1. America After the Civil War: 1870-1900
Industrialization & Urbanization
Ranching, Mining, & Farming
Reconstruction &
Rise of Jim Crow Segregation

2. America in the Gilded Age: 1870-1900
The South:
By 1877, the South was recovering from the Civil War but was no longer forced to “reconstruct”
Industry was regional by 1890: (a) NE had 85% of industry, (b) the sparsely-settled West provided raw materials for industry, & (c) the South was still recovering from war (made tobacco, iron & textiles; but ½ as many manufactured goods as NY state)
“Jim Crow” reigned supreme as whites legally segregated the South into 2 distinct societies

3. America in the Gilded Age: 1870-1900
The North:
Experienced a “2nd Industrial Revolution,” mass immigration, & urbanization

4. Railroads, steel, & oil companies formed America’s first monopolies
American industry & urbanization grew

5. America in the Gilded Age: 1870-1900
The West:
Manifest Destiny continued after 1865 as miners homesteaders, & ranchers headed West

6. Established new states & closed the frontier by 1890
The United States by 1890
Washington
North Dakota
Montana
Idaho
Established new states & closed the frontier by 1890
South Dakota
Colorado
Wyoming

7. ..but this came at the expense of Native Americans
Western raw materials fueled eastern factories
Crushed Native Americans

8. Settlement of the West

9. The Mining Bonanza
Mining was the 1st magnet to attract settlers to the West
CA (1849) started the gold rush, but strikes in Pikes Peak, CO & Carson River Valley, NV (1859) set off wild migrations to the West:
Comstock Lode = $306 million
John Mackay’s Big Bonanza made him richest man in world
John Mackay earned $25 a minute from his gold/silver lode in Sierra Mountains

10. Mining Regions of the West
Created need for local gov’t, law enforcement, sanitation, businesses, prostitutes
Corporations had the expensive machinery (“hydraulic mining techniques”) to extract most of the gold in the West
Individual “placer miners” took little skill or money to start, but could not reach deep lodes
Mining Regions of the West ;
Discoveries of gold & silver led to overnight mining towns

11. Mining Bonanza ¼ to ½ of the mining population was foreign born:
Latin American miners brought experience & new techniques
Chinese brought a tireless ethic
Led to hostility & riots:
Foreign Miners’ Act in 1852 charged a monthly mining fee
Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 suspended Chinese immigration

12. A cattle bought for $4 in Texas sold for $40 in Kansas
In the 1860s, cattle ranching boomed
The Cattle Bonanza
Ranchers used the “open range” to graze longhorns
By 1867, ranchers started using trains to ship cattle to Chicago

13. The Cattle Bonanza ½ of all cowboys were black & ¼ were Mexican
By 1880, the “open range” was ending:
Wheat growers, homesteaders, & barbed wire blocked the range
Many switched to raising sheep
But “range wars” erupted over grazing rights between cowboys & “sheep-boys”

15. 2/3 of all homesteaders failed to farm their land
The Farming Bonanza
2/3 of all homesteaders failed to farm their land
The U.S. gov’t offered incentives for farmers to settle the West:
Homestead Act (1862)—gave 160 acres of land if families pledged to live there for 5 years
Other gov’t acts helped develop western lands by planting trees & building irrigation systems
Due to land grants, RRs were the largest western landowners
500 million acres doled to businesses but only 80 million to homesteaders

16. The Farming Bonanza
In 1870, homesteaders pushed West & adapted to the harsh farming conditions:
Farmers used dry farming techniques & planted tougher varieties of wheat
New machinery sped harvesting & planting; led to bonanza farms
By 1890, the U.S. became a major crop exporter
A pioneer sod house

17. Exodusters
Exodusters were black farmers who moved West to escape Southern crop liens & Jim Crow Laws

18. Rails Across the Continent
In 1862, Congress authorized the transcontinental railroad:
Union Pacific worked westward from Nebraska (Irish laborers)
Central Pacific worked eastward from CA (Chinese immigrants)
May 10, 1869 the 2 tracks met at Promontory Point in Utah
By 1900, 4 more lines were built to the Pacific
1869 is same year as Suez Canal completion—similar effects; both opened access & tie two worlds together 7

19. Federal Land Grants to Railroads by 1871
The national gov’t doled $65 million & millions of acres in land grants (received reduced rates for shipping)

20. The Transcontinental Railroad
“Pullman cars” & “refrigeration cars”
In 1870, RR companies developed the 1st time zones to better schedule the RR system; the US would not adopt time zones until 1918

21. Crushing the Native Americans

22. The Plains Indians
In 1865, 2/3 of all Indians lived on the Great Plains
Their culture was dependent upon the buffalo & the horse
Tribes of several 1,000 people were subdivided into bands of 100s which made it difficult for the U.S. to negotiate treaties

23. Searching for an Indian Policy
Before the Civil War, the West was “one big reservation”
The Indian Intercourse Act (1834) forbade whites from entering “Indian country” without a license
The Wagon trains to OR & CA, gold rush, transcontinental RR

24. Searching for an Indian Policy
But…rapid Western expansion in the 1850s brought a new Indian “concentration policy” with distinct boundaries for each tribe “as long as the waters run and grass grows”

25. Searching for an Indian Policy
“Kill and scalp all, big and little”
Concentration did not last as whites ignored these boundaries:
Sand Creek Massacre (1864)—Col John Chivington attacked 700 sleeping Indians in CO after a peace agreement was signed
Sioux War ( )—gold miners wanted a Bozeman Trail (across Sioux hunting grounds) to connect mining towns; Sioux murdered 88 U.S. soldiers
Congress investigated & condemned Chivington’s attack

26. Searching for an Indian Policy
In 1867, the U.S. formed the Indian Peace Commission :
Ended Bozeman Trail plans
Made “small reservations” in the Dakota & Oklahoma territories
Few Native Americans settled into these reservations peacefully:
Red River War (1874)
Little Big Horn (1876)
Wounded Knee Massacre (1890)
The discovery of gold in South Dakota led a Sioux army of 2,500 to ambush & kill Lt Col Custer & his 197 soldiers
Black soldiers in the U.S. army called “buffalo soldiers” were used to fend off Indian attacks in the West
“Custer’s Last Stand” set off demands for revenge among Americans
The U.S. army was ordered to stop Sioux “ghost dances” & machine gunned 200 men, women, & children

27. The End of Tribal Life
“Kill the Indian and save the man”
—Richard Pratt, founder of Carlisle
In 1871, the U.S. adopted its 4th Indian policy: Assimilation
U.S. citizenship was offered to all Indians who farmed, lived away from their tribe & “adopted the habits of civilized life”
Dawes Severalty Act in 1887 offered farms (160 acres to families & 80 to men) & the protection of U.S. laws

28. The End of Tribal Life
The final blow to Indian culture came with annihilation of buffalo:
Began with the construction of the transcontinental RR in 1860s
From to , million buffalo were killed each year

29. 1 hunter = 100 buffalo per day

30. The Final Fling
In 1889, Congress responded to demands to open the Oklahoma Territory to white settlement
On April 22, 1889, about 100,000 “Boomers” & “Sooners” flooded into the last “Indian land”
White migrants claimed 2 million acres in Oklahoma homesteads
Moved out Creeks & Seminoles
“Sooners” couldn’t wait until noon
Oklahoma “Boomers” waiting for noon

31. Conclusions: The End of the Frontier
By 1890, the western frontier ended
Miners, ranchers, & cowboys flooded West at the expense of Indians who were restricted to smaller & smaller reservations
Westerners were commercially connected to Eastern markets but would grow increasingly frustrated by the economic & political concentration of power in the East
With no more West to conquer, where would American expansion go next?
A continuation of antebellum “Manifest Destiny”