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| The Congressional Reconstruction Act of 1867 organized the south into 5 military districts, and the states had to have a military leader from the north (Marshall law). They also had to get rid of the black codes,and ratify the 14th amendment. This act also banned confederate leaders from voting, and any who didn't pledge their allegiance to the U.S. |
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| It decreed that a state could be reintegrated into the Union when 10% of the 1860 vote count from that state had taken an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by emancipation. |
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| Member of the Republican Party in the 1860s committed to the emancipation of slaves and the equal treatment and enfranchisment of blacks. Zealous antislavery advocates in the Congress pressed Pres. Abraham Lincoln to include emancipation as a war aim. They later opposed his policy of lenient Reconstruction of the South under presidential control and passed harsher measures in the Wade-Davis Bill. After Lincoln's death the Radicals supported Pres. Andrew Johnson but soon demanded congressional control of Reconstruction. Johnson's attempt to break the Radicals' power led them to pass the Tenure of Office Act; his challenge of the act led to his impeachment. Radical Republican leaders included Henry Winter Davis (1817 – 65), Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Benjamin Butler. Their influence waned as white control over Southern governments gradually returned in the 1870s. |
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| (1864) Measure passed by the U.S. Congress to set Reconstruction policy. It was cosponsored by Sen. Benjamin Wade and Rep. Henry W. Davis (1817 – 65) to counter Pres. Abraham Lincoln's lenient plans for readmitting Southern states after the American Civil War. Supported by the Radical Republicans, the bill called for provisional military government of the seceded states, an oath of allegiance from a majority of the state's whites, and new state constitutions that would abolish slavery and disqualify Confederate officials from holding office. Lincoln considered the bill too harsh and allowed it to expire by using a pocket veto. |
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| The 17th president of the United States after the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln. |
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| Slavery in the United States was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment. |
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| Laws, enacted in the former Confederate states after the American Civil War, that restricted the freedom of former slaves and were designed to assure white supremacy. They originated in the slave codes, which defined slaves as property. In some states these codes included vagrancy laws that targeted unemployed blacks, apprentice laws that made black orphans and dependents available for hire to whites, and commercial laws that excluded blacks from certain trades and businesses and restricted their ownership of property. Northern reaction to the laws helped produce Radical Reconstruction and passage of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, as well as creation of the Freedmen's Bureau. Many provisions of the black codes were reenacted in the Jim Crow laws and remained in force until the 1964 Civil Rights Act. |
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| (1865 – 72) U.S. agency established during Reconstruction to help freed slaves in their transition to freedom. Officially named the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, it was directed by Oliver O. Howard. It built hospitals and provided medical assistance to more than 1 million freed blacks and 21 million rations for blacks and whites. It also built more than 1,000 schools for black children and helped found colleges and teacher-training institutes for blacks, but it had little success in safeguarding civil rights and promoting land redistribution. Congress later responded to pressure from white Southerners by terminating the bureau. |
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| Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling by the Supreme Court (1857) that held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States. |
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| The National Union Party was the name used by the Republican Party for the national ticket in the 1864 presidential election, held during the Civil War. State Republican parties did not usually change their name. |
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| Bloody Shirt was part of the expression "waving the bloody shirt," referring to a political ploy used in campaigns during the Reconstruction period, following the Civil War. This term described the attempts made by radical northern Republicans to defeat southern Democrats by using impassioned oratory about bloody sacrifice designed to keep alive the hatreds and prejudices of the Civil War period. During the most vehement attacks, in the campaigns of 1872 and 1876, orators would literally wave a bloody shirt to remind audiences of the Civil War casualties. |
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| Like reconstruction but harsher. |
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| The Tenure of Office Act, passed over the veto of President Andrew Johnson on March 2, 1867, provided that all federal officials whose appointment required Senate confirmation could not be removed without the consent of the Senate. |
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Edwin McMasters Stanton (December 19, 1814 – December 24, 1869) was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during the American Civil War from 1862–1865. Stanton's effective management helped organize the massive military resources of the North and guide the Union to victory.
After Lincoln's assassination, Stanton remained as the Secretary of War under the new President Andrew Johnson during the first years of Reconstruction. He opposed the lenient policies of Johnson towards the former Confederate States. Johnson's attempt to dismiss Stanton led the House of Representatives to impeach him. |
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| The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (i.e., slavery). It was ratified on February 3, 1870. |
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| a derogatory nickname for southern whites who supported Reconstruction following the Civil War. |
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a pejorative term Southerners gave to Northerners (also referred to as Yankees) who moved to the South during the Reconstruction era, between 1865 and 1877.
The term referred to the observation that these newcomers tended to carry "carpet bags," a common form of luggage at the time (sturdy and made from used carpet). It was used as a derogatory term, suggesting opportunism and exploitation by the outsiders. |
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| Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right[4][5][6][7] organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically expressed through terrorism.[8][9] Since the mid-20th century, the KKK has also been anti-communist.[8] The current manifestation is splintered into several chapters and is classified as a hate group. |
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| Electoral Commission of 1876 |
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The Electoral Commission was a temporary body created by Congress to resolve the disputed United States presidential election of 1876. It consisted of 15 members. The election was contested by the Democratic ticket, Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks, and the Republican ticket, Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler. Twenty electoral votes, from the states of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina, were in dispute; the resolution of these disputes would determine the outcome of the election. Facing a constitutional crisis the likes of which the nation had never seen, Congress passed a law forming the Electoral Commission to settle the result.
The Commission consisted of fifteen members: five representatives, five senators, and five Supreme Court justices. Eight members were Republicans; seven were Democrats. The Commission ultimately voted along party lines to award all twenty disputed votes to Hayes, thus assuring his victory in the Electoral College by a margin of 185-184. |
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| A freedman is a former slave who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. |
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| reference within slavery to a division of labor established on the plantation. |
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| a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land (e.g. 50% of the crop). |
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The crop-lien system is a credit system that became widely used by farmers in the United States in the South from the 1860s to the 1920s
After the American Civil War, farmers in the South had little cash. The crop-lien system was a way for farmers to get credit before the planting season by borrowing against the value for anticipated harvests. Local merchants provided food and supplies all year long on credit; when the cotton crop was harvested farmers turned it over to the merchant to pay back their loan. |
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| original homestead act, known as the Homestead Act of 1862, was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862. The law required three steps: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government, including freed slaves, could file an application to claim a federal land grant. The occupant also had to be 21 or older, had to live on the land for five years and show evidence of having made improvements. |
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| an attempt to describe an industrial and less slave reliant South. |
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The Louisiana Purchase (French: Vente de la Louisiane "Sale of Louisiana") was the acquisition by the United States of America of 828,000 square miles (2,140,000 km2) of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S. paid 60 million francs ($11,250,000) plus cancellation of debts worth 18 million francs ($3,750,000), for a total sum of 15 million dollars (less than 3 cents per acre) for the Louisiana territory ($219 million in 2011 dollars, less than 42 cents per acre).
The Louisiana Purchase encompassed all or part of 15 current U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The land purchased contained all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska; parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River; most of North Dakota; nearly all of South Dakota; northeastern New Mexico; northern Texas; the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. |
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| The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. |
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| Transcontinental Railroad |
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The First Transcontinental Railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a railroad line built in the United States of America between 1863 and 1869 by the Central Pacific Railroad of California and the Union Pacific Railroad that connected its statutory Eastern terminus at Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska[1][2] (via Ogden, Utah, and Sacramento, California) with the Pacific Ocean at Oakland, California on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay opposite San Francisco. By linking with the existing railway network of the Eastern United States, the road thus connected the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States by rail for the first time. The line was popularly known as the Overland Route after the principal passenger rail service that operated over the length of the line through the end of 1962.
The construction and operation of the line was authorized by the Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864 during the American Civil War. Congress supported it with 30-year U.S. government bonds and extensive land grants of government-owned land. Completion of the railroad was the culmination of a decades-long movement to build such a line. It was one of the crowning achievements in the crossing of plains and high mountains westward by the Union Pacific and eastward by the Central Pacific. Opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869, with the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah, the road established a mechanized transcontinental transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West. |
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| Cattle drives were a major economic activity in the American west, particularly between 1866 and 1886, when 20 million cattle were herded from Texas to railheads in Kansas for shipments to stockyards in Chicago and points east. The long distances covered, the need for periodic rests by riders and animals, and the establishment of railheads led to the development of "cow towns" across the American West. Because of extensive treatment of cattle drives in fiction and film, the cowboy became the worldwide iconic image of the American. Cattle drives still occur in the American west and in Australia. |
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| Free range is a term which outside of the United States denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals are allowed to roam freely instead of being contained in any manner. |
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| Bonanza farms were extremely successful and large farms, principally on the Great Plains and in the West, that emerged during the second half of the 1800s. |
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| The "Mining Code" refers to the whole of the comprehensive set of rules, regulations and procedures issued by the International Seabed Authority to regulate prospecting, exploration and exploitation of marine minerals in the international seabed Area (defined as the seabed and subsoil beyond the limits of national jurisdiction). |
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| Indian Rights Association |
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| The Indian Rights Association (IRA) was an American social activist group dedicated to the well being and acculturation of Native Americans. Founded in Philadelphia in 1882, the Indian Rights Associations (IRA) was highly influential in American Indian policy through the 1930s and remained involved as an organization until 1994. |
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| An act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations, and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians, and for other purposes. |
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| Gold Mountain (Chinese: 金山; Mandarin Pinyin: jīn shān; Wade–Giles: chin1 shan1; Jyutping: gam1 saan1, "Gam Saan" in Cantonese, often rendered in English as Gum Shan or Gumshan) is the name given by the Chinese to western regions of North America, particularly California, USA and British Columbia, Canada. After gold was first discovered in the state of California in 1848, thousands of Chinese from Toisan in Guangdong (Chinese: 台山; Mandarin Pinyin: tái shān; Wade–Giles: t'ai2 shan1; Jyutping: toi4 saan1), began to travel to California in search of gold and riches during the California Gold Rush. |
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Yellow Peril (sometimes Yellow Terror) was a colour metaphor for race that originated in the late nineteenth century with immigration of Chinese laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States, and later associated with the Japanese during the mid 20th century, due to Japanese military expansion.
The term refers to the skin color of East Asians, and the belief that the mass immigration of Asians threatened white wages and standards of living. |
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| Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 |
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| The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend Chinese immigration, a ban that was intended to last 10 years. This law was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943. |
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| A of immigration began in 1820. During the next 50 years, nearly 7.5 million newcomers arrived in the United States. Many were Irish who escaped the effects of the Great Famine back home, settling the cities along the eastern U.S. seaboard. An equal number (roughly a third) were German, who settled the nation's interior farmlands, particularly the Midwest. An economic depression in the 1870s stemmed the tide of immigrants, but only for a short time. |
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| Between 1881 and 1920 another wave brought more than 23 million immigrants to American shores. These new arrivals were largely from eastern and southern Europe. German immigration reached its peak in 1882. In 1883 the United States saw the peak of immigration from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and China. Just after the turn of the century, in 1902, U.S. immigration set new records as people from Italy, Austro-Hungary, and Russia made the transatlantic journey. |
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| Push factors encourage people to leave their points of origin and settle elsewhere, Foremost among these were economic and social stresses caused by high unemployment and expanding populations. |
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| Pull factors attract migrants to new areas. For example,growing economy and small resident population made it more than capable of absorbing large numbers of immigrants during the early decades of the 19th century; these same factors also made it an attractive destination for migrants wishing to escape poverty and population congestion prevalent in their points of origin. |
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| a period from 1750 to 1850 where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times. It began in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spread throughout Western Europe, North America, Japan, and eventually the rest of the world. |
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| refers to the social process by which immigrants from a particular town follow others from that town to a particular city or neighborhood, whether in an immigrant receiving country or in a new, usually urban, location in the home country. The term also refers to the process of foreign nationals immigrating to a new country under laws permitting their reunification with family members already living in the destination country. This mechanism is also known as serial migration. |
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| an ethnic community which retains some cultural distinction from a larger, surrounding area, it may be a neighborhood, an area or an administrative division based on ethnic groups. |
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| a run-down and often overcrowded apartment house, especially in a poor section of a large city. |
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| Goods, such as food and clothing, that satisfy human wants through their direct consumption or use. |
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Capital goods are acquired by a society by saving wealth which can be invested in the means of production.
Individuals, organizations and governments use capital goods in the production of other goods or commodities. Capital goods include factories, machinery, tools, equipment, and various buildings which are used to produce other products for consumption. |
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An improvement was made in the production of steel, which was an expensive commodity and used only where iron would not do, such as for the cutting edge of tools and for springs. Benjamin Huntsman developed his crucible steel technique in the 1740s. The raw material for this was blister steel, made by the cementation process.
The supply of cheaper iron and steel aided the development of boilers and steam engines, and eventually railways. Improvements in machine tools allowed better working of iron and steel and further boosted the industrial growth of Britain |
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| the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The process was independently discovered in 1851 by William Kelly.[1][2] The process had also been used outside of Europe for hundreds of years, but not on an industrial scale.[3] The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass and keeps it molten. |
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| also called Taylorism,[1] was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management. Its development began with Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s within the manufacturing industries. Its peak of influence came in the 1910s; by the 1920s, it was still influential but had begun an era of competition and syncretism with opposing or complementary ideas. Although scientific management as a distinct theory or school of thought was obsolete by the 1930s, most of its themes are still important parts of industrial engineering and management today. These include analysis; synthesis; logic; rationality; empiricism; work ethic; efficiency and elimination of waste; standardization of best practices; disdain for tradition preserved merely for its own sake or merely to protect the social status of particular workers with particular skill sets; the transformation of craft production into mass production; and knowledge transfer between workers and from workers into tools, processes, and documentation. |
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| A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English and Canadian English) is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members (rank and file members) and negotiates labour contracts (collective bargaining) with employers. This may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies. The agreements negotiated by the union leaders are binding on the rank and file members and the employer and in some cases on other non-member workers. |
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| a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became important in factories and mines. In most countries, they were quickly made illegal, as factory owners had far more political power than workers. Most western countries partially legalized striking in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. |
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a demonstration and unrest that took place on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at the Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a rally in support of striking workers. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they dispersed the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians and the wounding of scores of others.
In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were tried for murder. All were convicted, with seven sentenced to death and one to a term of 15 years in prison, although the prosecution conceded none of the defendants had thrown the bomb. The death sentences of two were subsequently commuted to terms of life in prison and another committed suicide in jail rather than face the gallows. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887.
The Haymarket affair is generally considered significant for the origin of international May Day observances for workers.[4][5] In popular literature, this event inspired the caricature of "a bomb-throwing anarchist." The incident remains controversial.
The site of the incident was designated a Chicago Landmark on March 25, 1992.[6] The Haymarket Martyrs' Monument in nearby Forest Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark on February 18, 1997.[2] |
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William H. Seward, secretary of state under both Lincoln and Johnson, was an ardent expansionist. He was committed to the spread of American influence throughout the Pacific as a means of enhancing the nation’s trade and military standing.
Russia had been interested in selling Alaska for a number of years. The region seemed to have little value and was remote and hard to defend. Negotiations with the United States were opened during the Buchanan administration, but came to a halt with the opening of the Civil War.
Seward actually began negotiations with the Russians before receiving authorization from Johnson. Nonetheless, when the outline of a deal was presented to the cabinet, Seward was surprised to find little opposition. The agreement was signed in March 1867 and transferred Alaska to the United States in return for a payment of $7.2 million, amounting to a price of about 2.5 cents per acre for an area twice the size of Texas.
The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate by a single vote.
Criticism in the press was harsh, portraying the newly acquired wasteland as “Seward’s Folly,” “Seward’s Icebox” or Johnson’s “polar bear garden.” It was not until the 1890s with the discovery of gold that public attitudes regarding Alaska began to change. |
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| accounts are an accounting record of all monetary transactions between a country and the rest of the world.[1] These transactions include payments for the country's exports and imports of goods, services, financial capital, and financial transfers. The BoP accounts summarize international transactions for a specific period, usually a year, and are prepared in a single currency, typically the domestic currency for the country concerned. Sources of funds for a nation, such as exports or the receipts of loans and investments, are recorded as positive or surplus items. Uses of funds, such as for imports or to invest in foreign countries, are recorded as negative or deficit items. |
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| is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that the origin of the distinctive egalitarian, democratic, aggressive, and innovative features of the American character has been the American frontier experience. He stressed the process—the moving frontier line—and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. In the thesis, the frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mind-sets and ending prior customs of the 19th century. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. |
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| a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics.[1] It especially refers to notions of struggle for existence being used to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves. The most prominent form of such views stressed competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism but it is also connected to the ideas of eugenics, scientific racism, imperialism,[2] fascism, Nazism and struggle between national or racial groups. |
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| a belief in the innate superiority of the “Anglo-Saxon race.” |
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The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence. American attacks on Spain's Pacific possessions led to involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately to the Philippine-American War.[6]
Revolts against Spanish rule had been endemic for decades in Cuba and were closely watched by Americans; there had been war scares before, as in the Virginius Affair in 1873. By 1897–98, American public opinion grew angrier at reports of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. After the mysterious sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbor, political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of President William McKinley, a Republican, into a war McKinley had wished to avoid.[7] Compromise proved impossible, resulting in the United States sending an ultimatum to Spain demanding it immediately surrender control of Cuba, which the Spanish rejected. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared war.[8]
Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the ten-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. American naval power proved decisive, allowing U.S. expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already reeling from nation-wide insurgent attacks and wasted by yellow fever.[9] Cuban, Philippine, and American forces obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila owing to their numerical superiority in most of the battles and despite the good performance of some Spanish infantry units and spirited defenses in places like San Juan Hill.[10] With two obsolete Spanish squadrons sunk in Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay and a third, more modern fleet recalled home to protect the Spanish coasts, Madrid sued for peace. The result was the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to the U.S., which allowed temporary American control of Cuba and, following their purchase from Spain, indefinite colonial authority over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The defeat and collapse of the Spanish Empire was a profound shock to Spain's national psyche and provoked a thoroughgoing philosophical and artistic reevaluation of Spanish society known as the Generation of '98.[11] The victor gained several island possessions spanning the globe and a rancorous new debate over the wisdom of expansionism.[ |
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| is extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy.[1] In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests. Colloquially, it refers to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism. |
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| which set off an 1898 diplomatic incident, was written by Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, the Spanish Minister with the Portfolio of Cuba. In a personal letter, which was stolen despite being under diplomatic protection, he referred to the President William McKinley as "weak and catering to the rabble and, besides, a low politician who desires to leave a door open to himself and to stand well with the jingos of his party." On February 9, 1898, the letter was published in William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. One week later, the USS Maine sunk in Havana Harbor. Both helped stir public sentiment in favor of the Cuban Junta and against the Spanish and are seen as two of the principal triggers of the Spanish-American War of 1898. |
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| She is best known for her catastrophic loss in Havana harbor. Maine had been sent to Havana, Cuba to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain.[2] On the evening of 15 February 1898, she suddenly exploded, and swiftly sank, killing nearly three quarters of her crew.[3] Though then, as now, the cause and responsibility for her sinking were unclear, popular opinion in the U.S. blamed Spain, and the sinking (popularized in the phrase Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!) was one of the precipitating events of the Spanish–American War.[3][4] Her sinking remains the subject of speculation, with various authors proposing that she sank due to the results of an undetected fire in one of her coal bunkers,[3] that she was the victim of a naval mine,[3] and that she was deliberately sunk for the purposes of driving the U.S. into a war with Spain. |
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a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s.[1] One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political machines and bosses. Many (but not all) Progressives supported prohibition in order to destroy the political power of local bosses based in saloons.[2] At the same time, women's suffrage was promoted to bring a "purer" female vote into the arena.[3] A second theme was achieving efficiency in every sector by identifying old ways that needed modernizing, and emphasizing scientific, medical and engineering solutions.
Many people led efforts to reform local government, public education, medicine, finance, insurance, industry, railroads, churches, and many other areas. Progressives transformed, professionalized and made "scientific" the social sciences, especially history,[4] economics,[5] and political science.[6] In academic fields the day of the amateur author gave way to the research professor who published in the new scholarly journals and presses. The national political leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Charles Evans Hughes and Herbert Hoover on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson and Al Smith on the Democratic side.
Initially the movement operated chiefly at local levels; later it expanded to state and national levels. Progressives drew support from the middle class, and supporters included many lawyers, teachers, physicians, ministers and business people.[7] The Progressives strongly supported scientific methods as applied to economics, government, industry, finance, medicine, schooling, theology, education, and even the family. They closely followed advances underway at the time in Western Europe[8] and adopted numerous policies, such as the banking laws which became the Federal Reserve System in 1914. They felt that old-fashioned ways meant waste and inefficiency, and eagerly sought out the "one best system".[9] |
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| a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the early 20th century United States and Canada. The movement applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as excessive wealth, poverty, liquor, crime, racial tensions, slums, bad hygiene, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. Theologically, the Social Gospellers sought to operationalize the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:10): "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."[1] They typically were post-millennialist; that is, they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort.[2] Social Gospel leaders were predominantly associated with the liberal wing of the Progressive Movement and most were theologically liberal, although they were typically conservative when it came to their views on social issues.[3] Important leaders include Richard T. Ely, Washington Gladden, and Walter Rauschenbusch. |
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| closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination of advertising boycotts, dirty tricks and patriotism, the movement, associated with the Progressive Era in the United States, came to an end.[1] |
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| an American author and one-time candidate for governor of California who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). It exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.[1] Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence."[2] |
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| a 1906 novel written by journalist Upton Sinclair.[1] Sinclair wrote the novel with the intention of portraying the life of the immigrant in the United States, but readers were more concerned with the large portion of the book pertaining to the corruption of the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, and the book is now often interpreted and taught as a journalist's exposure of the poor health conditions in this industry. The novel depicts in harsh tones poverty, absence of social programs, unpleasant living and working conditions, and hopelessness prevalent among the working class, which is contrasted with the deeply-rooted corruption on the part of those in power. Sinclair's observations of the state of turn-of-the-twentieth-century labor were placed front and center for the American public to see, suggesting that something needed to be changed to get rid of American wage slavery.[2] |
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| Neighbourhood social-welfare agency. The staff of a settlement house may sponsor clubs, classes, athletic teams, and interest groups; they may employ such specialists as vocational counselors and caseworkers. The settlement movement began with the founding of Toynbee Hall in London in 1884 by Samuel Augustus Barnett (1844 – 1913). It spread to the U.S. in the late 19th century with the establishment of such institutions as Chicago's Hull House (founded by Jane Addams). Many countries now have similar institutions. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, U.S. settlement houses were active among the masses of new immigrants and worked for reform legislation such as workers' compensation and child-labour laws. |
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| a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois, Hull House opened its doors to the recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. In 1912 the Hull House complex was completed with the addition of a summer camp, the Bowen Country Club.[3][4][5] With its innovative social, educational, and artistic programs, Hull House became the standard bearer for the movement that had grown, by 1920, to almost 500 settlement houses nationally |
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| a landmark decision in United States Supreme Court history, as it justifies both sex discrimination and usage of labor laws during the time period. The case upheld Oregon state restrictions on the working hours of women as justified by the special state interest in protecting women's health. |
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March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history. It was also the second deadliest disaster in New York City – after the burning of the General Slocum on June 15, 1904 – until the destruction of the World Trade Center 90 years later. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers, who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women aged sixteen to twenty-three;[1][2][3] the oldest victim was 48, the youngest were two fourteen-year-old girls.[4]
Because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits – a common practice at the time to prevent pilferage and unauthorized breaks[5] – many of the workers who could not escape the burning building jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors to the streets below. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.
The factory was located in the Asch Building, at 23-29 Washington Place, now known as the Brown Building, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.[6] |
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| exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity. (This contrasts with a monopsony which relates to a single entity's control of a market to purchase a good or service, and with oligopoly which consists of a few entities dominating an industry)[1][clarification needed] Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service and a lack of viable substitute goods.[2] The verb "monopolize" refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors. In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power, to charge high prices.[3] Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry (or market).[4] |
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| is an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies. The phrase laissez-faire is French and literally means "let do", but it broadly implies "let it be", or "leave it alone." A laissez-faire state and completely free market has never existed.[1] |
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| corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or new location, without creating a subsidiary, other child entity or using a joint venture. The distinction between a "merger" and an "acquisition" has become increasingly blurred in various respects (particularly in terms of the ultimate economic outcome), although it has not completely disappeared in all situations. |
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| Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) |
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| a landmark federal statute on competition law passed by Congress in 1890. It prohibits certain business activities that reduce competition in the marketplace, and requires the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of being in violation. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the United States federal government. However, for the most part, politicians were unwilling to refer to the law until Theodore Roosevelt's presidency (1901–1909). |
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| Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) |
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| a United States federal law that provided federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated food products and poisonous patent medicines.[1] The Act arose due to public education and exposés from Muckrakers such as Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkins Adams, social activist Florence Kelley, researcher Harvey W. Wiley, and President Theodore Roosevelt. |
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| one who advocates to preserve architecturally or historically significant buildings, structures, objects or sites from demolition or degradation. Historic preservation usually refers to the preservation of the built environment, not to preservation of, for instance, primeval forests or wilderness |
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| is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future. |
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s a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses (usually campaign workers), who receive rewards for their efforts. The power of the machine is based on the ability of the workers to get out the vote for their candidates on election day.
Although these elements are common to most political parties and organizations, they are essential to political machines, which rely on hierarchy and rewards for political power, often enforced by a strong party whip structure. Machines sometimes have a political boss, often rely on patronage, the spoils system, "behind-the-scenes" control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of a representative democracy. Machines typically are organized on a permanent basis instead of for a single election or event. The term may have a pejorative sense referring to corrupt political machines.[1]
Although the term "political machine" dates back to the 20th century in the United States, where such organizations have existed in some municipalities and states since the 18th century, similar machines have been described in Latin America, where the system has been called (under the name clientelism or political clientelism), especially in rural areas, and also in some African states and other emerging democracies, like postcommunist Eastern European countries. Japan's Liberal Democratic Party is often cited as another political machine, maintaining power in suburban and rural areas through its control of farm bureaus and road construction agencies.[2] In Japan, the word jiban (literally "base" or "foundation") is the word used for political machine,[3] In the ancient Roman Republic, a similar patronage system existed.[4] |
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| George Washington Plunkitt |
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| (1842–1924) was a long-time State Senator from the U.S. state of New York, representing the Fifteenth Senate District, who was especially powerful in New York City. He was part of what is known as New York's Tammany Hall machine. |
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an election in which party members or voters select candidates for an election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election.
Primaries are common in the United States, where their origins are traced to the progressive movement. Primary elections are usually the responsibility of political party organizations themselves and not the government.
Other methods of selecting candidates include caucuses, conventions, and nomination meetings. Historically, Canadian political parties chose their candidates through nominating conventions held by constituency riding associations. Canadian party leaders are elected at leadership conventions, although some parties have abandoned this practice in favour of one member, one vote systems. |
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In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote (plebiscite). The vote may be on a proposed statute, constitutional amendment, charter amendment or ordinance, or, in its minimal form, to simply oblige the executive or legislative bodies to consider the subject by submitting it to the order of the day. It is a form of direct democracy.
The initiative may take the form of either the direct initiative or indirect initiative. Under the direct initiative, a measure is put directly to a vote after being submitted by a petition. Under the indirect initiative, a measure is first referred to the legislature, and then put to a popular vote only if not enacted by the legislature. In United States usage, a popular vote on a specific measure is referred to as a referendum only when originating with the legislature. Such a vote is known, when originating in the initiative process, as an "initiative," "ballot measure" or "proposition." In New Zealand a vote initiated by the public is called a citizen initiated referendum. |
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| a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended. Recalls, which are initiated when sufficient voters sign a petition, have a history dating back to the ancient Athenian democracy[1] and is a feature of several contemporary constitutions. |
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was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology. He was a major representative of progressive education and liberalism[2][3]
Although Dewey is known best for his publications concerning education, he also wrote about many other topics, including experience, nature, art, logic, inquiry, democracy, and ethics.
In his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—as being major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by effective communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt.[citation needed] |
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Progressive education is a pedagogical movement that began in the late nineteenth century and has persisted in various forms to the present. More recently, it has been viewed as an alternative to the test-oriented instruction legislated by the No Child Left Behind educational funding act.[citation needed]
The term "progressive" was engaged to distinguish this education from the traditional curriculum of the 19th century, which was rooted in classical preparation for the university and strongly differentiated by socioeconomic level. By contrast, progressive education finds its roots in present experience. Most progressive education programs have these qualities in common:
Emphasis on learning by doing – hands-on projects, expeditionary learning, experiential learning
Integrated curriculum focused on thematic units
Strong emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking
Group work and development of social skills
Understanding and action as the goals of learning as opposed to rote knowledge
Collaborative and cooperative learning projects
Education for social responsibility and democracy
Integration of community service and service learning projects into the daily curriculum
Selection of subject content by looking forward to ask what skills will be needed in future society
De-emphasis on textbooks in favor of varied learning resources
Emphasis on life-long learning and social skills
Assessment by evaluation of child’s projects and productions |
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an American lawyer, historian and physical anthropologist, known primarily for his work as a eugenicist and conservationist. As a eugenicist, Grant was responsible for one of the most famous works of scientific racism, and played an active role in crafting strong immigration restriction and anti-miscegenation laws in the United States.
As a conservationist, Grant was credited with the saving of many different species of animals, founding many different environmental and philanthropic organizations and developing much of the discipline of wildlife management. |
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| aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning. |
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| aimed at lowering fertility among the genetically disadvantaged. This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning |
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| the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to the manipulation of human populations.[2][3] The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance, and the theories of August Weismann.[4] Historically, many of the practitioners of eugenics viewed eugenics as a science, not necessarily restricted to human populations; this embraced the views of Darwinism and Social Darwinism. |
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e state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans. The separation led to treatment, financial support and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages. De jure segregation mainly applied to the Southern United States. Northern segregation was generally de facto, with patterns of segregation in housing enforced by covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination, including discriminatory union practices for decades.
Some examples of Jim Crow laws are the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. The U.S. military was also segregated. These Jim Crow Laws were separate from the 1800–1866 Black Codes, which had previously restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans. State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964[1] and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. |
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| Racial hierarchy is defined as a system of stratification that focuses on the belief that some racial groups are either superior or inferior to other racial groups.[1] The groups with the most power and authority are at the top of the racial hierarchy, while the most inferior group is at the bottom. As it pertains to the United States of America, racial hierarchy refers to ranking of different races/ethnic groups, based on physical and perceived characteristics that have been perpetuated through legal and political policy, providing unfair advantages for some races and/or hindering the advancement of others. |
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a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal."
The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. Associate Justice David Josiah Brewer was absent at the ruling because of his daughter's sudden death the day before. "Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.
After the Supreme Court ruling, the New Orleans Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens), which had brought the suit and arranged for Homer Plessy's arrest in order to challenge Louisiana's segregation law, replied, “We, as freemen, still believe that we were right and our cause is sacred.” |
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a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the state constitution that set requirements for voter registration. The Supreme Court did not find discrimination in the state's requirements for voters to pass a literacy test and pay poll taxes, as these were applied to all voters.
In practice, the subjective nature of literacy approval by white registrars worked to drastically decrease and essentially disfranchise African American voters.
The Court considered the new Mississippi constitution passed in 1890. It upheld disfranchisement clauses which established requirements for literacy tests and poll taxes paid retroactively from one's 21st birthday as prerequisites for voter registration. A grandfather clause effectively exempted illiterate whites, but not blacks, from the literacy test by relating qualifications to whether one's grandfather had voted before a certain date. Because the provisions applied to all potential voters, the Court upheld them, although in practice the provisions had discriminatory effect on African Americans and poor whites. |
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devised by the Democratic Party to overthrow the Republican Party in the state of Mississippi by means of organized threats of violence and suppression or purchase of the black vote, in order to regain political control of the legislature and governor's office. The Mississippi Plan was successful in those aims and was later adopted by white Democrats in South Carolina.
During Reconstruction, former slaves were granted citizenship and the vote by an Act of Congress. The consequences of this were far-reaching and almost immediate, as blacks eagerly registered and flooded the polls. In Mississippi's 1874 election, the Republican Party carried a 30,000 majority in what had hitherto been a Democratic Party stronghold.
Republicans took the governor's office and many legislative seats, including the election of blacks to many offices, such as 10 of 36 seats in the state legislature (although they comprised a much larger majority of the total population). The city of of Vicksburg in 1874 set the precedent for the Mississippi Plan. White armed patrols prevented blacks from voting and succeeded in defeating all Republican city officials in August. By December the emboldened party forced the black sheriff, Crosby, to flee to the state capital. Blacks who rallied to the city to aid the sheriff also had to flee in the face of superior white forces. Over the next few days, armed gangs may have murdered up to 300 blacks in the city's vicinity. President Ulysses S. Grant sent a company of troops to Vicksburg in January 1875 to quell the violence and allow the sheriff's safe return. The sheriff was shot in the head on June 7, 1875, by his white deputy, A. Gilmer.[1]
In 1875, under the Mississippi Plan of the Democrats, a political dual-pronged battle to reverse the otherwise dominant Republican trend was waged. White paramilitary organizations such as the Red Shirts arose to serve as "the military arm of the Democratic Party."[2] Unlike the Ku Klux Klan (which was defunct by then), the Red Shirts operated openly, with members known in local areas; they sometimes invited newspaper coverage, and their goals were political. In Mississippi, the most notorious group were the Red Shirts. They were well-armed, with private financing for the purchase of new weapons as they took on more power. The first step was to persuade the 10 to 15 percent of Scalawags (white Republicans) to vote with the Democratic party. Outright attacks and a combined fear of social, political and economic ostracism convinced carpetbaggers to switch parties or flee the state.
The second step of the Mississippi Plan was intimidation of the black populace. Planters, landlords and merchants used economic coercion against black sharecroppers with limited success. The Red Shirts more often used violence, including whippings and murders, and intimidation at the polls. White paramilitary groups, also called "rifle clubs," frequently provoked riots at Republican rallies, shooting down dozens of blacks in the ensuing conflicts.
Although the governor requested Federal troops to curb the violence, President Ulysses S. Grant hesitated to act, for fear that in doing so, he would be accused of "bayonet rule"--which he believed would undoubtedly be exploited by Democrats to carry Ohio in that year's state elections. The violence went unchecked and the plan worked as intended: during Mississippi's 1875 election, five counties with large black majorities polled 12, 7, 4, 2, and 0 votes, respectively. The Republican victory by 30,000 votes in 1874 was reversed to a Democratic majority of 30,000 in 1875.
The success of the white Democrats in Mississippi influenced the growth of Red Shirts in North and South Carolina as well. They were particularly prominent in suppressing black votes in majority-black counties in South Carolina. Historians estimated that they committed 150 murders in the weeks leading up to the 1876 election. |
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an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915. Representative of the last generation of black American leaders born in slavery, he spoke on behalf of the large majority of blacks who lived in the South but had lost their ability to vote through disfranchisement by southern legislatures. While his opponents called his powerful network of supporters the "Tuskegee Machine," Washington maintained power because of his ability to gain support of numerous groups: influential whites; the black business, educational and religious communities nationwide; financial donations from philanthropists, and his accommodation to the political realities of the age of Jim Crow segregation.[1]
Washington was born into slavery to Jane, an enslaved woman, and a white father, a nearby planter, in a rural area of the southwestern Virginia Piedmont. After emancipation, his mother moved the family to rejoin her husband in West Virginia; there Washington worked in a variety of manual labor jobs before making his way to Hampton Roads seeking an education. He worked his way through Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) and attended college at Wayland Seminary (now Virginia Union University). In 1876, Washington returned to live in Malden, West Virginia, teaching Sunday School at African Zion Baptist Church; he married his first wife, Fannie Smith, at the church in 1881.[2] After returning to Hampton as a teacher, in 1881 he was named as the first leader of the new Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
Washington attained national prominence for his Atlanta Address of 1895, which attracted the attention of politicians and the public, making him a popular spokesperson for African-American citizens. He built a nationwide network of supporters in many black communities, with black ministers, educators and businessmen composing his core supporters. Washington played a dominant role in black politics, winning wide support in the black community and among more liberal whites (especially rich Northern whites). He gained access to top national leaders in politics, philanthropy and education. Washington's efforts included cooperating with white people and enlisting the support of wealthy philanthropists, helping to raise funds to establish and operate thousands of small community schools and institutions of higher education for the betterment of blacks throughout the South. This work continued for many years after his death. Washington argued that the surest way for blacks to gain equal social rights was to demonstrate "industry, thrift, intelligence and property."
Northern critics called Washington's followers the "Tuskegee Machine". After 1909, Washington was criticized by the leaders of the new NAACP, especially W. E. B. Du Bois, who demanded a stronger tone of protest for advancement of civil rights needs. Washington replied that confrontation would lead to disaster for the outnumbered blacks, and that cooperation with supportive whites was the only way to overcome pervasive racism in the long run. At the same time, he secretly funded litigation for civil rights cases, such as challenges to southern constitutions and laws that disfranchised blacks.[3]
In addition to his contributions in education, Washington wrote 14 books; his autobiography, Up From Slavery, first published in 1901, is still widely read today. During a difficult period of transition, he did much to improve the working relationship between the races. His work greatly helped blacks to achieve higher education, financial power and understanding of the U.S. legal system. This contributed to blacks' attaining the skills to create and support the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, leading to the passage of important federal civil rights laws. |
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an agreement struck in 1895 between African-American leaders and Southern white leaders. The agreement was that Southern blacks would work meekly and submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic education and due process in law; blacks would not agitate for equality, integration, or justice, and Northern whites would fund black educational charities.[1][2]
The compromise was announced at the Atlanta Exposition Speech. The primary architect of the compromise, on behalf of the African-Americans, was Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute. Supporters of Washington and the Atlanta compromise were termed the "Tuskegee Machine".
The agreement was never written down. Essential elements of the agreement were that blacks would not ask for the right to vote, they would not retalliate against racist behavior, they would tolerate segregation and discrimination, that they would receive free basic education, education would be limited to vocational or industrial training (for instance as teachers or nurses), liberal arts education would be prohibited (for instance, college education in the classics, humanities, art, or literature).
After the turn of the 19th to 20th century, other black leaders, most notably W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter – (a group Du Bois would call The Talented Tenth), took issue with the compromise, instead believing that African-Americans should engage in a struggle for civil rights. W. E. B. Du Bois, coined the term "Atlanta Compromise" to denote the agreement. The term "accomodationism" is also used to denote the essence of the Atlanta compromise.
After the death of Booker T. Washington in 1915, the supporters of the Atlanta compromise gradually shifted their support to civil rights activism, until the modern Civil rights movement commenced in the 1950s. |
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The school was founded on July 4, 1881 as the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers. It was part of the expansion of institutions of higher education for blacks in the South following the American Civil War, many founded by the northern American Missionary Association. A teachers school was the dream of Lewis Adams, a former slave, and George W. Campbell, a former slaveholder, who shared a commitment to education of blacks. Despite lacking formal education, Adams could read, write and speak several languages. He was an experienced tinsmith, harness-maker and shoemaker and Prince Hall Freemason, an acknowledged leader of the African-American community in Macon County, Alabama.
Adams and Campbell had secured $2,000 from the State of Alabama for teachers' salaries but nothing for land, buildings, or equipment. Adams, Thomas Dyer, and M.B. Swanson formed Tuskegee's first board of commissioners. They wrote to the Hampton Institute, a historically black college in Virginia, asking the school for a recommendation for their new school. Samuel C. Armstrong, the Hampton Principal and a former Union general, recommended the 25 year-old Booker T. Washington, an alumnus and teacher at Hampton.
The young principal began classes for his new school in a run-down church and shanty. The following year in 1882, Washington bought a plantation, and over the years, the new campus buildings were constructed there, usually by students as part of their work-study.
Based on his experience at the Hampton Institute, Washington intended to train students in skills, morals and religious life. Washington urged the teachers he trained "to return to the plantation districts and show the people there how to put new energy and new ideas into farming as well as into the intellectual and moral and religious life of the people."[citation needed]
Gradually he developed a rural extension program, to take progressive ideas and training to those who could not come to the campus. Tuskegee alumni founded smaller schools and colleges throughout the South, and continued to stress teacher training. |
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an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Born in western Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a tolerant community and experienced little racism as a child. After graduating from Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
Du Bois rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta Compromise, an agreement crafted by Booker T. Washington which provided that Southern blacks would work and submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic educational and economic opportunities. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the talented tenth and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership.
Racism was the main target of Du Bois's polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment. His cause included colored persons everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in their struggles against colonialism and imperialism. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to free African colonies from European powers. Du Bois made several trips to Europe, Africa, and Asia. After World War I, he surveyed the experiences of American black soldiers in France and documented widespread bigotry in the United States military.
Du Bois was a prolific author. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, was a seminal work in African-American literature; and his 1935 magnum opus Black Reconstruction in America challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction era. He wrote the first scientific treatise in the field of sociology; and he published three autobiographies, each of which contains insightful essays on sociology, politics, and history. In his role as editor of the NAACP's journal The Crisis, he published many influential pieces. Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life. He was an ardent peace activist and advocated for nuclear disarmament. The United States' Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted one year after his death. |
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a term that designated a leadership class of African-Americans in the early twentieth century. The term was publicized by W. E. B. Du Bois in an influential essay of the same name, which he published in September 1903. It appeared in The Negro Problem, a collection of essays written by leading African Americans.[1]
The phrase "talented tenth" originated in 1896 among Northern white liberals, specifically the American Baptist Home Mission Society. They had the goal of establishing black colleges to train Negro teachers and elites.
Du Bois used the term "the talented tenth" to describe the likelihood of one in ten black men becoming leaders of their race in the world, through methods such as continuing their education, writing books, or becoming directly involved in social change. He strongly believed that blacks needed a classical education to be able to reach their potential, rather than the industrial education promoted by the Atlanta compromise which was endorsed by Booker T. Washington and some white philanthropists. He saw such an education as the basis for what, in the 20th century, would be known as public intellectuals:
Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools — intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it — this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life.[2]
In his later life, W.E.B. Du Bois came to believe that leadership could arise from many levels, and grassroots efforts were also important to social change. His stepson David Du Bois tried to publicize those views, writing in 1972: "Dr. Du Bois’ conviction that it’s those who suffered most and have the least to lose that we should look to for our steadfast, dependable and uncompromising leadership."[3]
Du Bois writes in his Talented Tenth essay that black Americans must develop “the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst.” Later in Dusk of Dawn, Du Bois re-articulates this notion. He writes that “my own panacea of earlier day was flight of class from mass through the development of the Talented Tenth; but the power of this aristocracy of talent was to lie in its knowledge and character, not in its wealth.” |
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