Unit 5 - Westward Expansion & Big Business

1. Unit 5 Notes
Indian Wars - Urbanization

2. Geography of the West
• Area between the Mississippi
Valley and the Pacific
Mountains
• Areas where settlers and
Indians lived
• By 1900 Indians had been
forced off their lands
- Transcontinental Railroad
opened up the west for
settlement
a. carried materials
and people

3. Mining Life
• Boom towns sprang up
- They were rough towns
• Women worked in the
mining towns
- Cooked
- Laundry
- Dance halls
- Boarding towns

4. The Business of Mining
• Few prospectors became
rich
• Lack of technology
prevented most people
from becoming rich
- Most were placer
mining - where people
wash the sand and gravel
from a stream

5. Mining Boom Ends
• Most of the mining
towns became ghost
towns
• Gold rush changed the
geography of the United
States

6. Mining Boom Ends
• The population grew so
much in some areas that
they were able to become
states
- 1864 - Nevada
- 1876 - Colorado
- 1889 - North Dakota,
South Dakota, and
Montana
-1890 - Idaho

7. Alaska
• 1867 - William Seward arranged
for the purchase of Alaska from
Russia
• U.S. Senators didn't want to buy it
- “Seward's Folly“ – purchase of
Alaska
• Gamble paid off
- Russia lost foothold in North
America
• Alaska was rich in natural
resources
- Gold - Copper
- Oil - Timber

8. Government policy
• Early 1800's Plains Indians lived and hunted between the
Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains
- 1840' s - Whites begin to settle the west coast
- U.S. Gov. ask Indians to let settlers pass safely
- Asked the Indians to limit their hunting to certain area
- Indians had to move with buffalo
• Mid 1800's - U.S. Gov changes policy
- Established reservations - special areas used by a specific group
- Indians agreed to live on reservations based on the promise
that the land would be theirs forever (signed Treaties with the
U.S. Gov.)
- They were also promised food, money and other help

9. Clash of Culture
• Indians and settlers looked at the world
differently
• Settlers felt that the resources were their to
be used
- Large scale hunting, mining, and farming
• Plains Indians used only the resources they
needed for their actual needs
- They saw the white settlers as being greedy
and destructive

10. Fighting Begins• By 1860's - Treaties were
being broken by both sides
• Settlers continued to pass
through areas where they
were not allowed
• Groups of Indians raided
white settlements and wagon
trains
• 1864 - Sand Creek Massacre
- Colorado militia attacked
Cheyenne and Arapaho at
Sand Creek
- Indians thought they were
under the protection of a
nearby government outpost
- Over 100 Indians were
slaughtered (including
women and children)

11. Fighting Begins
• Little Bighorn (most famous battle of the
Indian wars)
• The Black Hills of South Dakota had been set
aside for the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne
• 1874 - U.S. Army exploring party found gold
- Settlers went looking for gold
- Gov. tried to buy the Black Hills (Sioux
considered land sacred)
- 1875 and 1876 - Sioux warrior left their
reservations and united under the
leadership of two Sioux chiefs (Sitting Bull
and Crazy Horse)

12. Fighting Begins
• June 25, 1876 – George Custer and several
hundred army soldiers found a Sioux camp
near the Little Bighorn River
- Custer gained fame fighting in Civil War
- Admirers considered him a daring
brilliant officer
- Critics considered him a dangerous
showoff
• Custer had orders to attack any Indians
he came into contact with
• When he attacked he was actually stepping
into a trap
• Custer and all of his men were killed
- Became known as "Custer's Last
Stand"

13. Fighting Begins
• People in the East were shocked by the news of the
Battle of Little Bighorn
- U.S. Gov. sent 1000's of troops to fight the Indians
• The Battle of Little Bighorn was the last Indian Victory in
the Indian Wars
- 1876 - U.S. Army defeated the Sioux
- Sitting Bull and his followers escaped to Canada
• Crazy Horse was arrested
- He was fatally stabbed as he was being arrested
- Not sure if guard or another Indian stabbed him

14. Indians way of life destroyed
• Wounded Knee
Massacre - last battle of
the Indian Wars
• 300 men, women, and
children Sioux were
killed

15. Chief Joseph
• Led the Nez Perce people
• Nez Perce lived in northwest (Oregon and
Idaho)
- Fished for salmon, gathered food, and
hunted
• Chief Joseph – leader of the Nez Perce
who refused to sell land to government
• 1877 - Gov. ordered the Nez Perce people
to move to a reservation
- They fled and tried to evade the army
• Captured about 40 miles south of Canada
- Chief Joseph made speech
- Said that he would fight no more

16. Assimilation
• Conditions grew worse as more Indians were
forced on to reservations
• Reformers began calling for changes
• Many white though that only solution was to
make the Indians become more like the whites
- Assimilation - to adopt the culture of the
people around you

17. Assimilation
• Dawes Act (1887) - intended to make Indians give up their traditions
and accept White customs
- Reservation lands were divided up in farm plots for families and
individuals (40 to 160 acres)
- Any remaining land was sold to white settlers
- Profits used to pay for Indian schools
- Indians who accepted the plots of land could become citizens for the
1st time
• Dawes Act failed
- Many western Indians didn't want to settle down as farmers
- Lacked tools and training
- Many sold their plots to white settlers cheap
• End 1800's - situation of the American Indians was tragic
- Lost land, people, and culture
- 20th century U.S. government finally realizes importance of Indian
way of life

18. Farming the Plain
• Gov. encouraged western
settlement
• (1862) Homestead Act -
Gov. offered 160 acres to
head of family over age
21 in return for living on
the land 5 years and
improving it
- 1862 to 1900 –
6000,000 families settled
in the west

19. Life on the farming frontier
• Homesteaders were virtually
alone (Had to be self-
sufficient)
• Women did men’s work
(plowing, harvesting,
shearing sheep)
- Also did traditional work
(carding wool, making soap,
canning vegetables)
- Some worked for
communities (sponsor
schools, churches)

20. Farmers in Debt
• Railroads, investors created bonanza farms
(huge, single-crop spreads)
• 1885 to 1890 - droughts bankrupted single-
crop operations
• Rising cost of shipping grain pushed farmers
into debt

21. Low Prices and High Cost
• Farmer's lives were hard
- droughts, floods, insects, and animal diseases
• 1870's - faced another problem
- Low prices for their crops
- Sank farther into debt
• Caused by overproduction
- More people became farmers
- Farming methods improved
• Became more expensive to operate a farm
- Tariffs on imported farm equipment
- Railroads raised prices

22. The Populist Party
• 1880's - Several political parties combined
• Populism - movement of the people
• Populist Party wants reforms
• Economic: increase money supply, graduated income
tax, & federal loans
• Political: Senate elected by popular vote, secret
ballot & 8-hour day
• 1892 - Populist candidates elected at different levels
of government
• Democratic Party eventually adopted platform

23. The Panic of 1893
• Railroads expanded faster
than markets
- Some went bankrupt
• Government’s gold supply
became depleted
- Led to rush on banks
- Businesses, banks collapse
- Panic became depression

24. Election of 1896
• Money was the central issue
• Republicans nominated
William McKinley
- Supported big business (gold
standard)
• Democrats nominated
William Jennings Bryan
- Supported silver
• Populists endorsed Bryan &
chose own VP to maintain
party identity

25. Election of 1896
• Candidates ran different campaigns
- McKinley didn't go out and campaign
- Considered undignified
- Accepted visitors at his home Bryan launched something like
a modem campaign
- Traveled by train made speeches
• Bryan carried the south and west (except California)
• McKinley carried northeast and California
- Won more electoral votes
• Urban America defeated rural America

26. The End of Populism
• 1896 - McKinley elected
president
• Populism collapsed
• Left legacy:
- Showed the powerless
could organize & have
political impact
- Agenda of reforms
enacted in 20th century

27. Industrialization &
Immigration

28. Steel: The backbone of industry
• Steel played the biggest role in moving the
U.S. into the Industrial revolution
- It is a mixture of Iron and other metals
• Steel had been used to make Knives, Swords,
and Guns (VERY EXPENSIVE)

29. Steel: The backbone of industry
• 1860 - Bessemer Process enabled
people to make iron into steel at a
low cost
- Bessemer process put air into iron
to remove carbon to make steel
• Railroads demanded most of the
new steel (9/10)
• Steel required both iron and coal
- Coal both source of fuel and carbon
- Coal mining, iron mining and
steelmaking expanded along with
railroads
• Steel also used in barbed wire &
farm machines
• Changed construction: Brooklyn
Bridge; steel-framed skyscrapers

30. Inventions in Electricity
• 1800's - scientist continued to learn about
electricity
• Learned how to make electricity from a
generator
- Used Niagara Falls to generate the electricity
• Electricity changed business
- By 1890 used to run numerous machines
• Became available in homes & encouraged
invention of appliances
• Allowed manufacturers to locate plants
anyplace & industry grew

31. Inventions in Electricity
• made widest use of
electricity
- Wanted practical
inventions (something
that would sell)
- Took out new patent
almost every month for a
5-year period
Thomas Edison - Light bulb,
motion picture camera,
.phonograph most
famous inventions

32. Inventions Change Lifestyles
• 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell
& Thomas Watson introduce
telephone
- People didn't see a practical
purpose for the telephone at
first
- By 1890's several cities were
connected by phone lines
• Office work changed
- By 1910, women were 40% of
clerical workers

33. Inventions Change Lifestyles
• Inventions impacted factory work & led to
industrialization
- clothing factories hired many women
• Industrialization made jobs easier & improves
standard of living
- By 1890, average workweek 10 hours shorter
- Workers regained power in the market as
consumers
• Some laborers thought mechanization reduced value
of human worker

34. Changes in Everyday Life
• Companies began advertising
- Procter& Gamble (Ivory
soap)
• Department stores developed
to handle women’s clothing
- R.H. Macy in New York
- Marshall Field in Chicago
• Woolworth’s and Sears
Roebuck offered products to
people in small towns

35. Rails across America
• 1860 – Abraham Lincoln
promised a transcontinental
Railroad if elected
• 1862 – Pacific Railroad Act
• Required Large amounts of
Capital
- Congress gave companies
loans and government land
located along new tracks
• Two Companies were hired
to build it

36. Central Pacific
• Central Pacific would build east from Sacramento California
• Central Pacific hired Chinese
- Discriminated against at 1st due to size
- Drank gallons of tea which made them less likely than the
Irish to get sick
• Had to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• One place required them to lay track along cliff face with a
1,400 drop
• Workers were dropped down in basket to light dynamite fuses
• Had to dig through mountains
- Started on both sides and met in the middle

37. Union Pacific
• Union Pacific would build
west from Omaha
Nebraska
• Hired Irish immigrants
• Unskilled labor
• Drinking un-boiled ditch
water made them sick

38. Track Completed
• Two Companies raced to see
who could lay the most track
- Averaged 1 to 2 miles per day
• Union Pacific – 1,086 miles
• Central Pacific – 690 miles
• May 10, 1869 - Track was
completed in Promontory, Utah
- Connected with a golden spike
- Attached a telegraph wire to
the stake
- Transmitted a charge to the
entire nation when it was
finished

39. Combining the Railroads
• Western railroads were big
from the beginning due to
Government help
• Large rail systems in the east
were formed by combining
smaller companies
• Cornelius Vanderbilt
created the New York Central
Systems by buying smaller
systems in the eastern United
States
• 1873 – New York Central
provided services between
New York and Chicago

40. Impact of Railroads
• Helped end Indian control of
the west
- Lines cut through Indian’s
territory
- Carried settlers, buffalo
hunters, and minors west
• Tied the East and West
economies together
- Carried raw materials, crops,
and live stock from West to
East
- Midwestern cities became
processing centers (Chicago
and St. Louis)
- Helped the growth of
industry by turning America
into one giant market place

41. Impact of Railroads
• Changed the way people thought about the
environment
- Before railroads People lived and worked
near water transportation routes
- Railroad made it possible to transport goods
without water
- Denver, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming
developed without water Transportation
- Weather didn't stop Railroad

42. Impact of Railroads
• Schedules became a part of
American life
- Standard time established
- November 18, 1883 - standard
time went into effect (divided
U.S. into 4 zones) - 1st
established railroad time that
was too local (over 100 time
zones)
- Many communities
refused to accept it
-1918 - Congress adopted
standard time
- Today we have six (4 original
plus the Alaska time and Hawaii-
Aleutian time)

44. Opportunities and Opportunists
• Railroads required great
supply of materials, parts
• Iron, coal, steel, lumber,
glass industries grew to
meet demand
• 1880 - George M. Pullman
built railcar factory on Illinois
prairie
• Pullman provided housing,
doctors, shops, & sports
field for workers
• Company tightly controlled
residents to ensure stable
work force

45. Opportunities and Opportunists
• Wish for control, profit leads some railroad
magnates to corruption
- Union Pacific stockholders formed
construction company, Crédit Mobilier
- overpaid for laying track, pocketed profits
- Republican politicians were implicated &
reputation of party

46. The Grange and the Railroads
• Farmers became angry over perceived railroad
corruption
- Railroads sold government lands to
businesses, not settlers
- Fixed prices & kept farmers in debt
- Charged different customers different rates

47. Granger Laws
• Grangers sponsored state & local political candidates
• Pressed for laws to protect farmers’ interests
• Munn v. Illinois - Supreme Court upheld states’ right to
regulate RR
• Set principle that federal government could regulate private
industry
• 1886 - Interstate Commerce Act - Supreme Court said
states couldn’t set rates on interstate commerce
• Public outrage led to Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
- Federal government could supervise railroads
- Established Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
• Legal battle with railroads; difficult for ICC to take action

48. The Centennial- 100 year anniversary
(1876)
• U. S. threw itself a birthday
party that lasted 6 months
• World's Fair in Philadelphia
• Millions of people came to
see American
advancements in
technology
- Biggest attraction - Corliss
engine (steam engine) -
supplied power to 8,000
other machines.

49. What made Industry Grow
• Railroads - made possible a vast national exchange of goods
• Inventions - New ideas and inventions helped U.S. become an industrial
Giant
• Patent - guarantees an inventor all the profits for/her invention for a
certain length of time
– Before 1860 - 36,000 patents
– Between 1860 and 1900 - 650,000
• Natural Resources - U.S. had abundant supplies of coal, iron ore, oil,
forest, water resources, and fertile land
• Human labor and talent - U.S. population more than doubled between
1860 and 1900 (much of this population came from immigrants)
• Capital-large profits could be made from America's growing economy
- This encouraged Banks and wealthy people to lend money to build new
factories (A lot of capital came from European investors)

50. Rise of Corporations
• Before 1880 most businesses owned directly by one
person or partnership
• Banks were afraid to loan money because company
could collapse if person died
• Corporation - company that has Gov. permission to
raise money by selling stock
• People buy stock for 2 reasons
- Hope price of stock will rise
- Want dividends (share of profits)
• Corporations can borrow money more easily
- Continues to exist if when its owners die

51. Social Darwinism and Business
• Principles of Social Darwinism – Survival of the Fittest
• Darwin’s theory of biological evolution: the best-adapted
survive
• Social Darwinism, or social evolution, based on Darwin’s
theory
• Economists used Social Darwinism to justify doctrine of
laissez faire
• Idea of survival & success of the most capable appealed to
wealthy
• Notion of individual responsibility in line with Protestant
ethic
• See riches as sign of God’s favor; poor must be lazy, inferior

52. Entrepreneurs
• People who start businesses
• They imagined a goal then achieved it
• Used new inventions to gain what they wanted
• Many became philanthropist - gave money to colleges,
libraries, museums, etc
• Many Entrepreneurs of the 1800's called "Captains of
Industry" for leadership
• Critics call them "Robber Barons" for ruthlessness
- Destroyed their competitors
- Raised prices and lowered quality
- Paid low wages and had unsafe factories

53. Andrew Carnegie
(Steel)
• Born poor
• Started out in textile business
• Moved to job with railroads saved money
• Decided steel was industry of the future
- Invested money in steel mills that used latest technology
• Used vertical integration - bought out suppliers to control
materials
- Cut cost buy purchasing mines and ships to transport
• By 1900 - controlled American steel business
• Didn't believe in leaving money to family
- Gave away 350 million dollars for the improvement of
mankind

54. John D. Rockefeller (Oil)
• Cleveland merchant
• Entered oil business in 1860's
• Purchased refinery - plant
that turned purify crude oil
• Formed Standard Oil
- Trust - a business that
controlled many businesses
in same industry
- Charged whatever prices
they wanted to

55. Sherman Antitrust Act
• Government thought expanding corporations
stifled free competition
• Sherman Antitrust Act: trust illegal if they
interfere with free trade
• Prosecuting companies was difficult
• Government stopped enforcing act

56. Gilded Age
• American industry enabled a few people to
become rich beyond imagination
• Had palace like homes with gilded decoration
• 1883 - William and Alvia Vanderbilt threw
party that cost $200 per person (1,200 guest
$250,000 total
- Average non farm person made $438 per
year
• Nations economy seesawed between boom
and bust (called business cycle)

59. Lives of Workers
• Most workers had 12 hour days, 6 day workweeks
- perform repetitive, mind-dulling tasks
- no vacation, sick leave, injury compensation
• To survive, families needed all members to work, including
children
• Late 1800's - children worked along aside adults
- Child labor laws didn’t exist
• Sweatshops - places where people work long hours in unsafe
conditions for low wages
• By 1900 - 2/3 of people were wage earners
- Lost sense of accomplishment that comes from making
product start to finish
• Treated like another piece of machinery

60. Call for Action
• Gov. played no role in telling
business how to operate
• Workers organized to better lives
• Labor unions - group of workers
that negotiate with the company
owners about wages and working
conditions
• Railroad Strike of 1877
- Railroad cut wages
- Workers went on strike
- State militias battled angry mobs
- President Hayes sent federal
troops to stop strike and restore
order

61. Knights of Labor
• Formed by Terrence Powderly
(machinist)
• Became a national union of
workers
• Wanted to reform society
- 8 hour workday
- Child labor laws
- Wanted equal pay for women
• Were against immigration
- Immigrants worked for lower
wages
• - Applauded the Chinese
Exclusion Act - Stopped all
Chinese immigration to the U.S.
for 10 years

62. Reacting to Unions
• Leaders saw unions power as a threat to profits
• Blamed unions on socialist and anarchist
- Socialist - wanted workers to share in ownership
and profits of business
- Anarchist - rejected all forms of government and
authority
• Late 1800's - most Americans sided with business
leaders
- Felt that person's success should depend upon their
labor effort

63. Samuel Gompers and the AFL
• AFL only had skilled workers (harder to
replace)
• Limited demands to wages and working
conditions
• Began to achieve goals
• Gov. began to help workers
- Passed safety laws
• The American Federation of Labor
was the first successful labor union.
• The president of the AFL was Samuel
Gompers

64. Union Setbacks
• Homestead Strike of 1892
- Steel mill workers won higher
wages
- Carnegie announced company
would only deal with employees one
on one
- Employees protested
- Company locked them out hired
new employees
- Pinkerton agents (people hired as
private security guards were brought
in)
- Pinkerton agents and former
employees had a 12 hour gun fight
- Gov. sent in militia
- Steel workers union destroyed

65. Union Setbacks
• Pullman strike – 1894
- Depression - Pullman Palace
car cut wages
- Company owned town
- refused to cut rent
- Workers protested
- Federal troops sent in to end
strike
• The Pullman Strike
encouraged workers to join
unions and made business
owners despise unions.

66. New Immigrants
• Late 1800's – Millions of
immigrants migrated to
America
• 1870–1920, about 20
million Europeans arrived
in U.S.
- Italians
- Eastern European Jews

67. New Immigrants
• About 300,000 Chinese arrive
- Earliest ones attracted by gold
rush
- Worked in railroads, farms,
mines, domestic service,
business
• Japanese worked on Hawaiian
plantations, then moved to West
Coast
- by 1920, more than 200,000 on
West Coast
• Immigrants were looking for
jobs, opportunity, and &
freedom

68. Steam Ships
• Steam ships replaced sailing
ships
- Safer and faster
• European companies
competed to bring
immigrants to America
• Enabled new type of worker
to come to America
• Single male worker who
came for a few months or
years
- Made money then returned
to homeland

69. Ellis Island
• Most immigrants
arrived in New York City
• Ellis Island became 1st
stop for immigrants
from Europe

70. Ellis Island
• Had to have medical check up
• Had to answer questions
- Name
- Occupation
- Who paid your fare?
- Can you read or write
- Have you ever been in prison?
• Many immigrants received new names (Inspectors had
difficulty pronouncing their real names)
- Buchenroth = Roth
- Stefanopoulous = Stevens
• Most immigrants were allowed to stay
- Only 2% sent home

71. Angel Island
• Angel Island -immigrant
processing station in
San Francisco Bay
• Immigrants endure
harsh questioning, long
detention for admission

72. Urbanization

73. Cooperation for Survival
• Immigrants had to create new life
- Find work, home & learn new ways
• Many sought people who shared cultural
values, religion, & language
- ethnic communities formed
• Friction developed between “hyphenated”
Americans, & native-born

74. Where the immigrants settled
• Most settled where
they could find work
(mines, mills, factories)
• By 1900- ½ of all
immigrants lived in 4
industrial states
• Most immigrants had
way paid by relatives
(worked where they
worked)

75. Urban Opportunities
• Industrialization leads to urbanization, or growth of
cities
• Most immigrants settle in cities
- Cheap housing & factory jobs
• Americanization movement - assimilate people into
main culture
- Schools, voluntary groups taught citizenship skills
- English, American history, cooking, etiquette
- Ethnic communities provided social support

76. Sweatshop Labor
• By 1890 - Most of all
Jewish immigrants were
clothing workers
• Many worked in
sweatshops ( both
adults and children)
- Children began
working as young as age
8 years old

77. Sweatshop Labor
• 1911 - Fire at the
Triangle Shirtwaist
• Company killed 148
employees
- Doors on the top
three stories were
locked
- Many jumped to their
death

78. The Rise of Nativism
• Melting pot—in U.S. people blend by abandoning native
culture
- immigrants don’t want to give up cultural identity
• Nativism - Overt favoritism toward native-born Americans
• Nativists believed Anglo-Saxons superior to other ethnic
groups
• Some objected to immigrants’ religion
• Many were Catholics& Jews
• 1897 - Congress passed literacy bill for immigrants
• President Cleveland vetoed it
• 1917, similar bill passed over President Wilson’s veto

79. Anti-Asian Sentiment
• Nativism found foothold
in labor movement,
especially in West
- fear Chinese immigrants
who work for less
• Labor groups exerted
political pressure to
restrict Asian immigration
• 1882 - Chinese Exclusion
Act banned entry to most
Chinese

80. Anti-Asian Sentiment
• Nativist fears extended to
Japanese, most Asians in
early 1900s
- San Francisco segregated
Japanese schoolchildren
• Gentlemen’s Agreement -
Japan limited emigration
- In return, U.S. repealed
segregation

81. Migration from Country to City
• Farm technology decreased need for laborers
- People move to cities
• Many African Americans in South lost their livelihood
- 1890–1910, move to cities in North & West to
escape racial violence
- Found segregation & discrimination in North too
- Competition for jobs between blacks, white
immigrants causes tension

82. Urban Problems
• Housing
- Working-class families
lived in houses on outskirts
or boardinghouses
- Later, row houses built for
single families
- Immigrants took over row
houses, 2–3 families per
house
- Tenements—multifamily
urban dwellings, were
overcrowded, unsanitary

83. Urban Problems
• Tenement Living
- Poor people and immigrants
lived in tenements
- They didn't have indoor
plumbing or heating
- Lacked fresh air
- People slept on the fire
escapes. Sidewalks, and roofs
in the summer
- Many immigrants also
worked in their tenements
- Did piecework - work paid by
the number of objects made
- Slum – name for a
neighborhood that had
tenements

84. Urban Problems
• Transportation
- Mass transit - moved large
numbers of people along
fixed routes
- By 20th century, transit
systems linked city to suburbs
• Water
- 1860s - cities had
inadequate or no piped water,
indoor plumbing rare
- Filtration introduced 1870s,
chlorination in 1908

85. Urban Problems
• Sanitation
- Streets: manure, open gutters, factory
smoke, poor trash collection
- Contractors hired to sweep streets, collect
garbage, & clean outhouse
- often do not do job properly
- By 1900, cities develop sewer lines, create
sanitation departments

86. Reformers Mobilize
• Social welfare reformers work to relieve urban poverty
• Social Gospel Movement - Religious movement that
urged Christians to help the poor
- Preached salvation through service to poor
• Settlement Houses - community centers in slums,
designed to help immigrants
- They supplied services such as daycare, adult education, and
social clubs to the South
- Gave young educated women a place to do useful work
• Settlement houses helped change city government
- Encouraged them to expand their social services (especially
to the poor)
• New profession born (social worker)

87. Running the Cities
• Most of the power belonged to a political machine -
informal organization formed to gain and keep power
in city government (Bought votes)
• Head of the machine was the political boss (usually
Mayor)
- Controlled access to city jobs, business licenses
- Influenced courts, municipal agencies
- Arranged building projects, community services

88. Running the Cities
• Cities were divided into wards - often made up heavily of a
single ethnic group
• Ward boss - in charge of each ward (1st or 2nd generation
Americans)
- Looked out for the people in his ward (Food, jobs, housing)
• Only asked for votes in return
• Political party machine's power resulted from spoils system
- City jobs
- City contracts
• Contractors had to give political machine "kickback"
- Graft - illegal use of political influence for personal gain

89. Big City Corruption
• Cities grew in the late 1800's
• Couldn't meet the needs of the people
- Water, sewer, fire and police departments
• Political bosses stepped in and provided people with
things they needed
- Food, housing, and loans
• Political bosses had patronage - the power to give
out Gov. contracts and jobs
- Asked for votes in return
• Political machines stole millions of dollars from cities

90. The Tweed Ring
• Most famous political
machine – Tammany Hall -
ran by William “Boss”
Tweed
- State senator and political
boss
- Stole approximately 100
million dollars from New
York City

91. The Tweed Ring
• Cartoonist Thomas Nast
drew cartoons exposing
Boss Tweed
• Tweed offered him ½
million dollars to leave the
country
• Tweed was finally arrested
and sent to prison
• Government. corruption
existed at every level

93. Attacking the Spoils System
• Patronage—government jobs to those who help candidate get
elected
• Many government workers were not qualified
- A few could not read or write
- Government. Workers were often dishonest
- Put family members on payroll (sometimes pets)
• Reformers demanded changes in the system to select civil
service
- Civil service - Gov. jobs where people are appointed rather
than elected
• Reformers wanted civil service workers to be chosen on merit
rather than spoils system

94. Civil Service Reform
• James Garfield elected
president
- Chester Arthur elected Vice-
president
• Garfield assassinated by
disappointed office seeker
- Arthur became president
• Pressure forced Arthur to back
the Pendleton Civil Service Act
• Pendleton Civil Service Act
- required people to take civil
service exams for certain jobs
- Also forbid elected officials
from firing civil servants based
upon their political views

95. Higher Education for African Americans
• Not enough black
college graduates to
meet needs of
communities
• Booker T.
Washington—racism
will end if blacks get
labor skills
• Headed Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial
Institute, now a
university

96. Higher Education for African Americans
• W. E. B. Du Bois, first African
American to get Harvard
doctorate
- disagreed with Washington
• Founded Niagara Movement to
encourage liberal arts study
- believed well-educated future
leaders needed
- Formed the National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP)

97. Jim Crow Laws
• 1870s, - 1880s, Supreme Court
allowed poll tax, Literacy test &
grandfather clause
• Racial segregation laws
separated races in private &
public places
• Segregation laws called Jim
Crow laws after old minstrel
song
• 1896 Plessey v. Ferguson -
segregation legal in public
places
• Allowed “separate but equal”
doctrine if provide equal service

98. Discrimination in the North
• Many blacks migrated North for better paying
jobs & social equality
• were forced into segregated neighborhoods
• Rejected by labor unions; hired last, fired first
by employers
• Competition between blacks, working-class
whites sometimes violent