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Of the People

McGerr, Lewis, Oakes, Cullather, Summers, Townsend, Dunak

Volume II

Since 1865

Chapter 17 The Culture and Politics of Industrial America 1870—1892

Protestors Outside an Ohio Saloon

Chapter 17 American Portrait: Luna Kellie and the Farmers’ Alliance

Dreamed of life on a farm

Barely scraped by

Farmers’ Alliance was popular with women

Cooperative enterprise

Became state secretary

Populist Party

The Elusive Boundaries of Male and Female

Anthony Comstock Crediting himself with 4,000 arrests and destroying 400,000 pictures, New York’s most notorious vice crusader showed how active governments could be, in the so-called era of laissez-faire, against views that middle-class moralists found objectionable.

The Victorian Construction of Male and Female

Females were inferior, undeveloped males

After 1750, the idea of “opposite” sexes

Men were active, competitive, providers

Rational, insistent sexual drives

Women were frail, cooperative, needed protecting, lacked sexuality

Role of medical profession in reproduction

The Victorian Crusade for Morality

Cities broke down traditional morality

Anthony Comstock, Society for the Suppression of Vice

Pornography, contraception, abortion

Abortion, contraception were illegal but still accessible

Prostitution remained common

Urban Culture

Reflected social changes

Culture reflected nostalgia for the past

Buffalo Bill, Uncle Remus

Electricity led to the growth of nightlife

Idealization of sensuality

Houses of Prostitution

Houses of Prostitution, 1850–1859 and 1900–1909 One measure of the sexual freedom characteristic of city life was the explosive increase in prostitution. As the demand for prostitution rose, so did attempts to suppress it.

Source: Timothy J. Gilfoyle, City of Eros (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), p. 33.

Growth of the Nonfarm Sector

Growth of the Nonfarm Sector Underpinning the rise of urban culture was the emergence of a wage-earning labor force. Concentrated in cities, wage earners had cash at their disposal to spend on the amusements cities had to offer.

A New Cultural Order: New Americans Stir Old Fears

Immigrants Immigrants often crowded into “tenements,” a new form of apartment building that actually improved living conditions for many of America’s poor city dwellers.

Josiah Strong Attacks Immigration

Our Country

Anglo Saxon strengths are love of liberty, spiritual Christianity

Immigrants were a threat to Anglo-Saxon America

Peasants, Catholics

Social Gospel

Foreign Birth by Region

Population of Foreign Birth by Region, 1880

Source: Clifford L. Lord and Elizabeth H. Lord, Lord & Lord Historical Atlas of the United States (New York: Holt,1953).

From Immigrants to Ethnic Americans

Loyalties were local, not national

Immigrants’ regional differences faded into nationalism

Fraternal organizations, mutual aid societies

The Catholic Church and Its Limits in Immigrant Culture

Churches eased transition into American life

Sped development of ethnic identities

Full rituals, mass in European languages

Catholic leaders worked to standardize rituals, ceremonies

Parochial school systems

Immigrant Cultures

Music, theater adjusted to New World expectations

Families were large

Infant mortality was high

Children’s earnings helped families

The Enemy at the Gates

Social transformation was difficult

Diversity

Rise of nativism

Chinese exclusion act, 1882

Fight against Tammany Hall

American Protective Association

Impact of social Darwinism

Two Political Styles

As the Number of Immigrants to America Swelled, So Did Opposition to Them This 1891 cartoon blames immigration for causing a host of social and political evils.

The Triumph of Party Politics

Party line voting

Intimidation and corruption

Resurrectionists, colonizers, purchase caters

Voter turnout was high

Newspapers were partisan

Campaign spectacle

Eligible Voters Casting Ballots

Percent of Eligible Voters Casting Ballots Between 1840 and 1896, a huge proportion— often 80 percent—of those eligible to vote did so in presidential elections. In the twentieth century, turnout dropped substantially.

Masculine Partisanship and Feminine Voluntarism

Voting was part of man’s sphere, public

Women belonged in the private sphere

Decorated meeting halls, prepared foods, participated in parades

Moral reform movements gave women a political outlet

Education and lobbying

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union

Frances Willard

Rallies, speeches, articles, books

Endorsed women’s suffrage, allied with labor unions

Drunkenness as public health issue

Middle class movement

The Critics of Popular Politics

Liberals challenged the party-run state

Gov’t by professionals, independent agencies

Nonpartisan secret ballot

Civil Service Commission

Struggles for Democracy

The “Crusade” Against Alcohol

Women pushed to end liquor sales

Temperance saloons

YMCA

Sunday schools

Change took political action

Economic Issues Dominate National Politics

Greenbacks and Greenbackers

Gold standard

Greenbackers wanted to issue paper money backed by gov’t, not gold

Coinage Act of 1873 shifted to gold

Inflation benefited bankers, hurt farmers

Greenback-Labor Party

Resumption

Weak Presidents Oversee a Stronger Federal Government

Questions about election of Hayes

Assassination of Garfield led to civil service reform

Arthur, Pendleton Civil Service Act

Grover Cleveland, fight over the tariff

Benjamin Harrison, protectionism

Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 1890

The Election of 1888

The Election of 1888 With the Solid South locked up, Democrats only needed two of the biggest northern states to win. They failed this year—just barely. But for Republicans, it was a wake-up call: either they must admit enough new states to pack the Electoral College their way or they must pass a law protecting a free, fair vote down South.

America and the World

Foreign Policy: The Limited Significance of Commercial Expansion

Seward, expansion of American commerce

Growth in exports

Investment abroad—Mexico

Reciprocity

Mix of economic interest, mission to spread democracy created more assertiveness

American overthrow of Hawaiian gov’t

Government Activism and Its Limits

Kansas Farm Families on the Road to a People’s Party Gathering In a state usually locked up for the GOP, the farmer’s revolt revived political competition and an evangelical passion about issues absent since the Civil War.

States Discover Activism

Power of corporate lobbyists

Gov’t power expanded

Corporate taxes went up, public school systems expanded

Food safety laws

National holidays

Protectionist legislation

Cities: Boss Rule and New Responsibilities

Political machines expanded services, jobs

Traded them for votes

Money came from shakedowns and graft

Scandals and abuse

Authority was taken from elected officials, given to experts and specialists

Reformers

Challenging the New Industrial Order

John F. Weir’s 1877 Painting Forging the Shaft: A Welding Heat This painting graphically depicts the forms of industrial wage labor that Henry George feared. He advocated tax policies that would restore a Jeffersonian economy of small, independent producers.

Henry George and the Limits of Producers’ Ideology

Progress and Poverty

Only human labor creates legitimate wealth

Money made from money is illegitimate

Producers and predators

Tax on rents to discourage landowning classes

Challenged socialism, social Darwinism

Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Clubs

Looking Backward

Progress came through cooperation

Overcoming excessive individualism

Imagined a high tech future

Centralized planning that avoided the whims of the market

Agrarian Revolt

Global economy produced competition

Debt for agricultural equipment, railroad shipping

The Grange, collective storage

Farmers’ Alliance

Concentrated in the South and West

Ocala Platform: free silver, lower tariffs, subtreasuries, direct election of senators, publicly owned infrastructure

The Rise of the Populists

Formed by a coalition of reform organizations

Omaha Platform

Inflationary currency policy, subtreasury system, graduated income tax, national ownership of infrastructure

Secret ballot, popular election of senators

Working class coalition lacked industrial workers

Racial split in the South