HIST 2620 1st Edition Lecture 2 Outline of Last Lecture I Reconstruction 1865 1877 Major Outcomes Important Figures Political Stands Major Failures II Presidential Reconstruction What is Presidential Reconstruction Turmoil and Overall Impact III Radical Reconstruction What is Radical Reconstruction The Breakdown of Reconstruction IV The Breakdown of Reconstruction Conclusion Political Social Economic and Cultural Impacts of Reconstruction Outline of Current Lecture I The Gilded Age 1870s Early 1900s II Labor Activism Civil Unrest III Economic Transformations Populist Party Government and Wealth Accumulation The GAR and Republican Party Increase in Labor Activism Rural Unrest Farmers Alliance Indian Policy in the American West Allotment Act The Dawes General Allotment Act 1887 Current Lecture The Gilded Age I The Gilded Age The Gilded Age 25 years after reconstruction the economy was marked by significant increases in wealth and wealth inequality Resistance to plutocracy was relatively ineffective violence money and political clout determined political outcomes Never the less elements of the populist These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute political party platform were slowly adopted during the progressive era and later during the new deal Money and patronage dominated the political system Government wanted to streamline wealth accumulation Resistance to plutocracy developed in a third political party the populist party The Populist Party Populists were defeated as a viable third party alternative in 1896 but much of their platform was adopted during the first half of the 21st century Rise of the Populist Party in 1892 with the Omaha Platform direct election of senators inflationary monetary policy print money income tax sub treasury system recognition of labor unions public ownership of railroads as well as grain elevators and other infrastructure Government and Wealth Accumulation National politics was absolutely dominated by the Republican Party and Bourbon Democrats Main Issues tariffs deflationary monetary policy Gold Standard Pay of civil war debts Getting rid of the gold standard would be inflationary II III Labor Activism and Civil Unrest The GAR and Republican Party Base By 1893 pensions from the union soldiers consumed 40 of the federal budget The GAR acted as the mouth piece for union soldiers Increase in Labor Activism The Knights of Labor 1870s was a labor union well known for advocating the 8 hr work day consisted of 800 00 members both consisting of skilled and unskilled laborers Others like this were the American Federation of Labor which represented much of the forestry and mining positions International Workers of the World WWI 1905 Labor union leaders as well as their members were often arrested without cause run out of towns or even hung for their affiliation In 1886 a bomb went off at Haymarket Square in Chicago although the perpetrators were not actually known police captured Knights of Labor leaders and sent them to prison for murder in which they were found guilty Federal protections for labor that are well known in present day did not exist or begin to arise until 1936 Rural Unrest Farmers Alliance The Farmers Alliance as well as the Grangers were founded in the 1870s A rise in purchasing and market cooperatives which were groups of farmers who pooled their money together to buy equipment for farming or acted as bankers and gave loans to other farmers who did not want to get money from the government Sub treasury plan Called for the creation within the federal government for direct loans and a federal reserve specifically for farmers Indian Policy in the American West The Allotment Act Allotment Act driven by the assimilation theory and the demand for native land Land was owned tribally based on their conception The Allotment Act took vast expanses of native land cut it into equal pieces and gave it back to natives with the ultimatum that if they could not prove that they had improved the land in some way then it was forfeit Each tribe had slightly different allotment acts and the remaining undistributed land would be returned to the government to sell to non natives Allotment served as the forced privatization of Indian land as well as a profound shift in federal policy and native land tenure The allotment act reflected colonial desires to subordinate native land and labor on reservations Native Indians lost 90 million acres almost 2 3rds of their original land The Dawes General Allotment Act 1887 Henry Dawes was a senator from Massachusetts and the chairman of the committee of Indian Affairs in the 1880s The Dawes General Allotment Act consisted of The assimilation through individual land ownership similar to the Homestead Act surplus allotted lands returned to public domain and sold to NOT natives later provisions included competency commissions to determine fee title to allotment