6.2

• mechanization of agriculture = primary means of planting + harvesting crops (replacing humans) → many more crops could be planted, increased obsolescence of small farmers
• crops in market surged → prices decreased → more pressure on small farmers who couldn’t afford low prices
• industrial trusts → prices on manufactured goods remained high - farmers relied on buying manufactured goods to survive, RR problems
  • largely relied on RR, but transpo = expensive → organized movement against changes = Nat’l Grain Movement (1868) - aimed to bring isolated farmers together for socialization + education, but got political → got W states to regulate RR prices + make abusive corporate practices illegal (Granger Laws)
    • 1886: Commerce Act -required RR rates to be reasonable + just, fed agency to enforce it (Interstate Commerce Commission)
• fed gov wanted W movement → funded RRs to facilitate mass migration
  • Pacific RRs Act: fed gov granted huge swaths of land to RR companies to build transcontinental RR
  • 1869: Transcontinental RR finished
  • Homestead Act (1862): granted potential migrants 160 acres of free land in W on condition they would farm + settle it
    • hindered by mechanization, 160 = not enough to make living → many went broke
• 1869: gold discovered in Pike’s Peak → huge increase of people in surrounding area
  • → boomtowns (ex: Denver, Boulder) - extremely diverse

6.3

• 1865: more Americans pushing W
• end of 19th century: frontier full, essentially closed
• settlers brought huge amounts of cattle, RRs → cattle trade in E markets
  • 1860s - 1880s: cowboys drove them across plains to E markets, but limited by settlers w/ fences → ended open cattle drives
    • Sodbusters - 1/5 got land from gov, othered got it from RR companies, but many small farms folded, land consolidated under larger companies
• 1890: US Census Bureau declared frontier = closed
  • Frederick Jackson Turner: argued closing = cause for concern b/c Americans always moving W → made W expansion method for releasing tension; frontier = mythic, democratizing force that leveled class + social hierarchies → Turner = worried frontier closing would lead to devolution into same class conflicts of Europeans
    • woes of white settlers
• OK Territory = “Indian land” - where they were relocated due to Indian Removal Act
• solution to “Indian problem” = reservation system (many Indian pops had built lives around following buffalo herds in plains, but buffalo pop = decimated → little argument)
  • official wards of fed gov until assimilation
  • resistance:
    • 1886: Sioux Wars - Indians defeated Ams → more treaties restricting reservations
    • Ghost Dance Movement = last way of resistance
    • Battle of Wounded Knee → period of Indian resistance ended
  • gold discovered on lands → impossible to keep settlers of reservations
  • Indian Appropriation Act (1871): officially ended fed recognition of Indian sovereignty, nullified all previous treaties → another war w/ Sioux
  • constant pressure of settlers, US armies, decrease of buffalo herds → forced to comply
  • 1887: Dawes Act - officially ended reservation system, lands divided into smaller plots to be farmed by Indians
    • allowed Indians to become American citizens if they settled land + assimilated → Assimilation Movement

6.4

• New S vision: Henry Grady coined term, thought S suffered in war b/c behind N in industry → S future = economic diversity, industrial growth, laissez-faire capitalism (N-ified)
  • S grew w/ industrial centers, some states surpassed NE states in textiles
  • creation of RRs helped
  • only took hold in a few places - remained agricultural in most places
• agricultural machine kept going→ still needed laborers → sharecropping
• racial segregation - helped by Compromise of 1877 w/ removal of fed troops → climax in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
  • from LA - law required separate rail cars → Plessy (1/8 Black) challenged law by riding in whites-only passenger car, refused to leave → arrested → SC ruled segregation = constitution as long as facilities = equal (”separate but equal”)
    • let S whites plead innocence when violating 14th Amendment (equal protection under law)
  • all S needed to segregate all of society; facilities in no way equal
  • Jim Crow Laws - everything public = segregated
  • Black people lost many things gained at beginning of Reconstruction - could no longer serve on jury duties, run for public office, often accused of crimes w/out court appearance, lynch mobbings + vigilante justice
• significant resistance:
  • Ida B. Wells: editor of S Black newspaper, wrote against lynching + Jim Crow laws → death threats, had to move N for safety
  • Henry Turner: Internat’l Migration Society: Black Americans to Africa, not sustainable b/c no economic opportunity + African diseases
  • Booker T. Washington: controversial - no need to fight for political equality, instead needed to become economically self-sufficient, would lead to power in voting booth

6.5

• significant change in industry: made things to use themselves or be sold locally, regionally → began mass-producing goods to be sold worldwide