 1880s, and the Knights of Labor stood at its center. The Knights were the first labor group to organize unskilled workers as well as skilled, women and men, and blacks as well as whites (although the Knights on the West Coast excluded Asian immigrants). In its peak year, 1886, the Knights had around 800,000 members and involved millions of workers in strikes, boycotts, and political, social, and educational activities. Labor reformers in this era presented a wide range of hopes and demands, from anarchism and socialism to the eight-hour day and a desire for a “cooperative commonwealth.” They all agreed that new social conditions were highly unequal and required drastic change. The labor movement challenged the prevailing definition of freedom as liberty of contract, arguing that Americans had lost control over their livelihoods and their government.
Not just workers were dissatisfied with social conditions. A sense of alarm at social changes wrought by industrial capitalism spread through all classes. Social thinkers offered many different ideas and blueprints for change, and at the end of the nineteenth century, an unprecedented number of utopian and dystopian novels were published, including Caesar’s Column, by Ignatius Donnelly, in which civilization was destroyed in a brutal war between workers and businessmen. The most popular books offering remedies for the unequal distribution of wealth were Progress and Poverty (1879), by Henry George, The Cooperative Commonwealth (1884), by Laurence Gronlund, and Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888). All three books were best-sellers and spoke to the growing belief that American society was deeply flawed.
Progress and Poverty had no direct influence on policy, but it attracted more attention than any other book on economics in American history. In the 1850s and 1860s, Henry George had witnessed the monopolization of land in California. His book suggested that the major problem facing America was the growth of poverty alongside material progress, and his solution was the “single tax,” which would replace all other taxes with a tax on increases in land values. The single tax would be so high that it would prevent land speculation in the city and countryside. Although not all embraced his solution, many people were stirred by his identification of the social problem.
Gronlund’s book, The Cooperative Commonwealth, was the first to popularize socialism for an American audience. Socialism—the idea that private control of economic enterprises should be replaced by government ownership in order to ensure a fairer distribution of the benefits of the wealth produced—was a major political force in western Europe in the late nineteenth century. But in the United States, where private property was seen as essential to individual freedom, socialism was mostly confined to immigrants, whose foreign language writings reached few people. Gronlund was the first to Americanize socialism. While Karl Marx had predicted that socialism would be achieved through a working-class revolution, Gronlund believed it would be achieved by peaceful evolution, and thus made it seem more acceptable to middle-class Americans terrified by class conflict and the prospect of social revolution.
Socialism was not popular until the early twentieth century, but Gronlund’s work prepared an audience for Bellamy’s Looking Backward, which promoted socialism, even as Bellamy eschewed that term by calling his socialism “nationalism.” In Bellamy’s utopian novel, a man falls asleep in 1888 and awakes in the year 2000, in a world in which cooperation has replaced class conflict and economic competition and in which inequality and liberty as defined by liberty of contract had been banished. Bellamy insisted freedom was a social condition, resting on interdependence, not autonomy. Bellamy’s highly authoritarian utopia—everyone would be conscripted into a Great Industrial Army controlled by a single, government operation—is chilling today, but it inspired hundreds of nationalist clubs, whose members sought the abundance of industrial capitalism without its inequalities.
The clergy also became a source of criticisms of Social Darwinism and laissez-faire notions of freedom. While most Protestant preachers continued to attack individual sin, a new Social Gospel took shape in the writings of men like Walter Rauschenbusch, a New York Baptist minister, and Washington Gladden, a Congregational clergyman in Columbus, Ohio. They argued that freedom and spiritual self-development required an equalization of wealth and power, and that unregulated capitalism degraded Christian brotherhood. Adherents tried to minister to the needs of the urban poor, attacked child labor, and promoted better working-class housing and health and safety laws.
The social conflicts of the age seemed to culminate in the great labor uprisings of 1886. Western railroad unions’ successful strike against lines controlled by Jay Gould, a powerful financier, inspired workers to join the Knights of Labor by the hundreds of thousands. On May 1, 1886, 350,000 workers across the country went on strike and protested for the eight-hour day. May 1, known as May Day, thereafter became an annual holiday of parades and protests by workers around the world.
In Chicago, where a vibrant labor movement brought together radical socialists and anarchists, immigrant workers, and native-born antimonopoly laborites, a strike by iron molders at the giant McCormick plant that produced agricultural machinery turned violent. Company strikebreakers and private police battled the strikers, and on May 3, 1886, four strikers were killed by police. A rally held the next day to protest their deaths ended in a bomb explosion—to this day, no one knows the identity of the bomber—and police opened fire, leading to the deaths and injury of more police and bystanders. Police in Chicago and elsewhere used the bombing as an opportunity to arrest and suppress labor radicals. The McCormick strike ended in defeat, and eight anarchists, mostly immigrants, were charged with the bombing. With little evidence and flawed proceedings, they were convicted. Four were hanged, one committed suicide, and the remaining three were imprisoned until their sentences were commuted several years later. The “Haymarket martyrs” soon became symbols of labor’s bloody struggle for rights in America.
The Haymarket affair took place amid multiple efforts across the country by workers, mostly in the Knights of Labor, to run candidates and organize worker-based parties at the local and state levels. The most celebrated campaign took place in 1886 in New York, where Henry George ran for mayor on the United Labor ticket and almost defeated the Democratic candidate. The events of 1886 suggested that labor might become a powerful political force. In fact, the Knights of Labor quickly declined after 1886, unions began to avoid politics, and the Democrats and Republicans proved successful at winning workers’ votes. Nevertheless, the events of the Gilded Age marked a contest over freedom and its social conditions between the forces of Social Darwinism and laissez-faire and those who supported collective efforts to establish industrial freedom.
