General Ulysses S. Grant was the greatest Union hero in the Civil War and was called “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. After the war he received many gifts of houses and cash. In 1868 the Republicans easily elected him President of the United States. The message of his campaign was “Let us have peace.” In February 1869 the United States Congress approved the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution that promised to protect the right of citizens to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It did not go into effect until it was ratified by three-quarters of the states in December 1869. The Republican Congress required the seceded states to ratify the 14th Amendment guaranteeing “equal protection of the law” before they would allow their elected representatives to be seated in the Congress. In his inaugural address Grant promised that he would work for “security of person, property, and free religious and political opinion in every part of the country, without regard to local prejudice.” At the conclusion he said, “I ask the prayers of the nation to Almighty God in behalf of this consummation.”1
President Grant appointed several of his Civil War colleagues, and their scandals would tarnish his administration. Hamilton Fish of New York was an able Secretary of State. Grant regretted expelling Jews from Paducah, Kentucky in 1862, and as President he attempted to lift blacks and Jews to “equality with the most enlightened.” During his first six months he decreased the national debt by $50 million. In April he signed a bill requiring Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas to ratify the 15th Amendment before they could be readmitted to the Union. He hired as Commissioner of Indian Affairs his friend, the Tonawanda Seneca Brigadier General Ely S. Parker, who had been his adjutant during the Civil War, and they recruited Quakers to develop a peace policy toward the Plains Indians. Granted wanted to treat them as individuals instead of as tribes, and the public supported that. The US Government continued to provide land and money for railroads, and the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in May 1869. That month Grant put federal workers on the 8-hour day with no loss in pay. He blocked the Congress from reducing the budget that aided freed persons. Grant sent Orville Babcock to negotiate with the Dominican Republic, and he prohibited filibustering in Cuba and elsewhere. The Freedmen’s Bureau was aiding ex-slaves and poor whites, and thousands of teachers helped 247,333 students by 1870. Education became a Bureau in the Interior Department.
Wall Street financiers Jay Gould and Jim Fisk controlled the Erie Railway, and they tried to corner the gold market by using Grant’s brother-in-law Abel Corbin and by bribing the Assistant Treasurer Butterfield. By September 24 Gould and Fisk had over $100 million in gold calls. The price of gold had gone over $160, and then it fell to $132. Grant fired Butterfield. Stocks went down 20% in a week as stock brokers became bankrupt. Grain prices fell drastically causing a depression for farmers. Henry Adams exposed “The New York Gold Conspiracy,” and he urged Grant to reform the Civil Service. Grant in December suggested putting Indians on large reservations to protect them. He proposed a moderate tariff to protect business and a 3% income tax for three years.
In January 1870 Grant appointed a commission on Santo Domingo. The AME minister Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first black US Senator in February, and by that month the 15th Amendment had been ratified by 30 of the 37 states. During Grant’s administration 16 African-Americans would serve in the US Congress, and about 600 would be elected as state legislators. Senator Charles Sumner opposed the annexation of Santo Domingo in March, and the US Senate rejected the treaty. Republicans in the South sent Grant letters complaining about Ku Klux Klan (KKK) violence with impunity, and in May the US Congress began passing Enforcement Acts based on the 14th and 15th amendments to quell the political violence in the South. Grant in June replaced Attorney General Hoar with Amos Akerman of Georgia, and the Congress established the Department of Justice and the Solicitor General to argue for the US Government at the US Supreme Court. The KKK and other white terrorists attacked Republicans, causing their defeats in 1870 elections in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. That year Grant used the army to enforce voting only in Kentucky. In October he and Akerman ordered the US Marshal in New York to hire 5,000 special deputies and make available 1,200 soldiers and 250 marines to supervise the voting, and a few people were arrested. All the former Confederate states had been readmitted into Congress by December.
Grant’s policy was neutral during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and he suspended all US Government sales of weapons. In February 1871 he sent troops to stop the violence in South Carolina. In March he appointed the Civil Service Commission. He nominated five commissioners to help resolve issues with the British, and in May they signed a treaty that created an arbitration tribunal chosen by Grant, Queen Victoria, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, and Swiss Confederation President Karl Schenk. The Senate approved the treaty that was ratified in June, and arbitration solved various disputes. In Mississippi 640 people were indicted under the Enforcement Acts, but none were convicted. On May 3 Grant ordered troops to support federal officials in the South. Akerman in September went to South Carolina, and Grant sent the 7th Cavalry in October. He suspended habeas corpus in some counties so that Akerman could keep in jail terrorists who threatened his witnesses. Federal grand juries indicted 3,384 KKK, and about 600 persons were convicted. Most were fined or got short jail sentences. Akerman blocked land grants to railroad magnates, and some Republicans began turning against Grant. After the KKK refused to surrender weapons in South Carolina, Grant suspended habeas corpus in nine counties in October. On December 11 he promulgated the rules devised by the new Civil Service Commission.
President Grant appointed Senator George H. Williams of Oregon as the Attorney General, and in 1872 he convicted 456 people of terrorizing voters in the South and even more in 1873. The Congress set all federal elections on Tuesday between November 2 and 8. This completed the sun’s grand trine aspects in the water signs between that day, July 4, and inaugurations on March 4. Grant in March 1872 created the first national park at Yellowstone in the Wyoming Territory. He still wanted to use his political power brokers for hiring government officials despite efforts to use the Civil Service Commission.
In May the Congress passed the Amnesty Act. Grant removed restrictions against secessionists, but he still excepted 500 top Confederate officers. Someone burned the home of Frederick Douglass in Rochester, and in July he moved to Washington DC where he campaigned for Grant and published U. S. Grant and the Colored People. The Freedmen’s Bureau ended in June, and the Freedmen’s Bank deposits were liquidated over the next two years affecting thousands of blacks.
In May 1872 the less radical Liberal Republican Party started by Senator Carl Schurz of Missouri held a convention and nominated the New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley for President with Missouri’s Gov. Benjamin Brown for Vice President. In June the Republican Party nominated Grant for re-election with the radical Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts as his running mate. In July at Baltimore the Democrats also nominated Greeley and Brown. The banker Jay Cooke donated $50,000 to the Republican National Committee and to Grant’s campaign which raised $200,000. Grant, like most previous Presidents up for re-election, did not campaign.
On September 4 the New York Sun exposed the Crédit Mobilier scandal in which the Union Pacific Railroad used that dummy corporation and a contractor to make more money building railroads. They made about 47% profit on the government funding with more than $20 million going to Crédit Mobilier’s directors. They sold stock at discount prices to Congressmen. After the election Congress began investigating Crédit Mobilier in December. Grant got 55.6% of all votes and won 29 of 35 states with 286 electoral votes. Republicans gained 61 seats in the US House of Representatives to give them a 199-84 advantage, and they still held 54 seats in the US Senate over 19 Democrats who had their worst election of the 19th century. In Grant’s first term railroad building helped capital goods increase by 21%. In the previous decade the US Congress gave industrialists more than $700 million and 200 million acres of public land.
The US Congress doubled the President’s salary from $25,000 to $50,000. Grant needed it because he owed $25,000. On 5 March 1873 Congress increased their own pay from $5,000 to $7,500 with a $5,000 bonus for the previous two years. This was so unpopular that of the 102 congressmen who voted for the backpay only 12 were re-elected in 1874. Grant refused to favor votes for women, though he claimed he appointed 5,000 women to work in US Post Offices. In his second inaugural address he reviewed progress by telegraph and steam. He believed that lower taxes created prosperity. He noted that four million slaves had become citizens while admitting that getting civil rights was still a problem. He hoped that education and civilization would help “aborigines” and that someday “armies and navies will be no longer required.”
A dispute over who won the election for governor in Louisiana led to both men attempting to govern. About 5,000 in a white militia defended the Democrat John McEnery, and on March 5 Grant ordered out the militia that included blacks. On April 13 the whites shot dead about 40 black prisoners. Almost as many were killed in the battle while only three whites died. A federal grand jury indicted 98 men and tried nine. White Leaguers in August murdered six Republican officials and ten black witnesses in Louisiana. Grant ordered troops sent, and the Democrat Lt. Governor D. B. Penn called out his militia to drive out Republican officers. After Grant sent 5,000 more troops, the insurgents left. In January 1874 Grant made General Sheridan the commander of Louisiana. He learned that since the Civil War whites had killed over 2,000 blacks, and practically no one was punished.
Grant and the Civil Service Board made new rules in August 1873. By then about 800,000 farmers were in over 10,000 Grange chapters. An economic crisis in Europe affected American investors, and railroad debts increased. The Panic of 1873 reached the United States in September. Grant had Treasury Secretary Richardson buy $10 million in bonds, and they reissued up to $26 million in paper money. Businesses were going under, and the US Senate began investigating. By the end of the year 25 railroads defaulted on their debts, and 71 more would in 1874. The United States had 5,183 bankruptcies in 1873. Secretary of State Fish helped resolve a conflict with Spain involving ships at sea, and Grant replaced the ambassador Daniel Sickles with Caleb Cushing in January 1874. From 1865 to 1873 less than 10% of spending on federal public works projects went to the 11 former Confederate states and Kentucky. In the next three years wages went down 25%.
Deposits in the Freedmen’s Savings Bank fell from $55 million in 1873 to $3.3 million in 1874. Frederick Douglass was made its president in March 1874. Grant’s daughter Nellie in May had her wedding at the White House and received gifts worth about $60,000. By 1874 Mississippi had 55 blacks in its House of Representatives and 9 state senators. That year in Mississippi about 200 Negroes were killed, and thousands were wounded. The armed White League and White Line militia in Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina followed that bad example. In the 1874 elections the Democrats gained 94 seats in the US House of Representatives giving them a 181-107 advantage. They added 9 more seats in the US Senate, but Republicans still held a 42-28 majority. Grant urged education by public schools. In his 6th Annual Message on December 7 he asked people to “Treat the negro as a citizen and a voter.”
President Grant believed that the gold and silver standards would make the currency stable, and in January 1875 he signed the Resumption Act which resumed silver minting. He tried to balance the economic desires of the farmers and eastern businesses. He signed the Civil Rights Act on March 1 to provide “equal enjoyment of the accommodations.” The Act was not usually enforced, and the US Supreme court declared it unconstitutional in 1883.
In May the St. Louis Democrat exposed the scandal of frauds on the whiskey tax. Grant had Treasury Secretary Bristow order raids in St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee that led to over 350 indictments. Grant could not believe that his private secretary Orville Babcock gained $160,000, and he appointed generals who acquitted him. Grant dismissed Babcock and made his own two sons his private secretaries. The wife of Attorney General George Williams had accepted a bribe of $30,000, and Grant replaced Williams with Edwards Pierrepont who had prosecuted the Tweed Ring in New York. Pierrepont persuaded Grant to leave Mississippi alone, and in the November election the Democrats used cheating on vote counting instead of violence to regain control of the state government. In his annual message Grant advised taxing equally property owned by churches and corporations in order to maintain free public schools.
Although President Grant wanted a policy that brought about peace with Indians, General Philip Sheridan was in charge of the campaign to protect settlers against Indians. General Custer also acted aggressively. Money promised to Indians in treaties was often delayed or inadequate. Grant in 1869 appointed ten philanthropists to an independent commission that persuaded Congress to authorize $5 million to maintain the tribes with $2 million for the President to preserve peace. Senator Carl Schurz arranged for $350,000 to provide for the Utes. After the Navaho Wars were ended in 1868, they were sent to the Bosque Redondo Reservation where in the next five years their nation of 10,000 decreased by 2,000 while their sheep diminished from 200,000 to 940.
Grant met with Chief Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and other Lakota leaders in May 1870. Red Cloud in June negotiated with Interior Secretary Cox, and Red Cloud in July made a speech in New York. In December the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole in the Indian Territory approved a constitution with a bill of rights for self-government. The US Government insisted on final authority over their legislation, and the Five Civilized Tribes rejected that. Many raids and battles were fought between native tribes and the US Army and settlers.
In March 1872 Grant had instructed General Schofield that Indian hostilities should be avoided. In October the Indian Commissioner Oliver Howard negotiated a peace treaty with Cochise that separated the Chiricahua from the Mescalero Apaches. Many Plains Indians were upset that white hunters were killing more than four times as many buffalo as the native tribes did. In December 1874 President Grant asked Congress to extend homestead laws to Indians. In March 1875 he approved a plan by generals Sherman and Sheridan to banish war chiefs and leading warriors from the southern Plains, and 74 were taken to Florida and imprisoned for three years.
Grant in November 1875 tried to transform his peace policy by allowing the Lakota to stay in the Black Hills. The US military ordered the Sioux to report to their reservation by 13 January 1876. Grant learned that a corrupt Indian Ring included Interior Secretary Delano, and his brother Orvil Grant. War Secretary Belknap was also involved and resigned. He was impeached but was not convicted by the Senate. General Custer in June led 263 cavalry and attacked about 2,500 Sioux near the Little Bighorn River, and all those soldiers were killed. Grant in August asked Congress for 2,500 cavalry men, and in September 1,200 soldiers defeated 700 Sioux led by Crazy Horse. Grant in his 7th Annual Message blamed the avarice of white men seeking gold in the Black Hills. By 1876 in addition to the Indian Territory there were Indian reservations in Texas, Minnesota, Colorado, and Oregon and in the territories of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Washington.
In United States v. Cruikshank the US Supreme Court decided on 27 March 1876 that the 14th Amendment does not apply to private persons but only to states. On that day in United States v. Reese they also ruled that the 15th Amendment did not protect the right to vote; it only prohibited excluding voters based on race. President Grant in April vetoed a bill that would have cut his salary. During his two terms he vetoed 93 bills, and only four were overridden.
Because of corruption and other issues Grant continued to change his cabinet. Navy Secretary Robeson was suspected of receiving many gifts, but he was exonerated and remained in his office. Grant in May 1876 attended in Philadelphia the Centennial Exposition that displayed American progress. Blacks were represented only by the statue of a freed slave. Grant declined to run for a third term even though his wife wanted him to continue as President. In June at a convention in Cincinnati the Republican Party nominated Ohio’s Governor Rutherford B. Hayes for President with New York Rep. William A. Wheeler for Vice President. The Democrats met in St. Louis and nominated New York’s Governor Samuel J. Tilden with Indiana’s Governor Thomas A. Hendricks for Vice President. The election on November 7 was so close and contested that the US Congress in December organized a bipartisan electoral commission that included five Supreme Court justices to resolve the crisis. Grant in his last message to Congress reviewed the accomplishments of his administration while admitting he had made errors.
Rutherford B. Hayes was born in Ohio on 4 October 1822, and he became a lawyer. He and his wife opposed slavery, and he joined the US Army when the Civil War began and was elected a captain. He was wounded five times, and by the end of the war he was a brigadier general. He was elected to the US Congress in 1864 and was re-elected in 1866 but resigned to campaign for governor. He won and served for four years until January 1872. He did not run for re-election and lost a race for the US House of Representatives. In 1875 Hayes was elected Governor of Ohio again. In June 1876 the Republican Party nominated him for President. The election was very close with the Democrat Tilden getting more total votes. Because of the suppression of black voters, three southern states were disputed, and the US Congress and US Supreme Court formed a bipartisan election commission to investigate and decide on contested electoral votes. They found voter intimidation in Louisiana and South Carolina and ruled that Hayes won those states. They also assigned Florida to Hayes and one electoral vote from Oregon that gave him a 185-184 win in the Electoral College. Democrats felt they were cheated, and they gained a majority in the House of Representatives and in southern legislatures. Hayes and Republicans agreed to withdraw US Army forces from former Confederate states, and that ended the military occupation of the Reconstruction Era.
President Hayes was very conscientious about using pardons, and in his great inaugural address he considered the protection of all citizens with free rights most important. He believed the National Government has a moral obligation to establish the rights of all people, and he hoped that the southern states would have peaceful government that was wise and honest. He said that prosperity and suffrage for all depends on universal education, and he urged more government support for free schools. He noted that both parties were supporting civil service reforms. He aimed to support the interests of all people and all regions of the country. He believed that the way to serve one’s party best is to serve the country best. He affirmed the value of not interfering in other nations, and he followed the peaceful policies of Grant and his protection of civil and voting rights for black citizens. He wanted to have good relations with all nations including the Indians within the United States. He noted that for the first time resolving disputed electoral votes was by using a bipartisan tribunal that the American people could accept. He agreed with the public sentiment that all conflicts over the Presidency should be adjusted peacefully and according to law.
Hayes aimed to restore the gold standard by 1879, and that was the last year of the depression which began in 1873. Hayes opposed patronage and would not let Congressmen make appointments. He chose his own cabinet, listened to their advice, and made his own decisions. His first problem was the conflict in Louisiana between a Democratic and a Republican governor who both claimed they won the election. He sent a commission that he financed. On 22 March 1877 Hayes withdrew the military support from the Republican Gov. Chamberlain. Hayes gave federal jobs to 48 blacks who had been in the Louisiana legislature. The Congress funded public works in Louisiana instead of the military. In April he ordered federal troops to leave South Carolina. His Secretary of State William Evarts established new ministries in Colombia, Bolivia, and Romania. Hayes maintained the reduced military at about 25,000 men. He sent the army to stop bands from Mexico that were invading to steal cattle, and he declined to recognize Mexico’s President Porfirio Díaz until March 1878. Hayes vetoed bills that had coercive riders.
The great railroad strike of 1877 was caused by rich railroad executives reducing the minimal pay of workers, and it spread widely. Governors asked President Hayes for troops, and he sent them to keep the peace. More than 50,000 Chinese were laid off in the West. The strike affected two-thirds of the 75,000 miles of railways. Hayes went on a good-will tour of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia. He nominated John M. Harlan to the US Supreme Court, and he became an outstanding justice especially on civil rights. Hayes appointed black diplomats to Haiti and Liberia, and he made Frederick Douglass the US Marshal of the District of Columbia.
President Grant and Hayes sent General Oliver Otis Howard to deal with the Nez Perce and Chief Joseph who eventually decided to stop fighting. By April 1877 some Sioux and many Cheyenne had asked for peace and surrendered. The Congress made much land with gold in the Black Hills available to homesteaders and private investors. Hayes recognized the broken promises made to Indians, and he offered agricultural tools and schools. In April 1879 he ordered a very large reservation for tribes in the Washington Territory. In 1880 Hayes appointed a special commission to study the Ponca case and make recommendations, and he accepted their choices in February 1881. Congress then appropriated $165,000 to indemnify the Ponca. In January the United States made a treaty with Samoan tribal chiefs that allowed the US Navy to use the port of Pago Pago.
The only time a Hayes veto was overridden was on the Bland-Allison Silver bill to coin silver dollars. He was concerned that it would cause inflation. In June 1878 he signed the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibited using the US Army in elections. In November he arbitrated a border dispute between Paraguay and Argentina, and he ruled that Paraguay could keep its Chaco territory. Hayes in his annual messages to Congress reported how they were reducing the federal debt, but 10,500 US businesses failed in 1878. In February 1879 he approved a bill allowing women to practice law before the US Supreme Court. In March he vetoed the Chinese Exclusion Act that would have severely limited their immigration. Hayes vetoed a bill that would have prohibited the federal government from providing troops for peacekeeping in elections. He continued Grant’s policy of protecting elections, though the Democrats managed to block the $600,000 needed to pay marshals. Hayes supported the Civil Service Commission to remove the corruption in appointments. To stop the hazing of blacks at the West Point Military Academy in August 1880 Hayes replaced General Schofield with General Oliver Otis Howard who had much experience working with black Americans. Hayes and his family went on a western trip as far as California, Oregon, and the reservation in the Washington Territory. In November the United States made two commercial treaties with China. In his last Annual Message to Congress he asked for support to investigate voting rights violations, to fund public education, and to provide #25,000 to develop competitive examinations for civil service.
James Garfield was born on 19 November 1831 into a poor family. He liked to read and studied religion, learning Greek and Latin. He became a teacher and president of the Eclectic Institute in 1857. He studied law and became a lawyer. In January 1860 he was elected to the Ohio Senate. He was an abolitionist and organized the 42nd Ohio Infantry in 1861. He started as a colonel and became a brigadier general in 1862, the year he ran for the US House of Representatives. President Lincoln told him that he needed political influence more than another general, and in November Garfield was elected to the Congress. He was a radical Republican, and he became friends with James G. Blaine. Garfield became chairman of the Military Affairs Committee and the Banking Committee. In 1871-75 he was chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He was on the Electoral Commission that made Hayes the President.
In October 1880 Garfield was elected a US Senator, and in November he was elected President with Chester Arthur as Vice President. The US Senate was evenly balanced by Republicans and Democrats, but Arthur’s tie-breaking votes enabled the Republicans to be chairmen of all 39 committees. Garfield had promised to make Levi Morton the Treasury Secretary. When the President changed his mind on this, Senator Conkling and other New Yorkers became very upset. Garfield chose his own cabinet officers and made Blaine the Secretary of State. He refused to select any Conkling men for his cabinet, though he appointed several to other positions. He insisted on nominating William Robertson as Collector of the Port of New York.
Garfield in his inaugural address confirmed the liberation of masters and slaves, and he supported the voting rights of all men. Charles Guiteau had campaigned for Garfield, but the President and Blaine refused to appoint him as consul to Paris. Garfield rejected having guards in the White House. He believed that deferring to senatorial courtesy on important appointments was extremely corrupt, and he approved of civil service reforms. Readjusters treated Negroes well in Virginia, and Garfield appointed 200 Readjusters to offices in the Treasury, 1,700 in the Post Office, and 70 in federal courts.
Democrats in April began using filibusters to block the Republicans on over 300 nominations. On May 4 Blaine persuaded Garfield to withdraw his five nominations of Stalwarts from New York. Conkling accused Garfield of corruption with the assistant postmaster general Tom Brady, a Garfield campaign advisor. Garfield removed Brady and asked the Senate to approve his nominees. Garfield appointed Frederick Douglass the recorder of deeds in Washington DC, and he named other blacks as the minister to Haiti and the Treasury Registrar. When the Senate was refusing to confirm his nomination of Robertson, Garfield withdrew all of them except for Robertson. Vice President Arthur complained that Garfield had betrayed the Stalwart Republicans. The two US Senators Conkling and Pratt of New York resigned by May 18, the day the Senate confirmed Robertson. Blaine had his diplomats mediate a conflict between Chile and Peru, and they arbitrated the boundary dispute between Guatemala and Mexico.
President Garfield completed his work at the end of the fiscal year on June 30. On July 2 Blaine accompanied Garfield to the train station to leave on a vacation, and Guiteau shot the President in the arm and the back. Guiteau was captured as doctors tried to help Garfield. Ignorant physicians allowed infections, and Garfield eventually died on September 19. This was a tragic event, similar to the assassination of Lincoln, who though he was a terrible war President, could have been compassionate and wise during Reconstruction. Garfield had little opportunity to put into practice his wisdom.
Chester Arthur was born on 5 October 1829 in Vermont. He taught school and became a lawyer in New York. He represented a black teacher who had been forcibly removed from a streetcar, and she won her case. He campaigned for the Republican Fremont for President in 1856. He opposed slavery and visited Kansas in 1857. Arthur during the Civil War was the chief engineer for the New York militia, and he organized supplies for soldiers. He became a brigadier general and Quartermaster General for 219,000 troops from New York.
Arthur became a leader in New York’s Republican Party. In 1872 President Grant appointed him to the lucrative position of Collector of the Port of New York, and the patronage gave him an annual income of over $50,000. Arthur appointed members of the board, and he provided patronage favors for President Grant and for others. Arthur received $21,906 in a corrupt deal. When the US Congress enacted reforms in 1875, his salary was reduced to $12,000. During the 1876 campaign he collected assessments from the Custom House employees raising $72,000 to help fund Republican campaigns. He declined the consulship in Paris and refused to resign. In April 1877 Arthur testified to a Congressional commission, and that year New York Customs receipts were about $108 million. In 1878 President Hayes removed Arthur. In 1879 he became chairman of New York City’s Republican Central Committee and then of the state committee. In 1880 Republicans needed New York to win, and they nominated Arthur as the running mate for the “dark horse” candidate James Garfield. Arthur ran the New York campaign and raised more than $400,000 to pay campaign workers.
Vice President Arthur cast tie-breaking votes to give the Republicans majorities and chairmen for all 39 committees in the US Senate. When President Garfield died of a bullet wound in September 1881, Vice President Arthur was inaugurated as President. He promised to fulfill the promises of Garfield, and he surprised many people by supporting the reforms that replaced patronage with civil service exams and appointments based on merit. Arthur refused to obey the power-broker Senator Conkling, and he told him that God had made him President. He maintained Garfield’s appointments, though three important reformers left the cabinet. The US Senate elected the former Chief Justice David Davis to be president pro tempore and made him next to ascend to the presidency if necessary. Republicans retained control of the Senate’s committees. Arthur needed to replace some cabinet officers.
Secretary of State Blaine reprimanded the US ministers Hurlbut and Kilpatrick for getting involved in corruption in Chile and Peru. Blaine used diplomacy to help settle disputes in Latin America, and he planned a conference of representatives from Latin American nations. He included the Hawaiian Islands in the Monroe Doctrine. When Blaine resigned in December, Arthur accepted Grant’s advice to appoint Frederick Frelinghuysen. He ended the corruption in Peru and avoided getting into a war in the Pacific.
In his First Annual Message to Congress on December 6 President Arthur commended the good relations with Britain and suggested revising the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. He hoped to improve the National Board of Health in order to prevent infectious diseases. He noted that the US surplus for the previous fiscal year was over $100 million. To keep it from getting too large he advised repealing taxes except on tobacco, liquors, and license fees. He asked Congress to pass laws to prevent settlers’ incursions on Indian land. He suggested using revenues from selling public land to provide better education for freed slaves. He evaluated character as well as exams to select appointees. Congress did not support the Latin American conference, and Frelinghuysen announced it was canceled. Arthur held to a neutral policy in the conflict between Chile and Peru. He claimed that reducing postal frauds saved the government $2 million a year. He accepted Garfield’s policy of considering character in appointments, and he asked Congress to appropriate $25,000 for the Civil Service Commission.
In 1882 the Arthur Administration attempted to reduce the corruption in the rural postal routes, and he claimed it saved the government $2 million a year. Yet it helped Democrats win in the fall elections. Efforts to prohibit polygamy were evaded by Mormons in Utah. The US House of Representatives refused to fund the civil service reform that Arthur requested. He vetoed a bill that would have barred Chinese immigration for 20 years, but he signed the Chinese Exclusion Act they passed that was for 10 years. He accepted Blaine’s advice to nominate William Chandler as Navy Secretary. Arthur made Senator Henry Teller of Colorado the Interior Secretary, and he set up a court with three Native American judges for settling tribal issues. Arthur sent troops to the Arizona Territory to stop cowboys from killing miners and rustling cattle.
Before the fall elections he declared that no federal employee would be discharged for refusing to pay an assessment for a campaign contribution. He approved a tariff commission that heard from 604 witnesses. In May US Commodore Robert Shufeldt with Chinese assistance negotiated a commercial treaty with Korea. Arthur replaced only 16 officials in the Treasury Department. He vetoed new safety and health standards for steamships until technical errors were corrected. After his veto of an expensive Rivers and Harbors bill was overridden, many House members who voted for it were not re-elected.
President Arthur did not campaign for candidates, and he had health problems. In the November 1882 election Democrats gained 68 seats in the House of Representatives. He appointed protectionists to the Tariff Commission and no free traders. He advised simplifying duties especially for cotton, iron, and steel.
On January 1883 Arthur signed a major reform bill that created a Civil Service Commission to investigate, stipulate rules, and supervise competitive exams for about 10,000 jobs. He appointed an impartial commission to inspect American meat-packing plants. When Postmaster General Howe died in March, Arthur appointed the independent federal judge Walter Q. Gresham of Indiana.
Arthur kept his kidney disease secret, and he went on a tour with General Sheridan to Yellowstone Park in the summer, and they caught fish. He asked for more schools for Indians and for their protection by laws. After traveling on trains, stagecoaches, and horses, Arthur said he felt “invigorated.” When he returned, his doctor told him that Bright’s disease had swollen his legs. Arthur’s neutral policy toward Peru and Chile led to their peace agreement in October.
In his Third Annual Message to Congress he advised that the US was wise not to compete with the naval arms race going on among powerful nations in Europe.
In 1884 Arthur ordered federal marshals to stop the arms trafficking that was supplying Irish terrorists with bombs. Because of his health problems Arthur told supporters not to support his re-election, and he had them reject $100,000 from a Chicago hotel owner. He refused to promise any patronage. When Republicans nominated Blaine for President, Arthur telegraphed his support; but he did not campaign.
Grover Cleveland was born on 18 March 1837, and after his father’s death in 1853 he began supporting his family. He studied and became a lawyer in New York in 1859. During the Civil War he supported the Union. He hired a Polish immigrant as a substitute soldier so that he could work and continue supporting his mother and sisters. He became a Democrat, and in 1862 he was elected ward supervisor. In 1863 he became an assistant district attorney. He lost a close race for district attorney in 1865. He worked as a defense lawyer. In 1870 he was elected Erie County sheriff and served for three years. Cleveland was elected Mayor of Buffalo in 1881. He had the board of health clean the sewage system with Niagara River water, and his reforms saved lives and the city much money.
In 1882 Democrats nominated and elected Cleveland the Governor of New York, and he promised to help workers. He won easily, and Democrats increased their power. He continued to work long hours, and he implemented civil service reforms. He vetoed corrupt “pork barrel” spending, and he asked for laws to control the greed of large corporations and for higher taxes on the rich. He helped form the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He was criticized for pardoning people. In reducing corruption he was helped by the young Theodore Roosevelt in the New York Assembly. Cleveland challenged Tammany leaders and became known for his integrity.
In July 1884 the Democratic convention nominated Grover Cleveland for President. He promised economic development to help the working class. In a rough campaign he was accused of fathering a son, and he admitted to supporting the orphan boy. The Republican Blaine of Maine was suspected of corruption, and Cleveland won a close election. He chose experienced and capable men for his cabinet and listened to their views before making his decisions.
Cleveland in his inaugural address explained his democratic views, reforms, and his foreign policy of neutrality and peace without any entangling alliances. He promised honest treatment of the Indians promoting education and citizenship. He warned settlers to stay off Indian land, and he opened US public land for settlers. Reforms would apply business principles to public affairs. He enforced the 1883 Civil Service Law that used examinations to help select better government employees. After the death of Vice President Hendricks in November 1885 the US Congress made the Secretary of State next in line to the Presidency after the Vice President.
Democrats still controlled the House of Representatives, but Cleveland had to deal with a Republican majority in the Senate. Because of the previous 24 years by Republican governments 95% of the employees had been appointed by them. Cleveland replaced many with Democrats while he retained capable Republicans. He declined to appoint Democrats or his friends if they were not qualified. He refused to compete with Europeans for an imperialistic navy while he modernized the US Navy that protected American coasts. His administration approved the Interstate Commerce Act that regulated railroads and established the Interstate Commerce Commission. He reduced taxes and tariffs diminishing the annual surplus to $70 million. In his first year he increased the gold reserve by $26 million.
In March 1886 Cleveland asked for an end to the Tenure of Office Act so that he could remove appointees, and Congress repealed it in 1887.
The United States in 1886 had 1,411 strikes involving 9,861 companies and about 500,000 employees. Workers wanted more pay and better working conditions. Cleveland asked for legislation to facilitate arbitration of labor disputes, and he proposed a Commission of Labor in April to help improve relations and settle conflicts between workers and capitalists. The US Congress approved voluntary arbitration and the Labor Commission. On May 1 about 100,000 trade unionists demonstrated and demanded the 8-hour day. About 1,500 people gathered at Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 4. As police were breaking up the meeting, a bomb killed eight police and injured about sixty. Then police killed four workers and wounded about 180. In May 1886 the US Supreme Court granted corporations equal rights. By July the Knights of Labor had 729,000 members in about 15,000 local assemblies, but they lost about 180,000 members in the next year. The Farmers Alliance had 3,000 local groups with 200,000 members by early 1887.
President Cleveland was single until June 1886 when he married young Frances Folsom in the White House. She held receptions and became popular. Cleveland was fiscally conservative and vetoed bills that would increase pensions for Union Civil War veterans. He approved the construction of five cruisers. Attorney General Augustus Garland refused to turn over documents to Congress, and the Senate censured him.
Cleveland and his wife traveled to St. Louis, Madison, Memphis, and Atlanta. In October the US Supreme Court ruled that the US Government could regulate interstate commerce. Cleveland spoke at the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. In his Second Annual Message to Congress in December he asked for lower tariffs, but the Republicans in the US Senate blocked that. The US Navy captured three Canadian seal-fishing boats for illegally reducing the seal population.
Cleveland recognized the rights of Indians and worked to improve their lives with protection and education. The Dawes Act in February 1887 authorized allotting tribal land in lots of 160 acres to families and 40 acres to individuals. He had his Interior Secretary Lamar investigate fraudulent land claims. The southern economy was improving as wealth increased much more than population. Geronimo gave up raiding in Arizona in September 1886 and spent two years in exile in Florida before rejoining his family in Alabama. There were fewer battles against Indians.
Cleveland believed that many pensions for veterans were undeserved, and he vetoed those. In February 1887 he vetoed the Dependent Pension bill that newspapers considered a government swindle. The US began building a naval base at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, and Hawaii’s commercial treaty was renewed. The Hatch Act in March funded land-grant colleges and agricultural experiment stations. The Interstate Commerce Act in April established a commission to supervise regulations. The President and his wife went to the St. Louis fair in September and shook over 15,000 hands. Without lower tariffs the annual surplus increased to $103 million and raised prices. In the 1884 campaign both major parties had promised to lower tariffs. Cleveland in his Third Annual Message again pleaded for lower tariffs. He noted that over three-quarters of US exports were agricultural products.
In 1888 Cleveland appointed the conservative Melville Fuller as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. In June the Democratic Convention at St. Louis by acclamation nominated Cleveland for re-election with Senator Allen Thurman of Ohio for Vice President.
Republicans nominated the former Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana for President along with Levi Morton of New York. President Cleveland did not make campaign speeches, and Thurman was a weak campaigner. Harrison made many speeches at his home in Indianapolis. Republicans raised an unprecedented $4 million in New York, and Mark Hanna raised $100,000. Both major parties spent more money than in any previous election. The League of Republican Voters arranged meetings and rallies, distributed literature, and got people to vote. Money was used to buy votes, and some Pennsylvanians voted in New York for Harrison. Although Cleveland won 90,596 more votes out of about 11 million, Harrison by winning New York had more Electoral College votes.
Cleveland in his annual message in December commended the work of the Agriculture Department, but he criticized the government for helping the wealthy get richer while the poor worked under oppression.
Benjamin Harrison, grandson of the Whig President William Henry Harrison, studied politics and became a lawyer. He supported the Republican candidates Fremont in 1856 and Lincoln in 1860. He enlisted in 1862 and served as a colonel under General Sherman in Georgia. After the war he made money as a lawyer, and in 1871 President Grant asked him to defend military commissioners. In 1876 during the Whiskey Ring scandal he defended an internal revenue officer. He lost a close race for Governor of Indiana, and in the fall he campaigned for Rutherford Hayes. The state legislature elected Harrison to the US Senate in 1880. Democrats with gerrymandering in 1885 gained control of the legislature and defeated Harrison for re-election to the Senate. The Republican convention in June 1888 nominated Harrison for President over Senator John Sherman of Illinois. Although President Cleveland won the total popular vote, Harrison’s winning New York gave him a victory in the Electoral College. All the states Harrison won were north or west of the states that the Democrat Cleveland captured.
President Benjamin Harrison made James Blaine Secretary of State, and he refused to appoint the New York boss Thomas Platt. He made his former law partner William H. H. Miller the Attorney General. His cabinet included the new Secretary of Agriculture Rusk, and none were from the South. In his first year Harrison spent most of his time on patronage making appointments. He enforced US jurisdiction in the Bering Sea, and the US Navy captured eight Canadian ships for hunting fur-bearing animals. He appointed the conservative Judge David J. Brewer to the Supreme Court. Harrison opened about two million acres in the Indian Territory that 75,000 Indians had owned for a land rush by settlers, and the United States claimed jurisdiction of the Oklahoma Territory in May 1890.
After the devastating Johnstown flood on 31 May 1889 Harrison went there and provided Federal assistance. He appointed a southern Democrat to the Civil Service Commission, and Theodore Roosevelt complained that his advice was ignored. Harrison and Blaine worked on resolving Samoan issues with the British and Germans, and the three nations created a protectorate over Samoa. Latin American diplomats came to a conference at Washington in October 1889. They agreed to negotiate reciprocity agreements and formed the International Bureau of the American Republics. Harrison sent Frederick Douglass as minister to Haiti. North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington became states in November, and they provided eight Republican Senators and five Representatives.
In his long First Annual Message to Congress on December 3 President Harrison described his policies. He praised the efforts of black people in the South, and he asked for a strong law to protect the right of black Americans to vote in the South.
In 1889 the United States opened to settlers 11 million acres of land that had belonged to the Sioux. In December police shot dead Chief Sitting Bull, and at Wounded Knee 500 US soldiers massacred many Lakota warriors, women, and children. That was the last major Indian battle, and the Sioux surrendered in January 1891. The 1890 US Census found that only 248,253 Native Americans had survived.
Democrats in Congress had denied a quorum to block Republican issues in 1889, but in 1890 the Republicans overcame that with new rules. Harrison asked for a civil rights bill to protect the votes of black people in the South. Henry Cabot Lodge’s bill passed the House in July, but the Senate blocked it with a filibuster. The US Supreme Court was allowing racial segregation on railroads. Republicans passed bills to increase pensions and benefits to Union veterans and their families. President Harrison signed the Sherman Antitrust Act into law on July 2. He wanted to preserve the gold standard while westerners were asking for more silver coins. Harrison signed a compromise bill on July 14. The protectionist McKinley Tariff bill became law in October. Many Latin American nations agreed to reciprocity treaties on trade, and the US re-imposed tariffs on three that did not. Harrison and Blaine refused to agree to reciprocity with Canada because Canadian agriculture would compete with American farmers. Also they did not want Canada to join the United States. Harrison and Blaine helped resolve a conflict in New Orleans involving Italians.
In the 1890 elections Democrats campaigned against the Republicans’ “billion-dollar Congress,” and the Democrats gained a 238-86 advantage in the House of Representatives. Republicans still controlled the Senate 47-39.
In 1891 Republicans and Harrison resisted issuing more silver coins. He criticized the lynching of blacks that prevented them from voting, and Frederick Douglass praised Harrison’s effort to pass the elections bill. The Congress under Harrison passed a record 531 public laws. Forest reserves were established in Wyoming, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and California as well as in the territories of Arizona and New Mexico. In the spring Harrison and his wife traveled in the South and as far as the Pacific Coast on a five-week trip on which he gave 140 speeches that reporters wired to newspapers. Secretary of State Blaine collapsed on May 7, and Harrison supervised the State Department. New US meat inspections improved exports to Europe. On September 18 the US opened 900,000 acres of ceded lands in the Oklahoma Territory to settlers.
After US Navy men got into a brawl in Chile, Harrison prevented further violence by negotiating an indemnity from the Chilean government. He also negotiated a treaty with Britain to resolve conflicts over seal hunting. Reciprocal trade treaties helped increase imports and exports. The US Navy added 25 new ships under Harrison, and US Army desertions declined. He warned against the bad influence of gerrymandering election districts. Foreclosing many farm mortgages in Kansas stimulated the farmers’ alliance of whites and blacks. Harrison paid for improvements to the White House, and he had electricity installed. Several southern states passed racial segregation laws. New York City processed 430,884 immigrants in 1891.
Lincoln’s birthday on February 12 became a national holiday in 1892. Harrison opened 3 million more acres in the Oklahoma Territory to white settlers. The Republican convention in June nominated Harrison for re-election over Blaine and McKinley with the editor Whitelaw Reid for Vice President. Reid was criticized for opposing workers. Then the Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland again with Adlai Stevenson of Illinois for Vice President. Voters had the choice of two experienced Presidents. Cleveland wrote letters and opposed protective tariffs. Harrison ordered a quarantine of ships in New York to curtail cholera. He opposed Chinese immigration to gain votes in the West. Harrison became preoccupied with caring for his ill wife. When Cleveland learned of her illness in September, he announced that he would not campaign. Harrison defended the McKinley Tariff. The strike against the Carnegie Steel Company turned workers against Harrison. He sent Federal troops to a strike in Idaho, and 600 miners were imprisoned. Cleveland criticized “unjust governmental favoritism.” Harrison’s wife died on October 25. In the election Cleveland got 46% of the votes to Harrison’s 43% and won in the Electoral College 277-145. Republicans lost 10 seats and the majority in the Senate, and Democrats still controlled the House 218-124. Harrison in his last message to Congress reviewed his accomplishments.
As the Americans in Hawaii were gaining greater dominance, in January 1893 the Hawaiians attempted to restore their control. The cabinet resigned, and Queen Liliʻuokalani proclaimed a new constitution which disenfranchised all white men except those married to native women. On January 16 the new US minister John Leavitt Stevens returned to Honolulu with Captain G. C. Wiltse and 162 marines to protect the US legation and consulate. The Americans proclaimed a government led by Sanford Ballard Dole, a son of missionaries. Stevens recognized that government, and on February 1 he proclaimed an American protectorate. When Dole and the commissioners reached Washington DC, the US Secretary of State Foster signed a treaty annexing Hawaii on February 14. Harrison sent it to the US Senate which did not have two-thirds of the votes for ratification. Harrison opposed the Queen’s restoration, but on March 9 President Cleveland withdrew the treaty and canceled the annexation proposal.
In 1889 Grover Cleveland’s wife expected to return to the White House in four years. Cleveland criticized President Harrison on silver and for his high tariffs, but he praised his judicial appointments. In January 1891 Cleveland spoke about the principles of true democracy as “equal and exact justice to all men” and “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations.” He urged interest in public affairs as a duty of citizenship, and he believed that George Washington’s virtue and honesty was still relevant. In 1892 Democrats nominated Cleveland again for President with Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, for vice president. This time they won New York and enough other states to defeat President Harrison. Cleveland chose new cabinet officers. His closest advisor was Secretary of War Daniel Lamont. In his inaugural address he aimed to have better relations with Indians, and he promised to reform tariffs and make taxes more just.
President Cleveland began his second term by reversing the recent US takeover of the Hawaiian Islands. Democrats had control of both houses in Congress for the first time since 1858, but in 1893 they had to deal with a financial panic and another depression. In the previous four years the US gold reserves had fallen from $196,689,514 to $103,500,000, and the trend was continuing. Panic hit the New York Stock Exchange on May 5, and banks began closing down. A quarter of the nation’s railroads failed, and farmers suffered. Cleveland secretly had an operation to remove a cancer from his mouth. As 194 railroads declared bankruptcy, 642 banks failed. Cleveland summoned the Congress in August to repeal the Sherman Silver Act which they finally did on October 23. By then about 16,000 businesses were bankrupt. Cherokees had sold six million acres of land in Oklahoma and Kansas in 1891, but Congress did not ratify the treaty until 3 March 1893. The largest land rush for over 100,000 settlers was held in the Cherokee Outlet in northwest Oklahoma on September 16. In December the American Federation of Labor (AFL) held their annual convention. They estimated that over three million Americans were unemployed, and they demanded an 8-hour day.
In January 1894 Cleveland granted amnesty to Mormons who would observe the 1882 polygamy law. In February the US Congress by repealing the Enforcement Act of 1871 returned control over elections to the states. Congress in June made Labor Day a national holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September. Cleveland recognized Hawaii that had declared itself a republic on July 4. After much effort the more moderate Wilson-Gorman Tariff Bill that lowered tariffs and added a small income tax to neutralize the loss of revenue was finally passed in August. As prices continued to fall, farmers’ debts increased. The US Carey Act passed on August 18 and funded irrigating desert land in Idaho and Wyoming to help settlers.
During the widespread Pullman Railroad strike in 1894 Illinois, New Mexico, Colorado, and California asked for federal troops. Cleveland authorized a force and told them to make sure that mail was delivered. There were riots in Chicago, and Gov. Altgeld mobilized 3,000 state militia and later 3,000 more in addition to 3,000 police officers, 500 sheriff deputies, and several thousand deputy marshals. Wealthy railroad magnate George Pullman refused to negotiate with workers. The American Railway Union leader Eugene Debs proposed a general strike, and the Chief US Marshal Arnold had him arrested for conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce. The general strike began on July 11, and some people were killed in Illinois and California. The next day the Knights of Labor committee and US Senator James H. Kyle urged President Cleveland to invoke the Arbitration Act of 1888 to settle the disputes. He promised to appoint a commission to investigate after the disorders ended. On July 26 Cleveland named the Labor Commissioner Carrol D. Wright to head the investigation, and they listened to more than 200 witnesses.
In the November elections Republicans gained 110 seats giving them a 253-93 advantage in the House of Representatives. Democrats in the Senate had one more seat than the Republicans, but there were four Populists and one Silverite. The Democratic Party was weakened, and the depression continued. By November 14 the US gold reserve was down to $61 million. Cleveland wanted to maintain the gold standard that most nations used, and he vetoed a bill to coin more silver dollars. The United States made a commercial treaty with Japan. In his Annual Message to Congress in December 1894 Cleveland explained how the US was cooperating with Britain and Germany to govern the Samoan Islands. Cleveland wanted to withdraw, but the US Congress refused to cooperate with that.
Panic in January 1895 caused withdrawing gold from the US Treasury, and the gold reserve went down to $45 million by January 31. The financier J. P. Morgan helped Cleveland sell gold bonds, and Morgan made about $6 million while the US gold reserve increased back up to over $107 million. Congress refused to recognize “gold” bonds. The US Supreme Court decided that only a state could correct the American Sugar Refining Company’s monopoly. A new sugar tariff damaged the Cuban economy and provoked another insurrection. Some newspapers urged US intervention to help rebels in Cuba overthrow Spanish rule; but Cleveland was strongly opposed to war, and on June 12 he announced neutrality and asked citizens not to aid insurgents. The US Army Corps of Engineers helped make the Ohio River navigable for commerce.
On September 18 President Cleveland opened the Cotton States International Exposition in Atlanta and spoke to 50,000 people. He warned that Silverite Democrats might help Republicans regain dominance again. The rising black leader Booker T. Washington sent Cleveland a copy of his speech in Atlanta that day, and the President wrote back encouraging him to continue his work in education to improve his race.
Some leaders called for US intervention to stop British aggression against Venezuela according to the Monroe Doctrine. The British objected to the US intervening in their dispute with Venezuela based on the Monroe Doctrine because they considered that doctrine invalid under international law. Cleveland persuaded the US Congress to fund a commission to arbitrate the dispute, and this was eventually successful.
Cleveland’s long Message to Congress in December 1895 reported on several foreign policy issues including the successful US arbitration of a border dispute between Argentina and Brazil, of US claims against Chile, and American diplomacy helping prevent a war between China and Japan. He also warned against the dangers of monopolistic trusts. President Cleveland refused to send a warship to Cuba.
He warned Congress that the US gold reserve was only $79 million, and he asked for support for public credit. The Federal gold reserve fell to $44.5 million before another bond issue of $100 million increased the Federal gold reserve to over $128 million as Morgan gained over $33 million. Cleveland opposed a free coinage bill, and he warned Democrats that a soft-money policy would enable Republicans to control the future which they did in Congress and the Presidency after his term until 1910.
Utah adopted a constitution that gave the vote to women, and it became a state in January 1896.
Cleveland and Secretary of State Olney in April urged Spain and Cubans to settle their conflicts peacefully. In May the US Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson decided 7-1 that racial segregation was allowed if the separate facilities for blacks were equal to those for whites. Justice Harlan wrote an eloquent dissent.
In July the oratory of William Jennings Bryan on the issue of silver or gold persuaded Democrats to nominate him for President. The Republicans nominated Ohio’s Gov. William McKinley, and they raised $16 million to help win the elections. Cleveland in his last message to Congress once again advised against intervening in the Cuban rebellion against Spain.
Junius S. Morgan and his son John Pierpont Morgan had developed banking during the Civil War by investing in rifles, and the US Congress approved paper money called “greenbacks.” In September 1870 J. S. Morgan loaned France money to fight Prussia. Investments in US railroads increased from $2.5 billion in 1870 to $10 billion in 1890. Morgan banks gained over $1 million during the financial panic of 1873, and they loaned to the US military in 1877. In January 1889 railroad magnates met to reduce competition. J. P. Morgan inherited $15 million in 1890, and he consolidated electric companies. He made about $39 million during the gold panic in 1893. Civil War devastated the South while in the North businesses prospered. Armour’s meat-packing industry grew in Chicago.
John D. Rockefeller and his brothers began the Standard Oil Company of Ohio in January 1870. They invested in railroads and acquired many refineries. Standard Oil Trust gave railroads rebates. Rockefeller believed in cooperation over survival of the fittest. In 1879 Standard Oil controlled over 90% of US refineries and pipelines. The Standard Oil Trust became a monopoly in 1882 as 85% of the world’s crude oil production came from Pennsylvania. Rockefeller organized the Natural Gas Trust in 1886. In 1889 with $150 million he was the richest man in America, and he began giving away money in 1890.
Andrew Carnegie during the Civil War supervised railways for the Union Army, and he organized a company to build iron bridges. In 1864 he invested in oil, and by 1866 he made $1 million. In 1871 he loaned $600,000 to the Union Pacific Railway Company and was elected a director. He began producing steel in 1873. His business grew, and traveling the world he learned about Asian religions. He formed a company with Henry Clay Frick. Carnegie published Triumphant Democracy in 1886. He gave Pittsburgh $1 million for a library. In June 1889 he published the article “Wealth,” and he advised giving away excess wealth for the general good. He gave $2 million for Carnegie Hall in New York City. In July 1892 he was in Scotland during the Homestead strike. In 1895 he gave $25 million for the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh.
In 1873 the National Grange worked for equality, fairness, protecting the weak, restraining the strong, and American independence, and they declared their purposes in February 1874. They had 860,000 members by 1875 with 21,000 local Granges. Charles Brace in 1872 wrote about poverty in New York tenements where the death rate was higher. Thousands of bison were being wiped out in the West. In 1883 Spreckels in San Francisco gained a monopoly of sugar refining and marketing. Timothy Thomas Fortune published Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South warning about industrial slavery. In January 1890 he and a hundred blacks founded the National Afro-American League. Young Theodore Roosevelt wrote about corruption in New York politics, and he called for reforms. In July 1889 Dow and Jones began publishing their industrial average of the New York Stock Exchange in the Wall Street Journal.
The journalist Henry Demarest Lloyd warned about monopolies to defend consumers and workers. He suggested applying social morality to industries, and he published Wealth Against Commonwealth in 1894. The American Tobacco Company monopolized cigars and cigarettes. Havemeyer’s Sugar Trust controlled 98% of the US sugar industry in 1892. The United States had less than 20 millionaires in 1840 and 4,000 in 1892. Miners rose up against the Tennessee Coal Mine Company and got a better contract in 1891. Coca-Cola contained sugar, coca leaves, and caffeine. Howell Davies criticized the use of convicts as a labor force in the South. In 1893 Josiah Strong advocated Christian Socialism in The New Era, or The Coming Kingdom. Daniel De Leon was a leader of the Socialist Labor Party and editor of The People. Thomas J. Morgan was the editor of the Socialist Alliance that promoted public education for all, nationalization of public utilities, and worker-owned companies.
Henry George published “Our Land and Land Policy, National and State” in 1871 and suggested a “single tax” on all land to replace other taxes and prevent the “monopolization” of land. His book Progress and Poverty was published in 1880, and it became a popular classic on progressive economics. This single land tax is a solution to the unequal distribution of wealth and privilege. Wages should be based on the product of the labor. Instead of capital employing labor, workers should employ capital. Free land benefits workers, but monopolies force laborers to accept minimum wages. Progress is based on population, improvements in production and exchange, knowledge, government, and morals. A progressive community increases land values. Progress should not increase poverty; but it does when excess wealth increases by using monopolies in land ownership. The solution is common ownership that allows the state to collect rent on land for the good of the community. This would reduce the price of land and end speculation. George believed that selfishness is a shortsighted philosophy. Human progress advances as each generation passes on common property to the next generation. Without cooperation civilization declines. He argued that free trade abolishes poverty because “liberty is natural.” A society with equal natural rights prevents “disparity in fortunes” and economic classes. The mistake is treating land as private property.
Laurence Gronlund joined the Socialist Labor Party, and in 1878 he published The Coming Revolution: Its Principles. In 1884 he popularized Marxist ideas in The Co-operative Commonwealth in its Outlines: An Exposition of Modern Socialism. He noted that progressive societies tend toward socialistic democracy that increases individual freedom. He criticized the capitalist wage system and urged the state to own the means of production. He believed that evolution would develop socialism without a revolution by “graduated taxation, free education and municipalization of land.” Human labor creates real values, but capitalists make money without working by fleecing workers. Gronlund foresaw the Commonwealth becoming a “State of Equality” as the fourth phase of civilization. The highest evolution is “organized humanity” with ethical morals that benefit all citizens. He believed in a “cooperative commonwealth” with “good administration.” He wrote, “The modern Christ would be a politician” who would accept science and improve “all conditions of life.”
Jacob Riis in 1877 became a journalist who reported on the police in New York City. In 1890 he published the book How the Other Half Lives with photographs. He described and showed how the poor were suffering in the tenements of the city. The courts and jails were busy with the human wreckage. Increasing population extended the poverty which caused crime. Statistics defined the oppression of the poor. He called upon the greed of capital to undo its evils. Homes must be provided for workers.
Edward Bellamy wrote the popular utopian novel Looking Backward 2000-1887 about a socialist future that was published in 1888. People who liked the ideas joined Nationalist clubs. A science-fictional fantasy enables Julian from 1887 to experiencing a much improved society in the year 2000. He learns that they peacefully reformed their capitalistic society by adopting democratic socialism that shares their wealth with all the citizens like a family. Dr. Leet explains to Julian how it works by giving people free choices while helping everyone to meet their basic needs. Wars no longer occur because governments have no war powers. Nations are autonomous in a world federation. People have learned to share and care about others.
Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901) was a radical Republican in the US Congress 1863-69, and he edited the weekly Anti-Monopolist 1874-79. He helped start the People’s Party and wrote their platform in February 1892 at what he called “the first great labor conference.” He criticized political corruption and the demoralized mood. Workers were denied the right to organize, and soldiers attacked them. The two great classes are tramps and millionaires. In 1890 Donnelly published his novel Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century set in 1988 which describes how a reformer struggles against the corruption of brutal capitalists and observes their destruction. Christian love is gone, and armies fight communists. He predicted modern weapons and that electricity would replace wood, coal, and natural gas. Maximilian tells Gabriel about the Brotherhood that is oppressed by the wealthy. Gabriel suggests that universal justice could bring peace and replace the plutocracy by ending usury and limiting the owning of property. Good government could unite the human race. A class war breaks out in Europe and America, and Gabriel, Max, and their wives escape to Uganda where they create a small progressive government.
The National Labor Union (NLU) had been organized in March 1866, and they began admitting blacks and women in 1869. They asked for an 8-hour day, and President Grant in May 1869 agreed to it for federal workers with no loss in pay. The NLU ended during the financial panic of 1873. The Knights of Labor was started in December 1869, and it grew during 1873. In January 1878 the Knights of Labor accepted a Preamble written by Terence V. Powderly and Robert Schilling, and they issued a Declaration of Principles. Powderly was elected their head in 1879, and that year they accepted blacks, women, and employers as members. By 1885 the Knights had 12,000 local assemblies. Several other labor unions formed in the 1880s. In 1886 unions were reorganized as the America Federation of Labor (AFL), and Samuel Gompers was president. Miners in January 1890 organized as the United Mine Workers of America.
The first Transcontinental Railroad to California was completed on 10 May 1869, enabling people to go from New York to San Francisco in seven days. William Cody claimed he killed 4,280 buffalo in eight months to feed railway workers. In eight years by 1873 US railroad miles more than doubled to 70,384 miles. By 1880 the US invested over $4.6 billion in railroads. In January 1877 Cornelius Vanderbilt died and left $95 million to his son William H. Vanderbilt who increased that to $200 million before his death in December 1885. Thomas Scott’s Southern Railway hired whites and black convicts but no free blacks. In 1870 the Union Pacific Railroad hired Chinese for $32.50 per month to avoid paying whites $52. Many railway companies merged. In 1872 whites hunting buffalo shipped 1,200,000 hides east by railways. Frank and Jesse James led a gang that robbed banks and railways from April 1872 to September 1876. In March 1877 railway presidents colluded to reduce wages. Those cuts and strikes began on July 16 in Maryland, and strikes spread. On the 18th President Hayes sent 312 troops, and two days later violence began. On July 21 the Pennsylvania National Guard killed 15 striking coal miners. In Chicago 6,000 attended a nonviolent rally where the socialist Albert Parsons spoke and was fired by the Chicago Times. Workingmen in Chicago began a strike on July 26. In St. Louis the sheriff used 5,000 men to close factories. Workers demanded an 8-hour day, and 79 were arrested. Most strikes ended by July 30, but 2,000 ribbon weavers went on strike in Paterson, New Jersey.
Wealthy Jay Gould cut railway workers’ pay in 1885, and Knights of Labor members increased to 729,000 by July 1886 and fell to 260,000 in 1888. In 1890 accidents killed 2,451 railway workers and injured 20,000. By then the US had 125,000 miles of railways.
Eugene Debs (1855-1926) joined the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (BLF) in 1875. In 1877 he criticized the railroad strike of 1877 because it was disorganized and violent. He edited the Firemen’s Magazine from 1878 to 1892. Democrats elected him to the Indiana Assembly in 1884, and he served for two years. He advocated an 8-hour day, and he was influenced by Henry George, Lawrence Gronlund, and Edward Bellamy. During the BLF strike in March 1888 Debs began organizing railroad workers into a federated union, and he became a strike leader until it ended in January 1889. In June 1888 they formed the United Order of Railway Employees, and in June 1890 they merged with the Brotherhood of Railway Conductors. In January 1892 Debs spoke to a large labor rally in Chicago. There in February 1893 Debs, George Howard, and others organized the American Railway Union (ARU). They had a convention in April and issued a Declaration of Principles in June. By 1894 they had 465 locals with 150,000 members. In 1893 competitors of the Great Northern Railroad had become bankrupt. On 13 April 1894 the ARU demanded pay cuts be reversed. When they were refused, they went on strike with 9,000 Great Northern employees. ARU president Debs and the Great Northern president James Hill agreed to arbitration, and the employees got most of their demands. On April 21 John McBride had over 125,000 United Mine Workers begin a strike, and Illinois Gov. Altgeld called in the National Guard. The miners accepted lower pay in June. General Coxey led a protest from Ohio, and their march increased to 600 at Homestead, Pennsylvania. Another industrial army of 1,500 left San Francisco, and about 500 reached Washington DC on April 30. On International Workers Day (May 1) many blacks joined them. Coxey’s movement demanded an infrastructure bill and at least $1.50 for an 8-hour day. William Hogan led 3,500 miners from Montana, and they were detained by deputies and federal troops.
George Pullman liked making a profit, and he went into the business of making luxury sleeping cars for the railroads. Andrew Carnegie joined him and provided steel. Pullman created a town south of Chicago, and he dominated and exploited the lives of his employees. By 1893 the Pullman Corporation had 2,573 palace cars and $62 million. He fired workers and cut pay, and speeded up production. His employees secretly joined the American Railway Union. On 12 June 1894 about 400 ARU delegates held a convention in Chicago and welcomed women as members. They voted for $2,000 to relieve Pullman strikers, and ARU workers agreed to not handle Pullman cars on June 26. That day 3,500 trainmen left their jobs. Railroads were immobilized, and on June 28 the US Congress made Labor Day a holiday on the first Monday of September. About 2,000 people in Chicago assisted strikers. Railroad executives from 24 corporations had begun the General Managers Association (GMA) of Chicago in 1892, and they refused to negotiate with the ARU.
The boycott spread to many railways in the nation, and over 200,000 workers joined the struggle. Debs sent about 200 telegrams a day, and he asked strikers not to harm persons or destroy property. Pulitzer in the New York World warned against Federal intervention. US troops came to Chicago on July 4 to protect property and the railway mail. The next day rioters attacked freight cars, and US troops were sent. Gov. Altgeld mobilized 3,000 state militia. There were also thousands of police and deputy marshals. Mobs on July 6 overturned at least 150 boxcars, and 700 freight cars were burned. Coal in open cars was set on fire. Debs reported that thugs were sent to make trouble on that day that caused $340,000 in damage while on no other day was it over $4,000. The next day troops and militia began shooting at the crowd in response to any disturbance, and rioting went on all night. Pullman refused negotiation. If arbitration was denied, the ARU planned a general strike for July 11. On July 10 Debs was arrested for conspiracy to interfere with commerce and the mail. The general strike was widespread but not large. On July 13 Debs asked the AFL and Gompers to mediate. Debs offered to end the strike if jobs were restored. The Pullman Company rehired 1,900 employees and 800 new workers.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) loved to learn and studied many books from an early age. He began experimenting with chemicals when he was ten. He strung a wire through woods to telegraph a friend. They grew vegetables that he sold. Losing most of his hearing when he was 12 did not stop him. He worked as a telegraph operator, and he sold newspapers on trains and roads. In 1862 he sold enough to buy a printing press. In June 1869 Edison invented a telegraphic vote-recording machine that was rejected by both parties in Congress. He developed a printing telegraph. When he went to work for Western Union, he sold away his rights for the stock tickers he invented. He started new companies and improved telegraphy by inventing the Quadraplex that could send two messages in both directions at the same time. In 1875 he invented the Mimeograph for making copies. Edison had a research laboratory built at Menlo Park, New Jersey in 1876. He recorded sound on a cylinder in November 1877. Alexander Bell got a patent for the telephone, and Edison improved transmission of speech in 1878.
Edison improved the transmission of electrical current so much that gas company stock went down. By October 1878 he had a lamp filament that could burn for a long time. He experimented with platinum wire and started the Edison Electric Light Company. In January 1879 he had invented a high-resistance lamp. Edison often worked 18 hours a day. He demonstrated multiple lighting in Menlo Park on December 31. In January 1880 he got patents for his electric lamp and a multiple-arc distribution system using many generators with a circuit. In January 1883 they provided electric lighting for Roselle, New Jersey. By 1885 the price of a lamp was only 22 cents. By 1886 the Edison organization had about 500 lighting plants in the United States using 330,000 lamps. In 1889 he invented the Kinetoscope for viewing film showing 40 photographs per second as a moving picture, and by 1896 Edison’s Vitascope projector was showing movies.
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) was well educated and began teaching deaf mutes in 1871. His father Alexander Melville Bell had studied phonetics and invented a system of visible speech. Graham worked on a harp apparatus to make electric speech. He married a deaf woman in 1875. He got the first patent for a telephone on 7 March 1876. He got another in 1877, and on July 9 Bell and others formed the Bell Telephone Company in Boston. The first commercial telephone exchange started in New Haven, Connecticut on 28 January 1878. In March 1879 a merger with the New England Telephone Company created the National Bell Telephone Company. A patent for a telephone switchboard in January 1882 increased business, and their hours were expanded. Graham and his father founded Science magazine. By 1887 the United States had 200,000 telephone listings. Bell was asked to tutor a deaf and blind girl, Helen Keller, and he sent for Annie Sullivan who taught Helen how to understand words expressed by hands. Bell’s telephone monopoly ended in 1893, and independent telephone companies formed.
Many inventions and inventive innovations improved American life during this era 1869-97, and some are described in the “Other Inventions” section of the chapter “Edison, Bell & Inventions.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton in January 1869 at a woman’s suffrage convention argued that an amendment should give women the right to vote because men are selfish, violent, and cruel. Women with love will help bring about peace. The 15th Amendment would not give women the vote, and on May 13 she and other feminists refused to support that amendment at an equal rights meeting. Susan B. Anthony described how women were being oppressed, and on May 15 she and Stanton began the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). In November the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was founded by Lucy Stone, her husband, and Mary Livermore. The wealthy railroad executive George F. Train funded The Revolution newspaper for the women’s rights movement until 1872. The Utah and Wyoming territories granted women the vote in 1870. Susan Anthony and 15 women were arrested for voting in 1872. Anthony was not allowed to testify in her trial; but before her sentencing she spoke eloquently for justice. She refused to pay the fine. They released her so that she could not appeal. Francis and Virginia Minor tried to vote, and the US Supreme Court ruled 9-0 against them in March 1875. Belva Lockwood in 1879 became the first woman to practice law in federal court, and she ran for President for the National Equal Rights Party in 1884 and 1888. Antoinette Blackwell, started the Association for the Advancement of Women in 1873, and in 1875 she wrote The Sexes Throughout Nature. Anthony spoke against US policy again on 4 July 1876, and the “Anthony Amendment” for woman suffrage was introduced in Congress in 1878.
The first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage were published in 1881, 1882, and 1886. Seven states held referenda on women suffrage between 1874 and 1890. AWSA petitioned state legislatures. In February 1890 NWSA and AWSA united to form NAWSA, and they elected Stanton president. Frances Willard led the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and she joined the suffrage movement. Stanton testified to the House Judiciary Committee. In November 1893 Colorado granted women the right to vote. In 1894 NAWSA demanded “equal pay for equal work.” Stanton and a committee published The Woman’s Bible in 1895. Idaho gave women the right to vote in February 1896. That year a merger formed the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. In May 1881 Clara Barton founded the American branch of the International Red Cross. Helen Hunt Jackson published the novel Ramona in 1884 and Century of Dishonor about Native Americans in 1885. Women’s clubs combined to form the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1890. That year the Irish home-rule advocate Mary Lease gave 161 speeches in Kansas for the Populist Party.
Victoria Woodhull helped Cornelius Vanderbilt make money on stocks, and he shared the profits. Victoria and her sister began publishing Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly in May 1870, and they defended sexual freedom. Woodhull advocated female suffrage and criticized marriage. She printed and sold copies of her speeches, and she called for revolution. The Equal Rights Party in May 1872 nominated her for US President even though she was too young. Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly exposed Rev. Henry Ward Beecher for adultery. On November 2 the vice crusader Anthony Comstock arrested the two sisters for obscenity, but in June 1873 the jury acquitted them.
Julia Ward Howe wrote the lyrics for the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1861, and she witnessed the devastation of the Civil War. Learning about the Franco-Prussian War, in 1871 she started “A Woman’s Peace Crusade.” She wrote about what mothers could do to prevent future wars. She had her appeal translated into five European languages and sent it to many people. In 1872 she went to England and proposed a Woman’s Peace Congress. Her “Appeal to womanhood throughout the world” became known as the Mother’s Day Proclamation. She called upon women to rise up and stop men from planning and fighting wars. She cried out for disarmament and an end to violence. She suggested
a general congress of women without limit of nationality …
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interests of peace.2
She proposed a Mother’s Day for Peace and worked with Lucy Stone in the suffrage movement. In 1873 Howe helped organize the Association for the Advancement of Women (AAW), and in 1874 she edited Sex and Education. She wrote a biography of Margaret Fuller in 1883, and in 1890 the AAW became the General Federation of Women's Clubs.
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was organized in Ohio in December 1873, and the Methodist Annie Wittenmyer was elected its president in November 1874. Frances Willard went to college, taught at a public school, and was principal of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary. In February 1871 she became the president of the new Evanston College for Ladies. She attended the Woman’s Congress in October 1873 that organized the AAW. After going to a temperance rally Willard worked for the Temperance Camp Meeting Association as its vice president. In November 1874 she was elected the Corresponding Secretary of the WCTU. She edited The Union Signal, and she traveled and gave about 400 lectures each year. In 1877 she worked for the famous evangelist Dwight Moody, and she preached to 6,000 in Boston. In November 1879 the WCTU elected her president over Wittenmyer who opposed female suffrage, and Willard served until her death in 1898. In March 1881 she met with President Garfield before her speaking touring in the South. She joined the Prohibition Party which called for abolishing all monopolies in 1882, and she persuaded them to change their name to the Prohibition Home Protection Party. In 1883 she published Woman and Temperance and in 1886 How to Win: A Book for Girls. She joined the Knights of Labor in 1887, and she was a delegate to NWSA’s International Council of Women in 1888, the year she published Woman in the Pulpit. Willard wrote autobiographies in 1886 and 1889. A WCTU convention in New York organized a Department of Peace and International Arbitration. By 1890 the WCTU had 150,000 members paying dues. Willard attended the founding convention of the People’s Party in 1892, and in 1893 she became a Christian Socialist. She and Mary Livermore edited A Woman of the Century: 1,470 Biographical Sketches, and in 1895 Willard published Do Everything: A Handbook for the World’s White Ribboners.
Lydia Maria Child in 1878 published Aspirations of the World: A Chain of Opals, and her introduction explained the reasoning for her selections that are drawn from all the major religions, philosophers, and brilliant writers up to her own time. She chose inspiring writings describing ethics and wisdom more than theology and rituals.
Jane Addams was the daughter of a state senator, and reading Dickens’ novels made her want to help the poor. She learned about the Toynbee Hall settlement house for poor men in England, and in 1889 she and Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull House in Chicago. Florence Kelley helped them join social organizations, and 25 women lived with them. In the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 they organized the Congress of Social Settlements. They started a kindergarten and clubs for children. Addams wrote “The Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements” which was based on the idea of reviving the early Christian humanitarianism.
Ida Bell Wells was born a slave in July 1862. After her parents died of yellow fever in 1878, she took care of her six younger brothers and sisters. She studied in colleges and attended seminars at Fisk University. She began writing for newspapers in 1883, and in 1889 she became co-owner of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. In 1892 she began reporting on lynching. T. Thomas Fortune hired her to write for the New York Age, and in November they published her pamphlet, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. Her lecture to blacks in the National Press Association in January 1893 was published, and on February 13 she lectured in Boston about lynching in the republic. She and Frederick Douglass in October printed 20,000 copies of The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition: The Afro-American’s Contribution to Columbian Literature. In 1894 Wells gave speeches in England, and in 1895 she published A Red Record, Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States, 1892-1893-1894.
Charles Darwin’s theory of the evolution of species, that some lower animals evolved into humans, influenced the British philosopher Herbert Spencer whose books then affected American philosophers and thinkers. William Graham Sumner adapted this biological theory into a social philosophy called “social Darwinism.” Sumner in his What Social Classes Owe to Each Other argued that men with capital have an advantage over others in the “survival of the fittest.” New York’s Society of Ethical Culture spread ethical culture to Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis in 1886.
In 1874 John Fiske published his Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy: Based on the Doctrine of Evolution. In his 1884 book The Destiny of Man and his 1885 essay “Manifest Destiny” Fiske found that evolving humans developed ethics and civilization and will in the future replace war with federal government and international peace.
Lester Frank Ward developed sociology as a science that studies the human relations and social behavior. In 1877 he suggested using government statistics as guidelines for legislation. He noted that Europeans were using social programs to improve human experience. He warned against the dangerous powers of big corporations, and he advised using government regulation to benefit the entire society. In 1883 Ward published Dynamic Sociology, and he suggested that systematic education can improve knowledge. He argued that conscious use of purpose improves humanity, and he criticized social Darwinism as against democracy. Using scientific methods benefits people. He was for equal rights for women who may be superior to men. With less competition weaker members may be protected. In The Psychic Factors of Civilization in 1893 Ward encouraged education and freedom so that intellect may control animal instinct. Social regulation may foster individual freedom. In 1895 his “Plutocracy and Paternalism” in Forum argued that civilization should protect the possessions of the poor as much as those of the rich. Government can shift the power of monopolies to the general public.
Josiah Royce (1855-1916) was born in California and was educated at its university. He completed a Ph.D. at John Hopkins University. He taught philosophy at Harvard 1881-1916. In 1885 he explained his idealistic ethics in The Religious Aspect of Philosophy: A Critique of the Bases of Conduct and of Faith. He emphasized “moral insight” to develop “universal will” for the highest good of all. In 1886 he published a history of California that studied character 1846-1856. Royce published The Spirit of Modern Philosophy in 1892, and it was a commercial success. He affirmed that the world and the mind are “one great Spirit.” Thus we are “sons of God” living in God. He compared his philosophy to that of Berkeley and Kant.
William James (1842-1910) was from a wealthy family, and he had a wise father who wrote several books and knew Emerson well. William spent much of his youth in Europe and learned German and French. He entered Harvard in 1861 and its medical school in 1864. He was influenced by the biologist Louis Agassiz, his father’s book on Swedenborg, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and works by Charles Darwin. James declared his belief in free will and cured his psychological problems. In 1873 he began teaching at Harvard and moved from physiology to psychology and later to philosophy. In 1884 he helped organize the American Society for Psychical Research. After 12 years of work he published The Principles of Psychology. He observed and analyzed memory, reasoning, volition, imagination, appetite, feelings, and the five senses as faculties of the soul. He reported on various experiments. He discussed how instincts develop habits. He described the three parts of the consciousness of the self as the material self, the social self, and the spiritual self, and he noted that the “pure ego” has been called the “soul.” He noted that motives can move from the body and material possessions to social relationships and to progress intellectually, morally, and spiritually. Free will means directing one’s attention, and thinking over experiences improves memory. Perception involves sensing and mental processing. Free will can choose to attend to higher realities and to the ultimate reality of the soul of the world or God. James listed many instincts, and he quoted from Darwin’s book on the emotions. James was influenced by the physiologist Lange and combined emotional feelings with the concurrent bodily experience. He described subtler emotions that are moral, intellectual, and aesthetic, and he noted how imagination enhances emotions. He related will to wishing and desiring. Directing attention takes effort, and he concluded that the soul selects from possibilities.
James Freeman Clarke contributed to the study of comparative religion by writing Ten Great Religions in 1871. The evangelist Dwight Moody published books of Christian hymns and provided lesson plans for Sunday schools. In 1872 the Unitarian Octavius B. Frothingham wrote The Religion of Humanity, and in The Rising and Setting Faith he criticized punishment and the “dogma of hell.” Washington Gladden promoted the Protestant Social Gospel movement. He wrote Christianity in his Working People and their Employers in 1876 and Applied Christianity in 1887. In March 1882 the Catholic priest Michael McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, Connecticut to help the working class and Catholic immigrants. The John F. Slater Fund donated $1 million to educate Negroes helping Hampton Institute, Tuskegee Institute, Spelman College, Claflin University, and Fisk University. Congregationalist Henry Ward Beecher was an abolitionist. He became a Christian evolutionist and wrote Evolution and Religion in 1885. That July in The Church Review Episcopalian Bishop Frederic Huntington wrote about conflicts between capitalists and workers. In 1887 Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore persuaded Pope Leo XIII to accept the Knights of Labor, and he became chancellor of the new Catholic University of America in Washington DC. Rev. Walter Rauschenbusch and Baptists founded the Brotherhood of the Kingdom in 1892. That year the Congregationalist George D. Herron joined the Socialist Labor Party of America, and in 1895 he published the Christian State: A Political Vision of Christ.
Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) suffered as a child and tried various treatments. The Mentalist Phineas Quimby helped her without using medicine and taught her spiritual healing. In February 1866 Mary injured her spine, and she was not expected to recover. She told her doctor that she would walk, and she believed the Life of Spirit cured her. She realized that Jesus had healed people this way, and she worked on developing her method of spiritual healing. She began writing Science and Health in February 1872 and published 1,000 copies in October 1875. She explained how she learned the divine Science which comes from the divine Mind that overcomes error, sin, sickness, disease, and death. In April 1879 Mary Baker Eddy and nine members of the Christian Scientist Association founded the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston to promote spiritual healing. She wrote pamphlets and expanded Science and Health with more chapters in 1881. In 1883 she began publishing the monthly Christian Science Journal. She began using the concept of Father-Mother God. She taught students who were not ailing, and by prayer and mental methods people were cured of many diseases, injuries, and ailments. By 1890 the Christian Science Church had 250 healers in 20 incorporated churches. Mrs. Eddy published her autobiographical Retrospection and Introspection in November 1890. She advised people to follow the Bible verse “Be still, and know that I am God” and her course. In September 1892 they formally organized the Mother Church, and she defined Church as “The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from the divine Principle.” She believed that healing is the best sermon and lecture. She spoke at the World Parliament of Religions at Chicago on 22 September 1893. In 1895 Mrs. Eddy abolished pastors and retained Christian Science Readers, and her Miscellaneous Writings were published in February 1897.
Charles W. Eliot was president of Harvard from 1869 to 1909. He wrote about organizing the “New Education” to include moral and political philosophy, history, and biography. He criticized lawless violence, religious persecution, and increasingly destructive wars. Many American universities began during this era. Frederick Law Olmstead designed city parks for New York and Boston, and he urged more in other cities. In 1870 Emerson published Society and Solitude that included his essay “Civilization.” Art museums opened in Boston, New York, and Washington DC. The anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan studied and wrote about how other cultures developed. John Wesley Powell reported on the need for water in arid regions. Universities and schools began studying agriculture, technology and methods of manual training. Berlitz opened a language school at Boston in 1880. Martin Delany wrote about colored races. In 1881 George M. Beard published American Nervousness, Its Causes and Consequences. In 1882 Theodore Roosevelt published The Naval War of 1812, and George Washington Williams published two volumes on the history of the Negro race in America. In 1885 the socialist economist Richard T. Ely started the American Economic Association, and in 1886 he published The Labor Movement. In 1889 Woodrow Wilson argued in The State that government should promote the general welfare in order to cure the evils of capitalism. Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote about the influence of sea power. Walter Hines Page of The Forum hired a scholar to interview teachers and report on education. Journalism criticizing social problems was called “muckraking.” Frederick Jackson Turner described the changing American frontier.
Henry Adams (1838-1918) inherited politics from two US Presidents and a father who was a Congressman. Before the Civil War he worked with US Senator Seward. Henry criticized President Lincoln as unprepared for the crisis he had to face which resulted in a terrible war. Adams served his father Charles as his secretary in the House of Representatives and then when he was ambassador in England during the Civil War. Henry also engaged in political journalism. He described the problems of the powerful railroads and corporations, and he and his brother Charles wrote about the Erie Railroad and the crimes of Jim Fisk and Jay Gould. Henry wondered if the US Supreme Court could control them. In 1879 he published a biography of Albert Gallatin and his writings. In 1880 Henry declined to put his name on his satirical novel Democracy. His History of the United States of America 1801–1817 was published in 1889-91. In 1892 he donated to a library the $1,000 he won for that history of the Jefferson and Madison presidencies. Henry won more acclaim for his autobiographical Education of Henry Adams which was not published publicly until after his death. He described the various ways he learned about politics as lessons for his readers.
Francis Parker was an outstanding teacher in Quincy, Massachusetts. He explained his educational philosophy and methods in July 1891 at the Chautauqua Assembly Teachers’ Retreat in New York, and his Talks on Pedagogics: An Outline of the Theory of Concentration was published in 1894. His concentration method of teaching was influenced by educational methods of Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Herbart. He let children learn by activity so that they could experience freedom by choosing and investigating for themselves. His idealistic pedagogy was designed to promote democracy, and he criticized passive education that can lead to tyranny. He worked to guide the soul toward truth and finding God’s will. He believed that mental and moral development results from self-activity and self-effort. He opposed rote memorization. Rather he practiced the progressive method of learning by the experience of doing. He said teaching is presenting external conditions for self-effort. He found children learn by observing, hearing language, and reading. Children can learn by expressing themselves with gestures, speaking, music, making things, art, and writing. Parker advised arranging learning using psychology and children’s interests rather than the logic of the subject matter. He advised excluding competition that promotes rivalry and ambition. Most important for Parker is to love the children. In 1892 when Walter Hines Page sent Joseph Rice to study teachers, the latter returned to report that only Parker’s school avoided the absurd methods of the other teachers.
Booker T. Washington rose from working as a slave and educated himself to help people and eventually other African Americans by giving them practical education. While a student at Hampton Institute he admired the qualities of General Armstrong, and he worked to emulate them by developing himself physically, mentally, and spiritually. Washington taught school in West Virginia and became interested in politics. He read the Bible and studied at Wayland Seminary for a year. General Armstrong recommended him to be the first principal of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881. Washington allowed religious services and hired a chaplain while the school remained nondenominational. He raised money for the school, and students learned by building the classrooms. In 1884 he spoke to the National Education Association in Wisconsin to promote his educational philosophy. Tuskegee held its first Negro Conference in 1892. He spoke on “Industrial Education” at Fiske University in the spring of 1895. On September 18 Washington gave a speech at the Atlanta Exposition that made him famous as an educator. He described how Tuskegee students learned, and he reassured white Americans that he was not pushing for “social equality” yet. Since Frederick Douglass had recently died, Booker T. Washington became a generally recognized leader of black Americans. Even President Cleveland and the intellectual W. E. B. DuBois praised his speech, and powerful white men began consulting him. In 1896 Washington made the brilliant move to hire the botanist George Washington Carver as the Director of Tuskegee Institute’s Agriculture Department.
Horatio Alger Jr. influenced many people with his “Ragged Dick” stories and novels that showed that honesty is a good policy and how people can prosper by being virtuous and thrifty. Alger liked boys and wrote many novels about them. Edgar Watson Howe’s novel The Story of a Country Town and Hamlin Garland’s Main-Traveled Roads and Jason Edwards: An Average Man portrayed life in the West. Helen Hunt Jackson’s romantic novel Ramona about a native American in southern California was very popular. The young Stephen Crane wrote Maggie: A Girl of the Streets about a poor woman, who becomes a prostitute, and The Red Badge of Courage described the horror of the Civil War. Albion W. Tourgée wrote A Fool's Errand, by One of the Fools and its sequel Bricks Without Straw about the Reconstruction era as did Francis Ellen E. W. Harper in her novel Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted. General Lew Wallace, who governed the New Mexico Territory, wrote the novel Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Milford Howard published the novel If Christ Came to Congress and then The American Plutocracy, and Charles M. Sheldon wrote the novel In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? as a model for ministers. Sheldon also wrote 776 Frank Meriwell novels. Harold Frederic’s novel In the Valley depicted the Revolutionary War in 1777, and The Copperhead portrayed northerners during the Civil War.
Louisa May Alcott (1832-88) became a famous author with her novel Little Women that describes her family that was influenced by Emerson’s Transcendental philosophy. Since the father is away at the Civil War, the story is concentrated on the mother and her four daughters and the lessons they learn from their experiences. Louisa also wrote two sequels to Little Women and other novels.
George Washington Cable (1844-1925) was the son of slaveholders, and he was a Confederate soldier. He became a journalist in New Orleans and published stories as Old Creole Days in 1879. His novel The Grandissimes describes a white family with a quadroon half-brother at New Orleans in 1804. The darker brother runs off with a freed slave to France. Cable included articles in the Appendix from the Black Code of 1724 that discriminated against slaves of African descent. For three months in 1884-85 Cable went on a speaking tour with his friend Mark Twain to Canada and the Midwest, and Cable wrote “The Freedman’s Case in Equity” for The Century that described the plight of blacks during and after Reconstruction.
William Dean Howells (1837-1920) learned several languages and became a writer. He met Mark Twain in 1869, and they became good friends. He edited the Atlantic Monthly 1871-81, and he wrote novels. In A Modern Instance he shows how greed causes a marriage to deteriorate. Women often love their partner more than men do. His novel The Rise of Silas Lapham describes the dangers of a capitalistic economy. Lapham goes broke even though he believed he was honest and fair. In Indian Summer a middle-aged man falls in love with a young woman while visiting Italy, and he eventually realizes a woman his own age is more suitable. In A Hazard of New Fortunes Howells describes business dealings, and during a labor strike police brutality leads to two tragic deaths. Sudden changes in fortune can be dangerous. In A Traveler From Altruria the author meets a visitor from a socialist society where people work for the common good and freely help each other. The stranger teaches them by his actions and his words, and he explains how they brought about reforms in their society by voting and cooperating.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) grew up in Missouri near the Mississippi River. He had black friends and later used the intelligent “Uncle Dan’l” as a character in his books often as “Jim.” He claimed everyone was human which was bad enough. He said he found many lies and obscenity in the Bible, and he felt that if Christ came back at that time, he would not be a Christian. After his father died in 1847, Sam persuaded his mother to let him take jobs instead of go to school. His reading included novels by Cooper, Dickens, and Scott. Sam worked in the publishing business with his older brother Orion. In 1854 he briefly joined a militia, and he avoided duty during a riot. He read Tom Paine’s Age of Reason and preferred his free thinking over Presbyterian theology. When the Civil War began in 1861, Sam joined up with Confederates but only for two weeks. In July he went with Orion who was appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory. Sam speculated in gold, tried prospecting, and became a journalist in Carson City. In 1863 he began using the pen name “Mark Twain.” In 1864 he criticized the corruption of the San Francisco police. He avoided a duel considering it dangerous and sinful. As a police reporter he wrote about the Irish and Chinese. Sam went to New York in 1867 and had some stories published in April. He began lecturing.
Twain in 1867 wrote letters to a California newspaper about his trip to Europe and the Holy Land, and in 1869 he published them as The Innocents Abroad which was his best-selling book. His marriage to a woman from a wealthy family improved his life-style. In 1872 he published Roughing It that described his six years in the West working with his brother Orion in the Nevada Territory and in the second volume as a journalist in California and Hawaii. Back in Hartford he wrote with the editor Charles Dudley Warner The Gilded Age which provided an often-used name for the post-Civil War era and satirized the political corruption in the US. In 1876 Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer about interesting young people who resemble his youth and his friends. A Tramp Abroad in 1880 describes his experience in Germany, Switzerland, and northern Italy. In 1881 he satirized monarchy in his historical novel The Prince and the Pauper. In 1883 his Life on the Mississippi recalled his time as a steamboat pilot on the great river. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885 is a sequel to Tom Sawyer, and it became one of his most popular novels. Ulysses Grant, before his death in July 1885, agreed to let Twain publish his Memoirs, and they provided Grant’s widow with $450,000. Twain complained that the publishing of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court was not publicized. The novel satirized medieval feudalism and mixes in technological inventions of his own era. The elderly character Col. Sellers is portrayed again in the comical novel The Claimant. The novella Pudd’nhead Wilson in 1894 satirized racism and other social prejudices. Twain wrote the long Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc in 1895, and he praised her for her unselfish patriotism.
Henry James (1843-1916) was the younger brother of William James, and Henry spent much of his life in Europe. At first he wrote articles and stories for American periodicals, and in 1869 he went to Europe and met famous authors. His 1875 novel Roderick Hudson is about men from Boston who are involved in art and go to Europe and fall in love. In 1877 his novel The American is about a businessman who leaves the United States to go to Europe and get married. In 1878 James published his novel The Europeans and the novella Daisy Miller about a flirtatious young American in Europe. His novel Washington Square was published in 1880 and is set in New York City during the 1840s. In 1881 his long novel Portrait of a Lady is about another young American woman in Europe. In 1886 James published his political novel The Bostonians which portrays progressive women and a young one being tempted by a southerner.
Ulysses S. Grant was not a politician when he was elected President in 1868, but as the most successful Union General he knew how to lead and handle men. He was the only President between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson to be elected for two consecutive terms. He made peace his main policy, and he used the US Army to stop violence by ex-Confederates against black and Republican voters as well as Indian tribes that occasionally came into conflict with the railroads and settlers. He and the Republican radicals in Congress during the Reconstruction Era worked to help blacks to vote, get elected, and improve their lives with education. Grant believed in human equality and worked especially to help blacks, Jews, and Indians whom he treated as individuals by allowing them to use the Homestead Act. His administration enforced the right to vote in the South. When people he appointed or members of Congress became involved in financial scandals, he removed those from his administration. He had received several valuable gifts after the Civil War, and during his administration capitalism greatly increased in the United States which resulted in an economic depression in 1873 that lasted several years. During Grant’s eight years the national debt was reduced by about $383 million.
Rutherford B. Hayes was in Congress and Governor of Ohio which prepared him for a presidency he barely won. Despite Democrats gaining a majority in Congress, he managed to follow the liberal policies of the Republican President Grant to protect civil and voting rights. He also had to work through the depression he inherited from the Grant years, and yet he managed to reduce the national debt by restraining the military and keeping the peace. He promoted education and civil service reforms. During his four years the national debt was reduced by about $136 million.
James Garfield had less than for months to govern. The policies he put forth were like those of Grant and Hayes, and he probably would have been a good president if he had not been assassinated.
Chester Arthur had not been elected to any office prior to the election that made him Vice President. Because he had made so much money by patronage, his following the reforms of the previous three Republican presidents that included replacing patronage with civil service reforms surprised many people. His policies and decisions showed his concern for African Americans and native Indians. His foreign policy promoted peace. During the Garfield-Arthur years the national debt was reduced by about $205 million.
Although he was a Democrat, President Cleveland actually promoted the progress of many Republican reforms such as civil service and a neutral foreign policy. Cleveland wanted to help the struggling working class that was being exploited by the capitalist corporations, and he opposed protectionist tariffs that raised prices. During Cleveland’s first term the national debt was reduced by about $245 million.
Benjamin Harrison continued policies of the post-war Republicans, though he turned over much land that Indians had held to settlers. He could not get civil rights legislation passed, and Jim Crow laws and lynching continued. Congress did pass the Sherman Antitrust Act, though there did not seem to be much enforcement yet. Harrison’s attempt to confirm the American takeover of Hawaii failed. During his four years the Harrison Administration reduced the national debt by about $73 million.
Grover Cleveland was the only Democrat to serve two terms between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson. Although he had a Democratic Congress for two years, his second administration faced a financial panic and a depression that he attempted to relieve by rebuilding the federal gold reserves even though it made millionaire J. P. Morgan richer. Democrats were distracted by the silver issue, and they would not regain the presidency until 1913. Cleveland avoided a war in Cuba, but his successor McKinley reversed that. Southern states were given more independence, and that was not good for African Americans. Cleveland attempted to help Indians, and he encouraged the educational work of Booker T. Washington. During Cleveland’s second term the national debt was increased by about $272 million which was about $27 million more than he had decreased it in his first term.
The most brutal and evil form of capitalism, slavery, was abolished in the United States by the devastating Civil War. Yet most former slaveowners retained their ill-gotten wealth. They continued to exploit black Americans, though they had to pay them wages and recognize some of their rights that were extended to them during Reconstruction. In the North some capitalists such as Junius Morgan and his son J. P. Morgan increased their wealth by investing in rifles and other war-profiteering. The Morgans increased their wealth by capitalistic banking and investments in railroads and other corporations. While many Americans suffered during the depression that began in 1873, the Morgans multiplied their wealth. J. P. Morgan inherited $15 million from his father in 1890. He invested in electric companies, and added $39 million by bailing out the Cleveland administration during the gold panic.
John D. Rockefeller and his brothers made millions by developing the Standard Oil Company and building it into a monopoly. A somewhat more ethical capitalist was Andrew Carnegie who made millions in the steel industry and gave much of it away by building libraries. He wrote “Wealth” and advised that excess wealth should used for the general good. Yet he could have shared more of it with his employees.
In a growing capitalistic economy most farmers depended on banks for loans, and they organized the National Grange to work for a more fair economy. Philip Armour dominated the meat industry, and Spreckels gained a monopoly in sugar refining and marketing. Politicians who needed money to win elections were often corrupted as Theodore Roosevelt discovered in New York politics. The stock market provided a way for successful businessmen to get richer by investing in successful enterprises and by supporting powerful monopolies. By 1892 the United States had 4,000 millionaires.
Those who observed the increasing economic inequality offered various socialistic ideas to make life better for more people. Henry George suggested a “single tax” on land as a better way to share the natural wealth of the country. Laurence Gronlund joined the Socialist Labor Party and made the ideas of Karl Marx popular before they had been translated into English. He wrote about a cooperative commonwealth with graduated taxation and free education for all so that capitalists could not steal as much from the workers who made the products.
Journalists such as Jacob Riis exposed how the poor were oppressed by revealing the suffering in New York City’s tenements in the book How the Other Half Lives. Edward Bellamy’s utopian novel Looking Backward 2000-1887 about a socialist future was published in 1888 and was so popular that people joined Nationalist clubs. Ignatius Donnelly was a radical Republican and edited the Anti-Monopolist, and he helped organize the People’s Party in 1892. His novel Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century set in 1988 prophesied the future in several ways showing the conflict between capitalism and socialism and the escalating violence of wars with new technology in the 20th century and even electricity replacing fossil fuels.
As the American economy grew and increased the wealth of some, workers organized labor unions in order to gain bargaining power in a corrupt system. Many worked ten or more hours per day, and they demanded an 8-hour day which President Grant implemented without reducing the pay of federal employees. The Knights of Labor declared their principles. In 1886 many unions were combined into the American Federation of Labor, and the United Mine Workers of America were organized in 1890.
In May 1869 the Transcontinental Railroad to California was completed. Capitalists such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould dominated the railroad industry. The United States Government subsidized the railroads in this era, and by 1890 the US had 125,000 miles of railways. Indians were moved out of the way of railroads, and the US Government opened up large areas of Indian land to settlers even in the Indian Territory that eventually became Oklahoma. Buffaloes were hunted to provide meat for workers building railroads, and hides were shipped to the East until very few buffalo were left. The biggest conflicts between workers and capitalists involved the railroads such as the Great Railway Strike of 1877 and the American Railway Union led by Eugene Debs that challenged the oppressive power of the Pullman Company in 1894.
Thomas Alva Edison may have contributed the most significant inventions to human civilization. He began by improving greatly the technology of telegraphy. He made improvements on the telephone that Alexander Graham Bell patented. The telephone perhaps has done more for personal communication than any other product. Edison invented the first phonograph which would be improved over many decades so that more people can appreciate music and recorded speech. The most difficult and amazing invention by Edison is the electric light that has been a boon to all humanity. He worked on an electric locomotive to replace the use of polluting wood and coal. Edison also improved human experience by inventing motion pictures and projectors bringing theatrical entertainment and educational programs easily to many more people. Bell also deserves credit for teaching the deaf. During this era American society was changed and improved by hundreds of inventions and technical innovations making the country much more prosperous and efficient in industry, agriculture, medical treatment, education, manufacturing, and recreation.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony led the effort to extend voting to women, and they were assisted by Lucy Stone and others, but men managed to keep that right away from women in this era except in some western territories. Helen Hunt Jackson wrote about the mistreatment of Native Americans. Victoria Woodhull wanted sexual freedom and an end to the double standard. Julia Ward Howe was concerned about wars and appealed to mothers and all women to help reduce the violence of aggressive men. Frances Willard was concerned about women’s rights and economic inequality as well as the effects of alcohol. Lydia Maria Child published an extraordinary book that compiled wisdom from religions, philosophies, and literature. Jane Addams worked to help women, children, and especially the poor by helping to improve various aspects of their lives. Ida B. Wells was especially concerned about the lynching of black Americans mostly in the South, and she used journalism and lecturing to make more people aware of the atrocities.
Darwin’s theory of evolution influenced British and American philosophers who devised what was called “Social Darwinism.” John Fiske expanded this in his Cosmic Philosophy and suggested that evolving ethics could replace war with democratic government and international peace. Frank Ward in his Dynamic Sociology recommended education, and he considered “survival of the fittest” anti-democratic. He urged equal rights for all people and using science. Josiah Royce at Harvard presented idealistic ethics to develop moral insight to work for what is best for all. William James in The Principles of Psychology explained the various faculties of the mind and how to regulate the emotions and how to move from material concerns to social relations and spiritual development. The Unitarian Octavius Frothingham criticized dogma that leads to belief in hell and punishment. Some provided charity to help the poor or became socialists to try to rectify the abuses of capitalism. Mary Baker Eddy presented the divine science of spiritual healing so that the soul and mind could overcome physical and material problems.
Without a major war in the era 1869-97 the United States expanded higher education and developed technology and many improvements. Charles W. Eliot as president of Harvard worked to organize “New Education” that emphasized moral and political philosophy, history, and biography. He criticized wars, lawless violence, and religious persecution. Olmstead created city parks for New York and Boston and encouraged more. Emerson’s last inspiring work was Society and Solitude. John Wesley Powell advised bringing water to arid regions. New universities were founded, and others added the study of agriculture, technology, and manual training. Henry Adams wrote a political history of the United States 1801-1817 and left behind an educational autobiography. Francis Parker applied the progressive educational philosophies of Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Herbart to develop freedom and democracy. Booker T. Washington rose up from slavery by his own efforts and brought practical education to freed blacks. Americans wrote many novels to describe their lives. Alcott’s Little Women especially portrayed the ethical development in the transcendental philosophy. George Washington Cable criticized the treatment of black Americans. William Dean Howells wrote many novels about American life, and A Traveler From Altruria especially showed the possibilities of a democratic socialism. Mark Twain provided humor and satire in his writing that helped people see themselves and their lives from a different perspective. Henry James in his novels portrayed European society as well as Americans, showing contrasts between two cultures.
1. Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1908 ed. James D. Richardson, Volume 7, p. 7, 8.
2. Library of Congress Printed Ephemera Collection; Portfolio 74, Folder 3.
Evaluating US Presidents Volume 2: Andrew Johnson to Taft 1865-1913 has been published as a book. For ordering information, please click here.
United States & Capitalism 1869-1897 has been published as a book. For ordering information, please click here.