Talking Points:

 

Ch 23: Politics in the Gilded Age:

1.  Explain why Ulysses S. Grant was elected to not one but TWO terms in office.

2.  How did the Republican party become linked to big business at this time?

3.  Describe the carnival of corruption of the Grant Administration.

4.  What was the Liberal Republican Revolt of 1872?

5. What was the cause and effect of the Panic of 1873?

6. What was the Crime of 73 and what was the Silver Issue behind it?

7.  Tilden Hayes Standoff of 1876 and the Compromise of 77. How did this end Reconstruction?

8.  What was the division within the Republican party at this point? Explain with regard to the Stalwarts and Half Breeds; their positions and leaders.

9.  How were black Americans abandoned by both parties? What happened to re-assert the emergence of the old social order in the South?

10. Describe the rising labor crisis in the last 70s.

11. Trace the re-emerging anti-immigration movement at the end of the 19th century.

12. Trace the rise of the shift toward Civil Service and away from Patronage and Cronyism. (Garfield, Arthur, Pendleton Act)

13.  How did a Democrat get back into office in 84? What will his policies be? Describe with regard to Reform, Pensions, Tariffs, Big Business and the Treasury surplus and Indian control.

Assignments:

1.  Chart the Political movements of the period from 1868-1888.

2.  Chart the graft of the period.

 

Chapter 24: Industry Comes of Age:

1. Describe the growth of railroads, including how they were government subsidized into a transcontinental transportation system.

2. Describe the advancements in Railroad building and time management that increased the safety efficiency.

3. Describe how the Railroads offered opportunities for graft and injustices.

4. What efforts were made to combat the unfair practices of the Railroad and what were their results?

5. What factors were present in the US by the 1880s to make the US the 4th largest manufacturer in the world? What popular inventions arose from these factors?

6. Describe the rise of Andrew Carnegie and his use of Vertical Integration.

7. Trace the rise of John D. Rockefeller and his use of Horizontal Integration.

8. Describe the new business practices of trusts and interlocking directories.

9. Describe the rise of US Steel and the process that made it happen.

10. Explain Rockefeller’s American Beauty Rose theory of business and what it meant for small businessmen and competition in America.

11.  What was the Gospel of Wealth? How did it work? How did it enable the emergence of Plutocracy?

12. How did Government begin to curb the growth of business and why?

13. Trace the rise of the New South.

14. What was the new Gibson Girl model for women in America and how did women attempt to achieve this?

15. Describe the rise of Unions and the methods they used.

 

Assignments:

1. Trace the rise of the Intercontinental Railroad System: Chart format.

2. Chart the rise of modern business at this time.

3. Trace the rise of unions. (Who, what did they do, where, how and how effective were they?)

 

 

Chapter 25: American Moves to the City

  1. As the cities grew between 1870 and 1900, how did they change with regard to buildings, transportation and accessibility? What problems emerged as a result?
  2. How did immigration shift in the 1880s? How was the new wave different from those that came before? Why did they come? How did reformers attempt to help immigrants settle in?  What was the reaction of Nativists? Explain.
  3. How did churches address the immigrant challenge? Describe with regard to the rise in religious revival at the urban level and the practice of the Social Gospel movement.
  4. How did Darwin and the Modernists affect thinking at this juncture?
  5. Describe the growing rift in thinking between the Booker T Washington approach toward African Americans and the W.E.B. DuBois approach.
  6. Describe the rise in colleges and universities and the shift in offerings at this level.
  7. Explain how the growth of the popular press affected people in the form of books, newspapers and magazines. What key writers influenced culture at this point and how?
  8. How was morality shifting at this time? Explain the movements of Victoria Woodhull and her arch nemesis: Anthony Comstock as well as the changes of families and roles of women in the cities.
  9. Trace the Suffrage movement at this time period.
  10. Describe efforts toward prohibition as they developed now.
  11. Describe art and entertainment of these ‘brown decades’.

 

Assignments:

  1. Chart the growth of cities and the rising problems as well as the efforts of reform, as a timeline.
  2. T-Chart the thinking of W.E.B. DuBois vs. that of Booker T. Washington.
  3. Chart culture and entertainment of the Brown Decades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 26:

The West and Agricultural Revolution

 

1.  Describe the effect of Americans’ movement westward on the Native Americans.

2.  What policies did the US follow toward the Indians as evidenced in mid century treaties? How did Indians respond?

3. Trace the Indian Wars. How did sympathy finally emerge and what effect will it have?

4. What was the Dawes Severalty Act and how did it represent a shift in US policy toward the Indians?

5.  How did mining help to settle the west?

6. How did Cattle Ranching help to settle the west?

7. What was the homestead act and what was its purpose?

8. Settling the deserts/ north plains of the west and special techniques in farming and housing.

9. The disappearing frontier & the Turner Thesis

10. How farming became big business.

11. Unhappy farmers and how they finally tried to take a stand.

12. The Silver Issue and Bryan’s Cross of Gold.

 

Assignments:

1. Trace the Indian wars- timeline is ok.

2.  3 column chart: “How the west was settled”- Miners, Ranchers, Farmers