Labor in the age of industrialization

During the late 19th century and early 20th century, there was much labor conflict in the railroad, steel and mining industries.  In the 1880's there was estimated to have been 500 strikes a year, involving a whopping amount of 150,000 employees, and by 1890, 500 went to 1,000, involving 700,000 workers.  By the 1900's, the number of strikes became 4,000 a year.  500 times or so, the Government would would send federal troops or militias to put down Labor strikes.  There was many a bloody incident involving state militias, private police forces and federal troops.

"During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, labor struggles were more acute in the United States than in many European countries. Today, in contrast, labor relations in the United States are more cooperative and less conflict-ridden than elsewhere. The story of how the United States forged an enduring and workable system of collective bargaining after more than half a century of bitter struggles is one of the most important themes in modern American history." -Digital history.

The University

The Gilded age brought about a major intellectual institution to America: the university.  These universities were modeled after the ones in Germany. They offered graduate and professional training in medicine, engineering, law and other fields, as we;; as undergraduate's training.

"By the 1890s, universities began to borrow organizations and procedures from business. University presidents delegated responsibility to subordinates known as the administration. University education was better organized numerically, with credit hours, grade points. The faculty divided into departments and divisions. Modern higher education had been born."
(digital history, the university.)

The Wizard Of Menlo Park

The New York World of 1901 had many a name for him.

"Our Greatest Living American," 

"The Foremost Creative and Constructive Mind of This Country,"and "Our True National Genius."

Micky Rooney and Spencer Tracy both portrayed him in the movies.

Thomas Edison was well known and considered a genius by most that knew of him.  He had 1,093 patents to his name, and made way for many electricity based technologies long before the physics of electricity was understood.  His invention's list are as follows:

The Electric Light

The Dictating Machine

The Electrified Railroad

The Fluorescent Lamp

The Mimeograph Machine

 The Movie Camera

The Phonograph

Portland cement

Wax paper

It is said, however, that his greatest invention was the development of the modern research laboratory, and a research team. 

He was born in Ohio, 1847.  When he was just ten years old, he had a small chemical lab in his cellar and was working a home made telegraph.  He even worked a small job when he was twelve, but due to a fire caused by one of his experiments, he lost his job.  He was partially deaf, and was made fun of b his fell class mates.  His teacher then pronounced his mind as "addled," and because of this, he never finished grade school.  His mother took him out of school and educated him herself.  Years later, Edison said that being deaf had saved him from many distractions.

                                               

His first invention to make money was a "tickler tape to convey stock market prices to brokerage houses." (Digital History.) Edison became a millionaire in his forties.  He was devoted to his work.  With the exception of five minute naps, Edison worked 24 hours straight.  One of his famous quotes states:  

"Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine perspiration."  

Not everyone saw Edison as the genius he was, however.  In 1877, Thomas Edison announced his invention, the Phonograph.  A Yale University professor told the New York Sun that "the idea of a talking machine is ridiculous."

Contrary to popular belief, Edison did not invent the light bulb.  He found a way to make it durable and inexpensive. He promised to make light bulbs "so cheap, only the wealthy will be able to afford to burn candles."  He tested over 6,000 filaments to make it long lasting.  He employed over 200 laboratory assistants and machinists as his facilities in Menlo Park and West Orange, N.J.   In the mid 1910's, His West Orange factory had 10,000 employees.  He had a goal to have "a minor invention every ten days, and a big thing every six months or so."    He was the first inventor to have major corporations be willing to finance his inventions.  He formed links with Cornelius Vanderbilt (who owned Western Union and the telegraph company) and J.P. Morgan.

He make some mistakes, as all people do. He pushed for direct current when George Westinghouse pushed for alternating current.  He stuck with a battery powered electric car, when Henry Ford went out for a cheaper gas-powered vehicle.

Being the prankster he was known to be, he gave his children nicknames, Dash and Dot. He also proposed to his second wife in Morse Code.

Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland was the first Democrat to be elected as president after the Civil War.  He was a single man when he was elected his first term, and he became the first president to be wed in the White House. Frances Folsom was twenty seven years younger than her husband when they were wed.  Grover Cleveland was not only the first to be married in the White House, but the first to have children while in office.  The Baby Ruth candy bar is named for one of his children.

The Cleveland Wedding

When Grover Cleveland was accused of fathering a child out of wedlock, he immediately admitted that the accusation was true.  He also admitted that he had paid a substitute to take his place in the Civil War.  

"What is the use of being elected or reelected unless you stand for something?" was Grover Cleveland's response to being warned, that if he should fight for lower tariffs, it could cost him the election of 1888.  Benjamin Harrison was his successor in the Electoral College, even though Cleveland won the popular vote of over 90,000 votes.  However, he failed to win the votes of his home state, New York.  

"As president, he signed the Indian Emancipation Act, established the Departments of Agriculture and of Labor, lowered tariffs, and successfully defended the gold standard." -Digital History.

The Gilded Age: The election of 1884

 

The Presidential campaign of 1884 is one of the most remembered in American History.  The Republican nominee was James G. Blaine.  He was christened with the nick name "Plumed Knight," but unhappy Republican reformers saw Blaine as a symbol of corruption.  These unhappy Republicans decided that they would bolt their own party and support a Democrat, as long as he was an honorable and decent man.  The man Grover Cleveland seemed to fit their qualifications.  He had started out as sheriff of Erie County.  Whilst there, he personally hung two murders, "to spare the sensitivities of his subordinates." (Digital History, The Election of 1884.) Cleveland was known as the "veto" Mayor of Buffalo for rejecting Political Graft.

Grover Cleveland and James G. Blaine

As Governor, Grover Cleveland refused to be associated with Tammany Hall.

Tammany Hall, 1884.

The Republicans attacked Cleveland, waving the "bloody flag" because Cleveland had hired a substitute to take his place in the Civil War.  The Democrats fought back, however, attacking Blaine by publishing letters from a Boston bookkeeper, stating that Blaine had personally benefited from helping a railroad keep a land grant. Democrats would chant: 

"Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine!  The Continental Liar from the State of Maine!"

Then, the newspaper threw Cleveland a hard ball. The headline, "A Terrible Tale," caught many an eye, but it was the story beneath it that had made their eyes pop.  The newspaper conveyed the Grover Cleveland had a child out of wedlock.  The Republicans charged that Grover Cleveland had put the mother in the Insane Asylum, and had put the child in an orphanage. The Republicans would chant: "Ma, Ma, where's my pa?"  The Democrats would reply:  "Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!"  

Despite this, Blaine lost the popular vote anyway.  The phrase "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" had caused him to lose New York by 1,149 votes.  Although Cleveland had won by Popular vote, he lost the electoral vote to Republican Benjamin Harrison in 1888.

Benjamin Harrison.

Grover Cleveland was reelected in 1892, all thanks to a Third party movement: The Populists. But his second term was ruined by the economic depression of the mid 1890's.

In the end, Grover Cleveland's policies were repudiated by his own party. 

(Digital History, The Election Of 1884.)

"Kill The Indian And Save The Man."

In 1879, a man by the name of Richard H. Pratt decided to open a boarding school for Indian Children in Carlisle, Pennsylvani.  His goal was to use education to teach Indian children "the ways of the white man. That year, 50 Kiowa, Cheyenne and Pawnee children showed up on Pratt's door.  Pratt cut their hair, required them to only speak English, and it clear that there were to be no displays of tribal traditions, such as Indian apparel, dances, or religious performances.  "Kill the Indian and save the man," was Pratt's motto.  His school became a model for Indian education.  Soon, more schools were established.  The schools' goals were to teach Indian children the means required to make their way in the American Society.  In doing so, they ended up stripping the young Indian generation of their cultures, heritage and person legacies.

(Sioux Boys As They Were Dressed On Arrival at the Carlisle Indian School, Pennsylvania 10/5/187) -Source: Digital History, digitalhistory.uh.edu

The Battle Of Wounded Knee II

On December 29th, 1890 at the location Wounded Knee Creek, the Indians were ordered to give their arms.  Someone fired a gun, and this action led to the deaths of over 200 Indian men, women and children.  They were killed by machine guns, fired by the U.S. Army soldiers.  For their actions at Wounded Knee Creek, they received 22 Congressional Medals of Honor.  Among the dead bodies upon the bloody snow, was found a four month old Lakota infant named Zintkala Nuni, who lay under her dead and blood stained mother.  Zintkala Nuni and 47 other women and children were taken away alive, but mostly wounded.  A man by the name of General Leonard Colby and his wife Clara took the Lakota in and raised her as their own, renaming her Marguerite.  She later died at the age of 29.

A man named General Nelson Miles, who commanded military forces in that area, sought out a court martial for the office in charge of the soldiers at Wounded Knee.  He described what happened as a "Cruel and unjustified massacre," and I happen to agree with him.

"The whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are the masters of the American continent and the best safety of the frontier settlers will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians."  -L. Frank Baum, editor and publisher of the Saturday Pioneer, also the author of the popular and much beloved, The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz. 

"Gathering Up the Dead at the Battlefield of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1890."

THE GILDED AGE: The Homestead Act

Today I read about the Homestead act, which was "to encourage farmers to settle on the Great Plains." (Digital History, The Homestead Act.) 

I also read the biography of Grover Cleveland.

Sharecropping

What the freed men and women wanted above all else was land on which they could support their own families. -Digital History

Emancipation in Comparative Perspective

After the slaves had been granted their freedom, they took advantage of every opportunity they encountered. They set up their own newspaper office, insisted on being called "miss" or "mister" and brought about their own church services.  But the whites did not like this dramatic change.  Some whites persecuted, mistreated and even murdered the ex-slaves.

Birth of a nation

Birth Of A Nation, the first blockbuster of the silent films was created by D.W. Griffith in 1915.  It is a little over three hours long, so I just watched a couple minutes of it. The full movie is on youtube.

reconstrucition: reuniting the union

Reading about the Reuniting of the Union made me realize how much more went on through the process. I did not think there were so many steps to making the reconstruction possible. People,suffered, people agreed and disagreed. There were riots and fights, some people were even killed. There were allot of sacrifices made to reunite the union.

The First Americans.

When Columbus came to America, he did not find empty lands waiting for people to inhabit them. There were already tenants living and improving these lands, known as the Native Americans. The Native Americans were considered the first Americans. They were not as advanced as the Europeans that they were to encounter later on. They did have the wheel, but it was used as a toy. They had no knowledge of guns, swords, gun powder or diseases such as influenza or the measles.  The Native Americans were involved in agriculture and hunting. They grew their own food, and hunted for an other means of nourishment. There was not only one kind of Native living in what we call now, the US. There was over 2,000 different languages being spoken, and there were different kinds of tribes with different cultures then the others. There might have been differences in, for example, religions or hobbies.

Lesson One: Revolutionary Mindset And The American Revelution

"There was hope and fear, vision and desperation," among the people during the Revolutionary era.  There was a willingness to risk everything, for the rights of Liberty, Life and Property.  When the people felt as if there was a sense of injustice or unfairness, they rose up and requested a change. Change was not granted, so they fought for the change they wanted to see. People took great risks to earn their rights, and families split over opinions.  A friend became an enemy, a family member became a stranger. To achieve their victory, they had to endure heart ache and loss. The people were knee deep in English tradition. It was time for a change, and they sought it out until the attained it.