Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow Laws are laws that were passed in the southern states almost immediately after reconstruction ended in 1877. The laws were passed to discriminate against African-Americans and to segregate them from white society. Even though other groups were also affected by the Jim Crow Laws, The American Indian for example, the Laws were directed at the African-Americans.
Jim Crow Laws were characterized by unequal opportunities in housing, work, education and government. That means that because of the Jim Crow Laws African-Americans could not live where they wanted to, they had to go to different schools than the white children, they were not able to get good jobs, and they were not always able vote or run for office and participate in the government.
African-Americans responded differently to Jim Crow. The two best examples of this are Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois. Look on page 2 to see what each believed.
Facts you gotta know!
1. Discrimination against African-Americans continued after
Reconstruction.
2. Jim Crow laws institutionalized a system of legal
segregation.
(that means that laws made discrimination & segregation legal)
3. Jim Crow laws were passed to discriminate against African-
Americans.
4. African Americans differed in their response to
discrimination and Jim Crow.
5. Plessy v Ferguson was the Supreme Court case that made
“Separate but Equal” legal.
Racial Segregation
1. Is separation based on race. (what color you are)
2. Directed primarily against African-Americans, but other groups were kept segregated as well. (primarily means mainly)
Jim Crow Laws
1. Made discrimination practices legal in many communities
and states.
2. Where characterized by unequal opportunities in the
Following:
1. housing
2. work
3. education
4. government
African-American Response
1. Booker T. Washington
He believed that African-Americans could achieve equality
through Vocational Education. He also accepted social
separation.
IN OTHER WORDS
Booker T. Washington thought that African-Americans
could get equal rights if they learned a trade. He also was
okay with the races being separated socially as long as
they had equal rights when it came to housing, work,
education and government.
2. W.E.B. DuBois
He believed in full political, civil and social rights for
African-Americans.
IN OTHER WORDS
W.E.B. DuBois thought that everyone should be equal.
He wanted it to happen right away, he did not think anyone
should have to “gain” equal rights, it should equal, period.
The Great Plains
Physical Features and Climate of the Great Plains
(what the Great Plains looked like and what the weather was like)
1. The Great Plains were flatlands that gradually rose from
east to west. (The Rocky Mountains were in the west, that is why the land
rose.)
2. The land was eroded by wind and water.
3. There was low rainfall.
4. There were frequent dust storms.
The description above doesn’t make The Great Plains look like a nice place to live. It was very hard to survive there. Besides all of the stuff above, The Great Plains didn’t have lots of trees, so there wasn’t much wood to make houses or fences with. The land on The Great Plains was hard and would easily break the wooden plows the farmers used. There wasn’t much rain so it was hard to make things grow. Before the Civil War, people thought of The Great Plains as a treeless wasteland. Then things started to change. There were new inventions, and people made adaptations to their lives and tools to make life easier on the Plains. Some of the inventions and adaptations people made are listed on the next page.
Inventions/Adaptations
1. Barbed Wire – This made it easier to make a fence because you didn’t need as much wood.
2. Steel Plows – This made the plow better by making the part that goes in the ground out of steel. Now it would not break.
3. Dry Farming – This has the farmers let part of their field rest every year, that way it would have two years to soak up the moisture from the little bit of rain.
4. Sod Houses – This made it easier for the farmers to build houses. They used sod to make their houses.
5. Beef Cattle - The farmers and ranchers got the idea for this from the buffalo. They were looking for an animal that could live well on the Plains and longhorn cattle were close to the buffalo that had lived on the
Plains for thousands of years.
6. Wheat Farming – This came from Russian Immigrants. The type of wheat seeds they brought with them did not need lots of water.
7. Windmills – This helped farmers pump water out of the deep wells they had to have to reach the water underground.
8. Railroads – This was a new technology and made it easier for the people to get supplies in and out of the Plains. It also made transportation easier. The best example is the Transcontinental Railroad that connected the east and west parts of the country.
Facts you gotta know!
1. During the 19th century, people’s perception and use
of The Great Plains changed.
2. Technological advances allowed people to live in
more challenging environments.
3. Because of new technologies, people saw The Great Plains
not as a “treeless wasteland” BUT AS “a vast area to
be settled.”
Reasons for Westward Expansion
1. Opportunities for land ownership.
The Homestead Act gave many people a chance to own their own land.
2. Technological advances, including the Transcontinental Railroad.
Technology made life on The Great Plains easier
3. Possibility of wealth created by the discovery of gold and silver.
Gold was discovered in The Black Hills of the Dakotas, and silver in Colorado.
Some people went west hoping to get rich.
4. Adventure
These guys just wanted to have fun!
5. A new beginning for former slaves.
The Civil War and slavery was over, many former slaves went west to start over.
Other Cultural Conflicts
Know the following:
Immigrants
Two groups of immigrants that were discriminated against were the Irish and the Chinese. Both of these groups worked on the Transcontinental Railroad
Indian Policies & Wars
1. The US government wanted to make reservations
for the Indians to live.
2. The Indians did not want to live on reservations.
3. The US government tried to force them.
Two big conflicts.
1. The Battle of Little Bighorn
(Also known as Custer’s Last Stand.)
a. The Calvary led by George Custer fought
a large group of Indians at Little Bighorn.
b. The Indians greatly out numbered the
soldiers.
c. The Indians won. All the soldiers died.
2. Chief Joseph
a. Chief Joseph was Chief of the Nez Perce
b. The government wanted to put them on a
reservation. The Indians tried to runaway
instead.
c. The Indians almost made it to Canada.
d. Chief Joseph gave a famous speech when
he surrendered, this is how it ended…
“…..I will fight no more forever.”
Industrialization
After the Civil War life in America started to change. The biggest change was that America was turning from an agricultural nation into an industrial nation. That means that even though farms were still an important part of American life.
More people were starting to live in the cities and work in factories instead of living in the country and working on farms. Mechanization was one reason this change was taking place. Mechanization is when a machine does the work that people once did. The best example of this is the reaper. The reaper was a machine that cut grain (wheat). It could do the work of six men. So, if you owned a farm, it made more sense to use the reaper than to pay six men to do the work. This cut down on the amount of jobs on the farms. At the same time this was happening on the farms, factories that were being built in the cities were creating jobs. (that’s called industrial development) All the factories that were being built were making lots of stuff that people wanted to buy. That gave Americans access to consumer products. (consumer products are the stuff people buy) One of the ways people found out about all the stuff that was being made was mail order catalogs.
Facts you gotta know!
Between The Civil War and WWI, The United States was transformed from an agricultural to an industrial nation.
Postwar changes in farm and city life
1. Mechanization, the reaper, had reduced farm labor needs a
and increased production.
2. Industrial development in the cities created increased labor
needs.
3. Industrialization provided access to consumer goods.
(mail order)
In order to make all this work, there needed to be a way to get things from one place to another easily. The completion of The Transcontinental Railroad helped this happen.
Advances in Transportation
Stuff you gotta know!
1. Advances in transportation linked resources,
products and markets.
That means that the Transcontinental Railroad helped get raw materials
to the factories to make the products, and then get the products to the
markets to sell them.
2. Manufacturing areas were clustered near population
Centers.
That means that the factories were built near where lots of people lived.
Transportation of Resources
1. Moving natural resources (lead & copper) to eastern
factories
2. Moving iron ore deposits to sites of steel mills.
(like Pittsburgh)
3. Transporting finished products to national markets.
Examples of Manufacturing Areas
1. Textile Industry New England
2. Automobile Industry Detroit
3. Steel Industry Pittsburgh
Examples of Big Business Captains of Industry
1. Oil 1. John D. Rockefeller oil
2. Steel 2. Andrew Carnegie steel
3. Railroads 3. Henry Ford automobile
Inventions that added to great change and industrial growth
1. Electric lighting and other uses for electricity
Thomas Edison
2. Telephone service
Alexander Graham Bell
Immigration
Reasons for immigration
1. Hope for better opportunities
Many people around the world look to the US for a better life.
2. Escape from oppressive governments
Oppressive means cruel, not all governments in the world are fair.
3. Religious Freedom
People want to worship their own way. Not all countries in the world
allow the people that live there to do that. People come to America so
that they can worship as they feel like.
4. Adventure
Some people always want to have fun.
KNOW THAT:
Rapid industrialization and urbanization led to overcrowded immigrant neighborhoods and tenements.
Industrialization is the build up of industries/factories.
Urbanization is the build up of cities.
What this means is that the factories were being built so quickly and people were moving into the cities so quickly that it caused some problems. One of those problems were overcrowded immigrant neighborhoods and tenements. A tenement is a run down apartment building that has way to many people living in it. These neighborhoods were called ghettos. Another problem was political corruption. That means the government was not doing the right things. An example of this is political machines. Political machines were both good and bad. One way they were good was that they helped some immigrants find a place to live and a job. The bad part was they told the immigrants they had to vote for them.
Challenges for Cities
1. Tenements and ghettos
2. Political Corruption (political machines)
Efforts to solve immigration problems
1. Settlement Houses like Hull House that was founded by
Jane Addams.
2. Political Machines that gained power attending to the needs
of immigrants. (helping find jobs & housing)
Reasons that cities developed
1. Specialized industries including steel in Pittsburg &
meatpacking in Chicago.
2. Immigration from other countries.
(most of them settled in the cities)
3. Movement of Americans from rural areas to urban areas
in search of job opportunities.
Factors resulting in the growth of industry
1. Access to raw materials and energy (Transcontinental Railroad)
2. Availability of work force (immigrants and Americans moving from farms)
3. Inventions (people could work longer and faster, communication was better)
4. Financial Resources (It takes lots of money to run industries. The captains
of industry were really really rich)
Reasons for the rise and prosperity of big business
1. National markets created by transportation advances.
(The Transcontinental Railroad made this possible)
2. Captains of Industry
(They had lots of money to invest in industry and they wanted more money
so, they were willing to spend their money in order to make more)
3. Advertising
(Businesses had to advertise so that people would know what they had to sell)
4. Lower-cost production
(because of things like the Transcontinental Railroad & assembly line it didn’t
cost as much to make things. So, the businesses made more money)
Spanish American War
The Spanish American War lasted for just four months in 1898. Three years earlier in 1895 Cuba had begun a revolution against Spain in order to gain their independence. American businesses had lots of money invested in Cuban sugar plantations. Many Americans also lived in Cuba running these businesses. Americans were concerned that the revolution could hurt the profits of their businesses. Americans also supported the Cuban rebels in their fight to gain independence, after all it had only been about 100 years or so since America had fought it’s own war for independence. The reasons for America getting involved and the results of the war are listed below.
Reasons for the Spanish American War
1. Protection of American business interests in Cuba
2. American support of Cuban rebels to gain independence
from Spain.
3. Rising tensions as a result of the sinking of the USS Maine