Chapter 17 Notes

Post War Greed

  1. How does the book explain Americans’ interest in wealth and materialistic things in the wake of the Civil War?

______

  1. What is Laissez-Faire economics and how did it correspond with the business sensibilities of the day?

______

  1. What is the Great Barbecue and who coined the term?

______

  1. What is the thesis of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859)?

______

  1. What does the term Social Darwinism refer too?

______

Congress Ascendant/Political Aftermath of War

  1. Based on who held office in the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Reps in the post-Reconstruction phase of American history, how does the interests of business grow and circumvent good government for the people?

______

  1. With regards to political parties, the South tended to vote ______, the Northeast voted ______, and the rest of the country ______.
  1. There were four questions in post Civil War Americathat politicians had to deal with.
  1. Describe “waving the bloody shirt” ______
  1. What was the issue of veterans’ pensions? ______
  1. What was the argument for maintaining the tariff? ______Whenever they discussed lowering the tariff to avoid overprotection what got in the way? ______
  1. What were greenbacks? ______
  1. Why was there a need for civil service reform and what problems did this cause? ______What is political patronage, what problems did it cause and why did the political leaders not want to give it up? ______

Blacks After Reconstruction

After 1877, the federal government did little to protect the rights of African-Americans

  1. Describe Hall v. DeCuir – ______
  1. Describe Civil Rights Cases (1883) – ______
  1. Describe Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) ______
  1. Where were Northerners when these types of decisions were made? ______
  1. Why was Booker T Washington called the “reasonable” champion of his race? ______
  1. Why did whites like/ and some blacks dislike the message of the Atlanta Compromise? ______
  1. Now that white could no longer enslave African-Americans, how did poor/middle class Southern whites maintain their dominance over blacks? ______
  2. How many lynchings per year occurred between 1890-1910? ______

The West After the Civil War

  1. How would describe places like San Francisco, Denver, San Antonio and Salt Lake City in the 1870s? ______
  1. In 1879, several African-Americans migrated West. How were they treated? ______
  1. What was the 1868 Burlingame Treaty and what did it do to the immigration numbers?______
  1. What were the 1877 San Francisco riots all about? How did California treat Chinese and what was the solution to the immigration “problem”? ______

The Plains Indians –Their Wars and Eventual Destruction

  1. By 1860, where did the Native American population reside in America? ______
  1. Describe what role the buffalo played in the culture of the Plains Indians - ______
  1. Describe what role the horse played in the culture of the Plains Indians – ______

As American civilization moved further west, the Native Americans became more of a problem to them. They made agreements with tribes, but both sides had difficulty respecting these agreements. As whites began to covet territory, treaties were broken and tensions rose.

  1. What was the concentration strategy? – ______
  1. During the Civil War what happened in the west between whites and Indians? ______
  1. What happened at Sand Creek in 1864? ______
  1. After the American government abandoned the concentration strategy, they attempted to force Indians onto reservations in South Dakota and Oklahoma. What was the Indian reaction? ______
  1. What caused whites to invade reservation land in 1874? ______
  1. What were the most important factors in subduing the Plains Indians, why? ______
  1. What was the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887? ______
  1. Why did the Dawes Severalty Act fail? ______

The Lure of Gold and Silver in the West

  1. Describe the experience of a prospector and boomtowns? ______
  1. What was the Comstock Lode? ______
  1. Who were the real money makers in the mining business? ______

Big Business and the Land Bonanza

  1. Why does the Homestead Act of 1862 (offered cheap 160 acre plots) fail to attract small farmers? ______
  1. How did the Timber and Stone Act contribute to big business in the west? ______

Western Railroads

The west was an untapped fountain of resources. The railroads made it possible to more efficiently access this territory. As a result, business interests venture to these territories and begin extracting the resources, sometimes recklessly.

  1. What was the problem with private investors buying land for western railroad development? ______
  1. How did the government assist railroads in financing railroads? What was the first? ______
  1. What was the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 – ______
  1. What railway lines connected the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 in Utah? ______
  1. What was the problem with using land grant money for this construction effort? ______
  1. Why was the Great Northern Railroad the only transcontinental railroad to survive the depression of 1890 without going bankrupt? ______

CattleKingdom– Ranching

  1. In post Civil War America, the cattle industry opened in the west. How did ranchers keep expenses low? ______
  1. What factors led to the rise of the cattle industry?
  1. ______
  2. ______
  1. If cattlemen wanted to sell in the cities, where they could make far more money, what did they have to do? ______
  1. Cowboys are born from this industry. How does the book describe them? Are they anything like the typical American western? ______
  1. What was the Desert land Act (1877) and what problems did it cause? ______
  1. What were cattlemen’s associations? – ______
  1. How did barbed wire fences cause problems? ______
  1. What unanticipated problems did barbed wire cause for cattle? ______
  1. Why was 1886 a tough year for cattlemen? ______