VUS 8.a

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VUS 8.a b, Western Settlement, Immigration, and
Industrialization

• Mrs. Saunders

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The American West

• The region between the Mississippi River and the
  Pacific Ocean became populated by settlers at a
  rapid rate following the Civil War.
• The time period following the Civil war was the
  era of the American Cowboy and was characterized
  by long cattle drives across vast open ranges for
  hundreds of miles, the only way to get cattle to
  market.

Cowboys posed by the chuck wagon in a roundup at
Belle Fouche, Sturgis, Dakota Territory, 1887.
The romantic myth of the cowboy portrayed him as
a man working largely alone. While ranch laborers
did some of their herding work by themselves, the
roundup of cattle ready for market and the long
overland cattle drives to the nearest railheads
provided opportunity for social interaction.
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The American West

• Many Americans had to rebuild their lives after
  the Civil War and moved west to take advantage of
  the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave free public
  land in the western territories to settlers who
  would live on and farm the land.

Many of the men who found employment working with
the western herds on the cattle frontier were
former slaves who sought economic independence by
moving west. This group of African-American
cowboys is posed at a fair at Bonham, Texas, in
1909.
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The American West
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876), a
West Point graduate and a Union officer during
the Civil War, was by 1874 an experienced Indian
fighter. He had the dubious distinction of having
led his 7th Cavalry in the attack against Black
Kettle's peaceful band of Cheyenne Indians in
November 1867, killing 102 men, women and
children in the Washita Massacre.
Sitting Bull (ca. 1831-1890), Chief of the Oglala
Sioux Sitting Bull joined forces with the great
Sioux warrior Crazy Horse (1849-1877) and rallied
4,000 warriors from the Northern Cheyenne and all
of the Sioux bands. He set up camp along the
Little Big Horn River, and called unsuccessfully
on the Canadian Blackfeet to join him in opposing
Lt. Col. George Custer's army force.
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The American West

• Big Foot was a leader of a small band of Sioux.
  An advocate of the ghost dance, he led his band
  of 340, of whom 200 were women and children, off
  the reservation in 1890. In December of that year
  they were forced to surrender to the 7th Cavalry.
  Encamped near Wounded Knee Creek at the
  instruction of Colonel Forsyth, Big Foot's
  warriors were ordered to give up their weapons.
  When there was resistance from some of the
  younger men, Forsyth's troops opened fire on the
  camp with volleys from Hotchkiss machine guns .
  The massacre at Wounded Knee ended with the
  deaths of Big Foot and most of his band, and
  ended the last resistance of the Plains Indians.

The bodies of the Indian dead at Wounded Knee
(now South Dakota). A storm after the massacre
froze the bodies, which were then thrown into
mass graves.
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The American West

• A Sioux camp near the Pine Ridge Agency in South
  Dakota, where the population had reached 6,000 in
  1890. The destruction of the buffalo herds left
  the plains Indians dependent upon Indian agents
  for beef and other food supplies. Such agents
  were often political appointees who short-changed
  the Indians of rations and cash payments.

Passage of the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887
attempted to break up the tribal control of
reservations by enforcing individual rather than
group ownership of land. Any surplus reservation
lands remaining when each family head had
received his 160-acre allotment was to be sold to
white settlers. (1891)
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The American West

• New Technologies such as railroads and mechanical
  reapers opened new lands in the West for
  settlement and made farming more prosperous. By
  the turn of the century the Great Plains and the
  Rocky Mountains were no longer a mostly unsettled
  frontier, but was fast becoming a region of
  farms, ranches and towns.

Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809-1884), the inventor of
the first American mechanical reaper. Cyrus
McCormick's 1831 invention of an efficient
harvesting machine came to symbolize the
technological changes and inventions in
agriculture that transformed the prairies from
buffalo grazing grounds into vast wheat fields.
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Buffalo Bill's Wild West show was the creation of
William Frederick Cody (1846-1917), an army scout
and buffalo hunter from Iowa who had worked at
railroad camps before organizing his Wild West
Show in 1883.

• His combination rodeo/vaudeville/circus shows
  helped feed an avid interest in the myths of the
  old West, even as the frontiers and the "wild
  Indians" that they supposedly recreated were
  rapidly disappearing under the pressures of
  settlement. Chief Sitting Bull spent 1884 touring
  with Buffalo Bill.

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Immigration

• Before 1880, most immigrants to America came from
  northern and western Europe. Historians have
  called this first phase of immigration the old
  immigration. Thus, immigrants prior to 1880
  usually came from Great Britain, Ireland,
  Germany, and the Scandinavian countries of
  Norway, and Sweden.
• Between 1880 and World War I, most immigrants
  came from southern and eastern Europe. This
  second wave of new immigrants came from Italy,
  Greece, Poland, Russia, present-day Hungary and
  Yugoslavia, as well as the Asian nations of China
  and Japan. Like their predecessors (those who
  came earlier), these new immigrants came to
  America seeking freedom (political and religious)
  and better lives for their families (economic
  opportunity).
• During the new immigration, immigrants from
  Europe usually entered the United States through
  Ellis Island in New York harbor. Their first
  view of America was often the Statue of Liberty,
  standing nearby, as their ships arrived from
  their Atlantic voyage.

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Immigration
Ellis Island, a primary U.S. immigration port.
From 1855 to 1892, immigrants who reached New
York had arrived by ferry at Castle Garden, where
many of the admission procedures were designed to
protect immigrants from exploitation and
hardship. The explosion of immigration in the
1880s created the need for a more systematic
processing center for the millions of newcomers.

• Chinese immigrants at the San Francisco custom
  house, 1877. Large numbers of Chinese immigrants
  entered the United States through California
  ports in the middle of the 19th century. The
  first wave, mostly of men, came as laborers
  during the gold rush a second major wave came
  during the railroad-building boom in the 1870s.
  In 1876 alone, 20,000 Chinese immigrants arrived
  in San Francisco.

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Immigration

• Immigration contributed to the rapid growth of
  such cities, as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland,
  Pittsburgh, and New York. These cities became
  both manufacturing and transportation centers.
• The rapid growth of cities caused housing
  shortages and the need for new public services,
  such as sewage and water systems and public
  transportation. New York City began construction
  of the worlds first subway system at the turn of
  the twentieth century, and many other cities
  built trolley and streetcar lines.

12
Immigration

• Immigrants often faced hardship and hostility.
  Many Americans resented immigrants. They feared
  immigrants would take jobs for lower pay than
  American-born workers.
• There was also great prejudice against immigrants
  based on religious and cultural differences.
• Mounting resentment led Congress to limit
  immigration through both the Chinese Exclusion
  Act of 1882 and the Immigration Restriction Act
  of 1921. The 1921 law effectively cut off most
  immigration to America until the end of World War
  II.

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Immigrant Contributions

• Chinese workers helped to build the
  transcontinental railroad. They often faced
  severe racial prejudice and discrimination,
  especially in areas like California where they
  formed a sizeable minority.
• Slavs, Italians and Poles worked in the coalmines
  of the mid-Appalachian Mountains. Immigrants
  often worked for very low pay and in dangerous
  working conditions to help build the nations
  industrial strength.
• Immigrants also worked in textile and steel mills
  in the Northeast and the clothing industry in New
  York City.
• Factories in the large cities provided jobs, but
  workers families often lived in harsh conditions
  crowded into tenements (run-down, low rental
  apartment buildings) and slums.

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Melting Pot or Tossed Salad?

• Immigrants began the process of assimilation
  (making similar/molding) into what some American
  historians have termed the American melting
  pot. Under the melting pot thesis (idea),
  immigrants from throughout the world have brought
  their distinct cultures to America. These
  cultures have then melted together much like
  the ingredients in a cake to form a new and
  unique American culture. While often settling in
  ethnic neighborhoods (with people from the same
  country or culture), immigrants and their
  children have worked hard to learn English, adopt
  American customs, and become American citizens.
  Under the melting pot thesis, the public
  schools have served an essential role in the
  process of assimilating (absorbing) immigrants
  into American society.

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Melting Pot or Tossed Salad?

• Most recent historians have disagreed with all or
  part of the melting pot thesis. These
  historians compare American society to a salad
  bowl rather than a melting pot. These
  historians argue that many immigrants have worked
  hard to preserve and pass to their children part
  of their old world customs and traditions.
  Therefore, they argue American society is like a
  salad bowl. Likewise, in a salad bowl each type
  of vegetable (ethnic group) keeps its individual
  flavor at the same time, the mixture of
  vegetables with the addition of a salad dressing
  (American culture) creates something new.

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Melting Pot or Tossed Salad?

• Finally, critics of the melting pot thesis have
  argued that institutions like public schools have
  hurt, as well as helped, immigrants to America.
  White Anglo-Saxon Protestant native-born
  Americans (WASPS) usually have both controlled
  public schools and insisted that public schools
  teach white Protestant values, history and
  customs. These critics claim native-born white
  Protestants have wanted immigrant children to
  lose their old world customs and adopt WASP
  culture as their own. For that reason, Roman
  Catholics started parochial schools (schools run
  by religious groups) in the United States.
  Thereby, Roman Catholic leaders hoped to prevent
  the Protestant-controlled public schools from
  forcing the children of Roman Catholic immigrants
  to learn and practice Protestant values and
  traditions.

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Reconstruction to 1920

• During the period from the Civil War to World War
  I, the United States underwent an economic
  transformation that involved
• a developing industrial economy
• the expansion of big business
• the growth of large-scale agriculture
• the rise of national labor unions and industrial
  conflict.

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Economic Transformation of America

• First, the federal government generally followed
  a policy of laissez faire capitalism.
  (Capitalism is an economic system based on
  private ownership and free competition.) Under
  capitalism the goal of businesses is to make a
  profit. The Scottish philosopher Adam Smith had
  first introduced the policy of laissez faire in
  his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations. Laissez
  faire was the theory that government should not
  interfere in economic affairs. Government should
  leave business alone. It should neither help nor
  hinder business. Throughout the nineteenth
  century, the United States government followed
  laissez faire in that it never hindered business
  by government regulation. However, the federal
  government did give business special
  consideration through such practices as
  protective tariffs and land grants to railroad
  builders in the West. In short, the American
  governments version of laissez faire did not
  regulate business, but it did help it.

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Economic Transformation of America

• Second, the increasing labor supply, caused by
  both immigration and migration of Americans from
  the farms to the cities, caused the economic
  transformation of America.

Third, Americas possession of a wealth of
natural resources and navigable rivers also
contributed to economic change in the United
States.
20
Inventions and Innovations

• Technological change spurred growth of industry
  primarily in the northern cities. Both
  inventions and innovations caused this
  technological change.

21
The Corporation

• One major innovation was the development of the
  modern corporation
• replaced family owned businesses as the main
  form of business organization
• a type of business that raises capital (money)
  through the sale of stock. Stock is shares of
  ownership in a corporation, and stockholders are
  part owners of the corporation.
• Two advantages of a corporation are its ability
  to raise large amounts of money and limited
  liability.

22
The Corporation

• Limited liability (responsibility) means the
  corporation acts as an artificial legal person.
  It can sue and be sued, pay taxes, go into debt.
  Therefore, the corporation itself, rather than
  the individual stockholders, is responsible for
  the businesss actions.
• For example, cancer victims, who were smokers,
  have successfully sued tobacco companies for
  damages. However, only the tobacco corporation
  itself is liable the individual stockholders are
  not personally responsible for causing the
  smokers to develop cancer.

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Inventions

• Bessemer steel process made possible the
  large-scale production of steel. Since steel is
  both lighter and stronger than the iron from
  which it is made, steel permitted the
  construction of skyscrapers in modern American
  cities.

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) transformed the iron
and steel industry by organizing it, introducing
new technologies and the economies of large scale
investment and manufacture. Born in Scotland,
Carnegie served a management apprenticeship at
the Pennsylvania Railroad. He took the risk of
investing in the expensive technology of the
Bessemer steel process, and in 1872 built a giant
steel plant just south of Pittsburgh, winning the
contract to supply steel for the Brooklyn Bridge
in 1878. In 1901 he sold it for 500 million to
capitalist J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), under whom
it became U. S. Steel. He spent the rest of his
life giving the money away.
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Inventions

• Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Soon
  electricity became a major source of power and
  light.
• Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.

Telephone and electric wires on a New York City
Street, 1884. Like other new industries, the
electric industry grew rapidly. Edison supplied
his first 85 customers with electricity in 1881
by the mid-1880s, the electric light industry was
a highly visible fixture in urban areas. The
telephone, invented by Alexander Graham Bell in
1876, also depended upon electric overhead wires
to transmit its services to customers. The result
was a tangle of overhead wires in most major
cities in the nation.
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Inventions

• Wright brothers flew the first successful
  airplane. on December 17, 1903, with the first
  powered flight of a heavier than air machine, at
  Kill Devil Hill, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
  Orville Wright (1871-1948), a bicycle maker from
  Dayton, Ohio, piloted the airplane on a flight
  that lasted twelve seconds and covered 120 feet
  (less than the 196-foot wingspan of today's
  Boeing 747 airliner). Later that day, Wilbur
  Wright managed to stay aloft for 59 seconds,
  covering 852 feet.

The Wright 1903 airplane engine. The Wrights were
unable to find a light-weight engine which would
produce the necessary power, so they built this
one in their bicycle shop. Photographed at the
Wright shop in 1928.
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Inventions
At the new Ford plant at Highland Park, Michigan,
in 1913, Henry Ford introduced to automobile
production the principle of the moving assembly
line which was already revolutionizing the meat
packing industry. Rewarding his workers with the
highest minimum wage in the industry and a
profit-sharing plan, Ford pushed them to a rate
of production in which a car could be assembled
in 93 minutes. In 1914 he produced 248,000 Model
T's.

• Henry Ford used the first conveyor belt assembly
  line in the manufacture of automobiles. The
  conveyor belt brought the cars to the workers,
  each of whom performed a specific task in the
  assembly process.

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Captains of Industry

• The expansion of big business in the late
  nineteenth century produced several extremely
  wealthy businessmen, or captains of industry.
• Andrew Carnegie in steel
• J.P. Morgan in finance
• John D. Rockefeller in oil
• Cornelius Vanderbilt in railroads.