HIS 122 - Outline # 1
I. The Civil War
A. The romantic war
1. Heroes
a. South
b. North
2. Villains
a. South
b. North
B. The real war
1. The costs
a. In money
The federal budget in 1861
1862
1865
b. In lives
2. The Odds
a. North's advantages b. South's advantages
(1) Population
(2) Resources and industrial capacity
(3) Railroads
(4) Navy
(5) Nature of societies
(6) War aims
(7) Spirit
(8) Political leadership
3. Legacy: was it worth it?
a. To them (the "Killer Angels")?
b. To their descendants? (Click here for your instructor's attempt to answer this question.)
II. Reconstruction
A. Reconstruction myths
1. The myth of "Black Reconstruction"
a. Heroes
b. Villains
2. Revisionist view(s)
a. Heroes
b. Villains
B. Reconstructed Reconstruction
1. Reconstruction a failure
a. South at fault, for its refusal to accept the war's verdict, visible in
(1) "Johnson governments", created between April-December 1865, with their "Black Codes" and ex-Confederate leaders
(2) Johnson's vetoes of the bill to re-charter the Freedmen's Bureau and the Civil Rights Act of 1866
b. North's culpability, traceable to
(1) Lack of compassion
(2) Materialism
(3) Excessive idealism
(4) Lack of will to enforce war's verdict, visible in
(a) Compromise of 1877
(b) Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), ("separate but equal" decision)
2. Reconstruction a success
a. Constitutional changes (14th and 15th Amendments)
b. Freedmen's successes in creating communities and establishing their freedom, if not full equality
III. Rapid Industrialization in the "Gilded Age"
A. Reasons for it
1. The Civil War [?]
2. Expanded role for government in the economy
3. Railroad construction
4. "New" immigration
5. Ingenuity
6. Spirit (the success ethic)
7. Entrepreneurs
B. Late 19th century big businessmen: were they ...
1. Heroes?
a. Efficiency, through which they created jobs, raised living standards
b. Provided model, inspiration
c. Philanthropy
d. Built industrial base which saved western civilization in 20th century world wars
2. Villains ("Robber Barons")?
a. Motives?
b. Decadence
c. Means? (labor's plight - see C. below)
C. Labor in the late 19th century
1. A conservative movement
a. Classically conservative
b. Relatively conservative
2. Movement a failure, because of
a. Conservatism (despite radical image)
b. Bad breaks
c. Government intervention on employers' behalf
IV. The End of the Frontier
A. Jefferson's West
1. The agrarian ideal
2. Myths of the West
B. Ishi's West
1. The White Man's Indian
a. "Noble Savage"
b. "Renegade Heathen"
c. "Drunken Bum"
d. All of the above
2. Ishi and the Yahi (Click here for questions to consider about Ishi)
C. Frederick Jackson Turner's West
1. The agrarian ideal reasserted (Homestead Act)
2. The Jeffersonian ideal exposed as myth
a. Agrarianism eclipsed by agri-business
b. Turner's frontier thesis
(1) Frontier had made Americans uniquely
(a) individualistic
(b) democratic
(c) stable, as frontier had served as "safety valve"
(2) According to 1890 census, the frontier was now closed, so the U. S. would be subject to the instabilities that had plagued Europe over the last century
c. The World Columbian Exhibition: symbol of late 19th century Americans' fading hopes
V. Populism - Late 19th century farmers' desperate, doomed cry for help, the last gasp of the agrarian past; or farmers' coming-of-age, their accommodation to a commercialized future.
A. Populists' strengths
1. Organizing spirit, overcoming natural isolation
a. For social reasons (The Grange - 1870s)
b. For economic reasons (The Alliance - 1880s)
c. For political reasons (The Populists - 1890s)
2. Regional bases
a. Plains-prairie rebelliousness
b. The South (effort to create a bi-racial coalition)
c. Appeal to urban workers
(1) Immigration restriction
(2) The 8-hour day
3. Charismatic leadership
William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" Speech at Democratic Convention of 1896
B. Reasons for Failure
1. Successful Republican effort to depict Populists and Bryan as radical, then to pre-empt Populists' appeal
2. "Bourbon backlash" in South, breaking bi- racial coalition by using "Jim Crow" laws to divide poor whites and blacks
3. Appeal to urban workers failed
4. Overemphasis on the silver issue
a. Short-term benefit, as inflation would help farmers escape existing debts
b. Long-term distraction from farmers' fundamental problem: overproduction; silver appeared a quick-fix, but was really an escape from modern complexities
5. Foreign distractions (see VI)
C. Seeds of success
1. Populists' platform
a. Appeal to urban workers
(1) Immigration restriction
(2) Eight-hour day
b. Democratic devices
(1) Direct election of U. S. Senators
(2) Referendum, initiative, recall
(3) Secret ballot
c. Effort to involve government in economy
(1) Banking, monetary reforms
(2) Government regulation of railroads
(3) Subtreasury plan
(4) Graduated income taxes
2. What do these Populist ideas have in common?
a. All call for a more active government role in the economy and society
b. All were eventually realized