Guilded age 1877-1900
Presidents:
Hayes – civil service reform, railroad strike 1877
Garfield - civil service reform, Post office reform (got rid of a star route leader)
Arthur - civil service reform, federal immigration law, Chinese exclusion act, tariff act 1883
Cleveland - civil service reform, vetoed Texas seed bill
Foreign policy:
Navy – expanded navy
Hawaii – imported Hawaiian sugar duty free, economically dependant on US, renewed
treaty with pearl harbour
Latin America – Pan-America conference, US should act as leader + countries would
benefit from trade with US
Social:
AA – KKK, sharecroppers, vote taken away in south, 13th amendment
NA – Americanisation, the Dawes Plan, manifest destiny, battle of wounded knee
Immigration – sped up industrialisation, cheap labour, escaping persecution from home
country
Economy:
Big business – Vanderbilt (railroads), Rockefeller (Standard oil), J.P.Morgan (finance),
Carnegie (steel)
Technology innovation – Thomas Edison (lightbulb), Alexander Bell (telephone)
Imperialization/Progressivism 1890-1912
Presidents:
Mckinley – 1896 election
Roosevelt - progressive measures = anti-trust measures, 1903 department of commerce
and labour act, 1906 Hepburn act, conservation
Taft – anti-trust policies, power to interstate Commision, federal income tax, corporation
tax
Foreign policy:
Imperialism – accidental empire, progressive imperialism, need for markets, open door,
end of westward expansion, preclusive imperialism
, Pacific – Samoa (preclusive imperialism), Hawaii annexed 1898, Purchase of Philippines
from Spain after Spanish American war $20 mill
Latin America – Puerto Rico (invaded 1898), Venezuela
Spanish-American war = Philippines, Guantanamo Bay, yellow press, isle of Guam, Cuban
independence recognised
Cuba – Platt amendment
Panama Canal – helped revolt and they accepted US offer of $10 mill for 16km strip of land
to create canal
Nicaragua – close proximity to pacific/Atlantic
Dominican Republic – defaulted on loan worth $40 mill = 1904 Roosevelt took control of
the customs revenue to pay off debt
Social:
AA – South stopped AA from voting (grandfather clause, $2 poll tax, literacy test), Booker T
Washington, Niagara movement, 1912 lost right to serve in juries
Immigration – Sped up industrialization, seen as waste of resource, had jobs within hours
of landing in the country, cheap labour, strike break
Economic:
Industrial growth – iron production 10.3 mill tonnes 1900, modern oil production (lucas
well in spindlehop 70,000-110,000 barrels per day closed quickly), trust and monopolies
Depression of 1893 – reading railroad declared bankruptcy, industrial black Friday, repeal
of the silver purchase act, rise of progressivism
Agricultural discontent – farmers S+W not experiencing prosperity like ind, failing
agricultural prices
Trade unions – Pittsburgh Steelworkers Strike 1892, Pullman Strike 1894
Emergence on world stage 1912-1920
Presidents:
Wilson - banking reform, clayton anti-trust act, underwood tariff, income tax, revenue cat
1916, federal child labour act 1916, workmen's compensation act 1916, Adamson act,
second term = involvement WW1
Foreign policy: mainly neutral but not really (favoured allies)
Moral diplomacy – connections with us benefitted others
Latin America – intervention to stop LA corrupt officials from spending US money on their
own interests
