bridges to the gilded age
DESCRIPTION
Lecture for TAH Slavery to Citizens History InstituteTRANSCRIPT
Bridges to the Gilded Age
United States in 1875
The Gilded Age witnessed enormous increases in output and value. Huge population increases helped drive industrial and farm output.
The North
• Railroads
Railroad Expansion, 1870-1890
This map provides a vivid illustration of the railroad expansion in just two decades.
Transcontinental Railroads and Federal Land Grants, 1850-1900
The “Big Trestle” near Promontory Summit show some of the engineering accomplishments of the railroad construction crews. This trestle, at 405 feet long and 85 feet high, was assembled in just 38 days and was so
flimsy that one reporter warned it “will shake the nerves of the stoutest hearts to cross it.”
“The Last Spike” at Promontory Summit, 10 May 1869 completing the transcontinental railroad. A.J. Russell was the photographer
Transcontinental Railroads and Federal Land Grants, 1850-1900
Big Business
Vertical Integration
Horizontal Integration
John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil
Standard Oil Refinery in Cleveland, OH (1889)
Standard Oil horse-drawn oil tank, probably selling kerosene.
“What a Funny Little Government”
The Verdict on January 22, 1900 shows Rockefeller holding the White House in his hand, while the U.S. Capitol has been converted into an oil refinery.
Andrew Carnegie and Steel
Bessemer process
Andrew Carnegie’s Steel Works, General View of Blast Furnaces, Homestead, PA
The McCormick Reaper Works outside Chicago in 1887.
Inventions
This is Alexander Graham-Bell's telephone, which he demonstrated to the world in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. After witnessing how voice was transmitted over wire, the emperor of Brazil cried out, "My God, it talks!"
Alexander Graham Bell placing the first telephone call between New York and Chicago in 1892
Young Thomas Edison with an early phonograph
Thomas Edison’s application for a patent for the incandescent light bulb.
Replica of Edison’s first incandescent electric light bulb.
Thomas Edison's Laboratories in Menlo Park, NJ, c. 1880Thomas Edison's dream of illuminating the world is illustrated by this fanciful drawing of his
laboratories in Menlo Park, New Jersey. For the time being, however, it was the American home that was the primary beneficiary of Edison's wonderful light bulb, since electricity was slow to
arrive in many parts of the world.
Edison's Chemistry Lab at Meno Park, NJ
Christopher Scholes typewriter, 1873
Later typewriters and their keys.
“Consuming”
A “mom and pop” general store.
A small “dry goods” store in Upper Sandusky, OH. Notice counters separate customers from merchandise.
The Marble Palace of Alexander T. Stewart in Manhattan opened for business in 1846. Notice the street-level windows for merchandise display.
Macy’s department store in New York City
The 1897 Sears catalog.
Uneeda Biscuit’s national campaign poster.
Cream of Wheat advertisement, probably 1895.
Ads for the Kodak “box camera” in 1888
1898 Ivory soap poster
1916 Ivory soap advertisement showing US Army soldiers using it.
Labor
“New England factory life—“Bell Time,” Harper's Weekly, 25 July1868. Drawing by Winslow Homer. Workers going to the Lowell Mills.
Small children working in the mills was common
Boys in a North Carolina textile mill in 1908.
“Breaker Boys” at work.
Women workers in a “sweatshop”
“The Female Slaves of New York. – ‘Sweaters’ and their Victims. 1) Scene in a ‘sweater‘s’ factory; 2) The End; 3) Scene at the Grand Street Ferry,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, November 3, 1888
Shoeworkers in Haverhill, MA ca. 1880
Drawing of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 in Baltimore, MD
Picture and map of Pullman, Illinois
Railroad cars destroyed in Pullman strike
Cleanup after strike.
Immigration
“Welcome to All!,” Puck, April 28, 1880.“We may say that the present influx of immigrants to the United States is something unprecedented in our generation.” -- N.Y. Statistical Review
“New York - Welcome to the land of freedom - An ocean steamer passing the Statue of Liberty: Scene on the steerage deck” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 2 July 1887.
Emigrants coming to the “Land of Promise“ (ca 1902)
Immigrants on a ship waiting to set foot in their new home
Immigrants just arrived from foreign countries – Immigrant Building, Ellis Island, New York Harbor (1904)
Inspection room at Ellis Island
Dalrymple’s cartoon giving a harsh warning about “The High Tide of Immigration.” He believes the danger lies in the number of immigrants as well as in their origins and character as “riff raff.” (1903)
“What Shall We Do With Our Boys?” The Wasp, 1882
“In the Clutches of the Chinese Tiger” -- 1885
Urbanization
Technological advances, the Brooklyn Bridge under construction. It was completed in 1883 and connected the largest and the third largest cities together (Brooklyn and New York)
Brooklyn Bridge in 1890 with sailing ship beneath. Notice how the bridge towers over the surrounding neighborhoods.
New York and Brooklyn Bridge in 1889
Electric trolleys in New York City in 1900
Electric street cars of New Orleans. Rail lines transformed cities in the late 19th century
The first Oldsmobile was built in 1897.
Tenements in New York City, with clotheslines strung between buildings.
Mulberry Street, New York, 1905 part of the Russian Jewish Lower East Side
“Garbage in the streets, East Fifth Street, N.Y.C. tenement area,” Jacob Riis photo (ca 1890)
New York City in 1885
This photograph shows the crowded, chaotic nature of lower Manhattan in the 1880s. This is Broadway at Cortlandt Street. Note the crowded street, with horse-drawn street car and the utility poles containing telephone and electric wires.
Urban congestion in Chicago in 1890s.
Chicago’s State Street.
World’s Columbian Exposition, Court of Honor (1893)
World's Columbian Exposition: Grand Basin (1893)
The Midway, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, IL (1893) In the background is the Ferris Wheel on the “Midway”. The wheel was 264 feet high, held 36 cars capable of holding 60 people
at once. Fully loaded, 2,160 people could be on the wheel at a time.
Ferris Wheel in 1893 at the “fair”. Notice how it towers over the landscape.
The West
Mining and Cattle Frontiers, 1860-1890
The Texas Cowboy
Moving cattle on the “long drive”
Cowboys with their herd.
Packing houses in the distance. Covered pens for hogs and sheep; open pens for cattle. Area of yards, 75 acres; 50 miles railroad tracks. Daily capacity: 25,000 head cattle, 160,000 hogs, 10,000 sheep, and 1,000 horses.
The beginning of the “disassembly line.”
Meatpacking industry
Sylvester Rawding family in front of sod house, north of Sargent, Custer Co., Nebraska (1886)
Sodhouse
Morrison residence on Victoria Creek near Merna, Custer County, Nebraska (1886)
“Bonanza” farm
Harvesting wheat on “bonanza” farm
The American Bison, or Buffalo
William J. Hays painted Herd on the Move
He was accused of exaggerating the numbers of bison.
Another William J. Hays painting of bison on the Great Plains. The Gathering of the Buffalo Herds (1866)
An advertisement for the fashionable buffalo robes (1870s).
“Buffalo Hunters”
Stacks of buffalo hides in Dodge City, Kansas in 1873. This one company could handle 80,000 hides at at time.
“The Buffalo Hunt” by Frederic Remington (1890) By the time he painted this picture, such hunts would have been a rarity.
Indian Reservations, 1875 and 1900
Tom Torlino as he arrived at The Carlisle school
October 21, 1882 from his Navajo tribe.
Tom Torlino several months later
The students at the Carlisle School of Captain Richard Pratt.
Annie Oakley. Though she “advertised” the West in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, she never lived west of Ohio.
“Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, 1885”
Photograph originally taken by William Notman studios, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, during Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, August 1885
Indian Reservations, 1875 and 1900
“The opening of the fight at Wounded Knee,” a drawing by Frederic Remington for Harper’s Weekly, 24 January 1891.
Burying the Dead at Wounded Knee
Throwing the frozen bodies of the Sioux into an open trench was a grim reminder of US Army-Indian relations.
The New South
Trolley car in the South with the “For Whites” sign.
Poll tax receipt for Birmingham, Alabama. Note the date the tax was paid – April 1896. Note the two “labels” (Col.) (White.)
The New South• Booker T. Washington• W.E.B. Du Bois
Booker T. Washington
W.E.B. DuBois
Imperialism
An artist’s rendering of the explosion which destroyed the Maine on 15 February 1898 in Havana, Cuba harbor.
“DECLINED WITH THANKS”The Antis, “Here, take a dose of this anti-fat and get thin again!”
Uncle Sam, “No, Sonny! I never did like any of that stuff, and I’m too old to begin!”Lithography by S. Pughe in Puck, 5 September 1900
Progressive Reform – efforts to solve problems of the Gilded Age
• Big Business– Is big necessarily “evil” or bad?– Consumer rights and protections
• Labor issues– Child and women workers– Hours, wages, conditions
• Urban problems• Democracy• “Welfare State”
– Expansion of government functions