1. The Last West and the New South, 1865-1900
Painting by Robert Lindneux in the Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

2. American social developments has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is the Great West.
-Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893

3. Settlement of the Last Frontier
People began to migrate to “the Great American Desert” after the Civil War
The Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Western Plateau
Little rainfall, open grasslands, buffalo
By 1900, buffalo were wiped out and homesteads were fenced in
3 groups of pioneers: miners, cattlemen/cowboys, and farmers

5. The Mining Frontier California Gold Rush in 1849 was only the start
Gold and silver strikes in Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, and South Dakota
Comstock Lode ($340 million in gold and silver by 1890) responsible for Nevada entering the Union in 1864

6. Mining Towns
Towns grew quickly and became famous for saloons, dance-hall girls, and vigilante justice
Many became ghost towns after the mining boom
1/3 of western miners were Chinese immigrants
Miner’s Tax: $20/month for all foreign-born miners
Virginia City, Nevada

7. Effects of Mining Impact on the economics and politics of the U.S.
Environmental problems
Native Americans lost their land

8. The Cattle Frontier Traditions and techniques borrowed from Mexicans
Railroad construction into Kansas opened up eastern markets for Texas cattle
Cowboys, many of whom were blacks and Mexicans, earned about $1 a day
Long cattle drives ended in 1880s after overgrazing destroyed the grass and a blizzard and drought killed off about 90% of the cattle
Barbed wire revolutionized ranching (Joseph Glidden)

9. The Farming Frontier Homestead Act of 1862
Offered 160 acres of land free to families who settled it for 5 years
Many families ended up paying for the best land that was owned by railroad companies and speculators

10. The Farming Frontier: Problems and Solutions
“Sodbusters”
Extremes of hot and cold
Grasshopper plagues
Isolation
Water was scarce
Falling prices
High cost of new machinery
“Dry-farming” and deep-plowing techniques
Dams and irrigation saved many

11. Turner’s Frontier Thesis
Oklahoma Territory (old Indian Territory) opened for settlement in 1889
Last great land rush
1890: U.S. Census Bureau declared that the frontier had been settled
“Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893)
Expansion had promoted independence and individualism
Free land a “safety valve” for discontent
Were we doomed to follow the social conflict represented in Europe?

12. Removal of the Native Americans
Diverse population
New Mexico and Arizona: Pueblo farmed in permanent settlements
Navajo and Apache of the SW were nomadic hunter-gatherers who had to adapt
Pacific Northwest: Chinook developed communities based on hunting and fishing
2/3 of tribes were nomadic, living on the Great Plains and hunting buffalo (Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Crow, Comanche)

14. Reservation Policy
1830s: Jackson moved Natives westward into “Indian Territory”
U.S. Government negotiated with tribes in 1851 and moved them to reservations

15. Indian Wars
1864: Colorado militia massacred Cheyenne women, children, and men at Sand Creek, Colorado
Sioux War of : Army detachment wiped out by the Sioux
Treaties provided for reservations after these battles, but miners refused to stay off land
1870s: second Sioux War led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
Eventually defeated by the Army, but Custer’s command was destroyed at Little Big Horn in 1876

16. Assimilationists A Century of Dishonor (1881) by Helen Hunt Jackson
Created sympathy for Native Americans
Many proposed education and conversion to Christianity

17. Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
The US government stopped negotiating treaties with the Native Americans as separate nations.
This allowed the US government not to recognize the sovereign nations of the Native Americans and take on the more aggressive policy of assimilation.
Families would receive 160 acres or less
U.S. citizenship was granted to those who stayed on land for 25 years and became “civilized”
Best land sold to white settlers by government, speculators, and even Native Americans
Policy failed
Disease and poverty reduced population to 200,000
The failure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to manage this trust fund will bring about the lawsuits from the Native American tribes in the 1990s.

18. Ghost Dance Movement Religious movement Misunderstood
Government tried to suppress
Sioux medicine man Sitting Bull was killed
December 1890: Over 200 Native American men, women, and children were gunned down at Wounded Knee in the Dakotas

19. Indian Reorganization of 1934
This signals a major reversal of previous federal Indian policies.
Instead of forcing Native Americans to give up all of their customs and traditions to be farmers or live in cities, the IRA gave them back their rights to live as separate cultures.
Tribes were allowed to form their own governments among their reservations to increase tribal holdings and encouraged tribal customs.
This will end the push for assimilation.
It will also remove the federal responsibility to the
Native American Tribes under previous policies.

20. Indian Reservation Today

21. The New South Modern capitalist values Industrial growth
Improved transportation
Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, spread the ideal of Laissez-faire” capitalism
Offered tax-exemption to investors
Cheap labor

22. Economic Progress Birmingham, AL: leading steel center
Memphis, TN: growing lumber industry
Richmond, VA: center of tobacco industry
Cheap labor allowed GA, NC, and SC to become chief producers of textiles
Southern RR companies converted to standard gauge

23. Continued Poverty Remained largely agricultural
Northern investors controlled ¾ of the southern railroads and by 1900 had control of the steel industry
Industrial workers (94% were white) in the S. earned ½ the national average
Most remained in traditional roles of sharecropping and farming

25. Why did the South remain poverty-stricken?
South’s late start at industrialization
Poorly educated workforce
Failed to invest in technical and engineering schools
Political leadership provided little support for the education of either poor whites or African Americans

26. Agriculture
Remained tied to cotton; cotton acres more than doubled
Overproduction caused cotton prices to decline by more than 50% by the 1890s
Per capita income declined and farmers lost their farms
By 1900, over ½ of white farmers and ¾ of black farmers were tenants (sharecropping)

27. Attempt at Diversification
George Washington Carver
African American scientist at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama promoted the growing of peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybean

28. Farmers’ Political Activism
1890: Farmers’ Southern Alliance had more than 1 million members
Colored Farmer’s National Alliance: 250,000 members
Both promoted political reforms to help solve the farmers’ economic problems
If they could have united, they would have been even more powerful

29. Segregation
Democrats came to power in the southern states after Reconstruction
Business community
White supremacists
Favored segregation in public facilities
Often used racial fears of whites to remain in power

30. Discrimination and the Supreme Court
During Reconstruction federal laws had protected against racial discrimination
U.S. Supreme Court began to strike down these laws in the 1870s
Civil Rights Cases (1883)
Ruled that Congress could not legislate against racial discrimination practiced by private citizens

31. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Upheld a LA law requiring “separate but equal accommodations” for white and black passengers on the railroads.
Did not violate the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws.”
Jim Crow laws were passed by many states after Plessy.
Separate washrooms, fountains, park benches, etc.

32. Loss of civil rights Voter registration dropped
Ex.: 130,334 registered in LA in 1896 and only in 1904
Literacy tests, poll taxes, “whites-only” primaries, grandfather clauses
Barred from serving on juries
Stiffer penalties for crimes committed by African Americans
Lynch mobs killed over 1400 men in the 1890s
Remained in farming jobs and low-paying domestic work

33. Responding to segregation
International Migration Society
Booker T. Washington
Established Tuskegee Institute
Largest and best-known industrial school in the nation
Organized the National Negro Business League
Racial harmony and economic cooperation
Would rise up through education (W.E.B. Du Bois would later argue against this)

34. Tuskegee Institute

35. Farm Problems: North, South, and West
Farmers were becoming a minority
Number of farms doubled
Number of farmers went from 60% of population in 1860 to less than 37% in 1900

36. Changes in Agriculture
More commercialized and specialized
Farmers were getting food and goods from stores and catalogs
More dependent on machines such as steam engines, seeders, and reaper-thresher combines

37. Falling Prices
Increased production and global competition from Argentina, Russia, and Canada drove prices down for wheat, cotton, and other crops
Money supply was not changing, so went into deflation in the 1870s and 1880s
Farmers faced high interest rates and need to pay off old debts

38. Rising costs Monopolistic corporations kept prices high
Middlemen took profit before selling to farmers
Railroads, warehouses, and elevators charges high rates for transportation and storage
Heavy taxes on property and land, but did not tax income from stocks and bonds
Unfair tariffs

39. Fighting back National Grange Movement
National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry
Originally a social and educational organization for farmers
Established cooperatives
Lobbied state legislatures to regulate railroad and elevator rates
Illegal for RRs to fix prices through pools and to give rebates
Munn v. Illinois (1877): SC upheld right of states to regulate businesses

40. Interstate Commerce Act (1886)
State laws could really only regulate the short-hauls, not across state lines
Wabash v. Illinois (1886): individual states could not regulate interstate commerce
Established the Interstate Commerce Commission: power to investigate and prosecute pool and rebates
RR rates had to be “reasonable and just”

41. Farmers’ alliances By 1890, about 1 million farmers had joined
Both whites and blacks joined
Had serious potential of turning into an independent political party

42. Ocala platform National Alliance
Attacked major parties as being subservient to Wall Street and big business
Supported direct election of U.S. senators
Lower tariff rates
Graduated income tax
New banking system regulated by the federal government
Treasury notes and silver be used to increase the amount of money in circulation
Wanted to create inflation and raise crop prices
Many of these ideas would become part of the Populist movement in 1892 and 1896