Politics, Culture, and Daily Life in the Gilded Age

(1865 – 1900)

The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age –1873 novel by Mark Twain

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn

Crooked politicians The Spoils System Poverty

Conspicuous Consumerism

More people working for wages instead of themselves

More products available R. Macy, Jordan Marsh,

Mont. Ward, M. Field,J. Wannamaker = Department Stores

RFD = Mail Order Catalogs (like Richard Sears’)

New Forms of Popular Entertainment

Saloons and Ragtime Amusement Parks like

Coney Island, NYC Nickelodeons - The

Great Train Robbery (1903)

Vaudeville Shows - Family Variety Shows

Traveling Circuses

Popular Sports of the Era

Baseball - Cincinnati Red Stockings (1869)

Football - Walter Camp - Rugby (1880s)

Basketball - Dr. James Naismith (1891)

Boxing, Horseracing, Ice Skating, Bikes

Exit Slip – Popular Culture during the Gilded Age

1. T or F: Conspicuous Consumerism exists when demand is low for manufactured goods.

2. T or F: Movie theatres began to appear in America during the Gilded Age.

3. T or F: Ragtime appeared as a popular form of music during the Gilded Age.

4. T or F: Basketball was the most popular sport in American during the Gilded Age.

African American Voting Restrictions

Ku Klux Klan (1865) Jim Crow Laws Poll Taxes Property Ownership Literacy Tests

(separate tests for whites and blacks)

Grandfather Clauses

Booker T. Washington

Tuskegee Inst. (1881) in Alabama

Vocational Skills Accommodate Racism

in exchange for Economic Equality

George W. Carver Up From Slavery (1901)

Biography

W.E.B. DuBois

PhD from Harvard (1895)-1st Af. Am.

Niagara Movement (1905)

NAACP (1910) Advocated immediate

equality for Af. Am. Hated Washington’s

“Atlanta Compromise”

and Accommodation.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Upheld the Jim Crow Laws

“Separate but Equal” didn’t violate 14th Amendment

Common in the North too

Not overturned until 1954

Exit Slip – The Age of Jim Crow1. All of the following were passed in Southern states to keep

African-Americans from voting except

a. poll taxes. b. literacy tests. c. amendments.

2. Booker T. Washington said the #1 concern for African-Americans should be ___________.

a. fighting racism b. vocational skills c. Religion

3. W.E.B. DuBois strongly ________ with Washington.

a. Agreed b. Disagreed

4. The landmark court case that established the doctrine of “separate but equal” in 1896 was

a. Brown v. Topeka b. Tinker v. Des Moines

c. Plessy v. Ferguson d. Gibbons v. Ogden

The Rise of Political Machines Goal was to keep their

political parties in power

Spoils System, Patronage, Graft

Ran by “bosses” & appealed to immigrants

“Boss” Tweed and Tammany Hall, NYC

Cartoonist Thomas Nast

Reforming the Spoils System

1829- Andrew Jackson

Dem. & Rep. both were guilty

“Grantism” Pres. Hayes begun

reform in 1877, but lost in 1880

Arthur Ends the Spoils System James Garfield (R)

elected in 1880 July 2, 1881-Killed

by Charles Guiteau Lived for 3 months (VP) Chester Arthur

is President Pendleton Civil

Service Act (1883)

Exit Slip – The Spoils System

1. The most famous political machine of the era was ___________ Hall in New York.

a. Carnegie b. Tammany c. Cooper d. Alumni

2. The political cartoonist who helped bring Boss Tweed to justice was __________.

a. Charles Schultz b. Chester Arthur c. Thomas Nast

3. The term “Grantism” refers to __________.

a. Raising taxes b. Honesty c. Bravery d. Scandal

4. The second U.S. President assassinated was _________.

a. James Garfield b. William McKinley c. U.S. Grant