HIS152 Prof Dyke Foner Seagull Vol. II For study purposes only, do not submit for credit Guiding Questions Questions in ordinary type are based on the information from the textbook. Questions in italics are analytical; develop your own response based on your own critical thinking skills—not your personal beliefs. Chapter 16 Part 2 13) What is meant by the term “Gilded Age”? 14) Briefly describe how corruption in government worked. Interesting fact: “Twice, in 1876 and 1888, the candidate with an electoral college majority trailed in the popular vote” (p. 631). This has happened two more times in US history: 2000 (Bush v. Gore), and 2016 (Trump v. H. Clinton). What do you think? Is the electoral college fair to the majority? 15) What was the importance of the Civil Service Act of 1883? 16) What was the goal of the Interstate Commerce Commission? Contrast this with the info in the text box >>. What does this mean? 17) What was the goal of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act? Contrast it with the finding in the text box below: Read this short excerpt to find out how the Supreme Court undermined the Sherman Act: https://www.britannica.com/event/U nited-States-v-E-C-Knight-Company Privately he called it [the ICC Act] “a delusion and a sham. . . . An empty menace to the great, made to answer the clamor of the ignorant and the unreasoning.” From Jack Beatty, Age of Betrayal (Vintage Books, 2007), p. 219 18) What did the Granger movement (the Patrons of Husbandry) hope to accomplish? 19) Read carefully the section “Freedom, Inequality and Democracy”, and the next section on Social Darwinism. What view of society and democracy is presented here? Are there still Social Darwinists in American politics today? How can we tell? 1 20) Read carefully about the “liberty of contract.” How did this hurt ordinary workers? How did the Supreme Court rule on these matters? In terms of the national economy, who won? Who lost? 21) How did strikes (like the railroad strike) and the Knights of Labor confront the challenge of “liberty of contract”? 22) What was the goal of the middle-class reformers? 23) How did mainstream Protestants tackle the issue of social reform? 24) What was the Social Gospel? Would this movement be popular today? Think about what you and your friends, as well as your employers, might regard this idea. 25) Briefly describe the Haymarket Affair. Who won? Who lost? What were the long term effects of this incident on labor unions? 2 HIS152 Prof Dyke Foner Seagull Vol. II For study purposes only, do not submit for credit Guiding Questions Questions in ordinary type are based on the information from the textbook. Questions in italics are analytical; develop your own response based on your own critical thinking skills—not your personal beliefs. Chapter 16 Part 1 1) From the Focus Questions in the book on page 603: How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period? 2) What is a “trust”? What would we call that nowadays? 3) Be able to describe and distinguish between horizontal and vertical integration. 4) Why was “freedom” not an accurate word to describe the condition of workers in the industrial age? [Think about the song “Sixteen Tons”, but be more specific.) 5) What was the “frontier thesis” of Frederick Jackson Turner? Why was he wrong about this? 6) What made farming on the Great Plains so tough? 7) What does Hollywood get wrong about real cowboys? 8) Describe the contribution of Chinese laborers. 9) Be able to summarize the treatment of the Plains Indians. Compare and contrast it with this excerpt from a famous historian: From the beginning, then, the American tendency was to attack and destroy, then build. . . . The Indian fighter was the advance agent of civilization, doing good and necessary work for the future benefit and prosperity of the United States. For the American public, . . . no reward was too great for those who drove the Indian out of the path of progress. . . . Settlers used the Indians to prove their own economic ideas—removal of the red men was just, because they had not improved the land . . .If he stood in the way, he had to be moved. This fixed idea sprang, in part, from the nearly universally held notion that the United States had a “manifest destiny” to overspread the continent. Nothing could stand in the way of that achievement, not treaties, not truth, not courage, not suffering, nothing. No boundary lines were fixed and final, not until they became American boundaries. Stephen Ambrose, Crazy Horse and Custer (Meridian/New American Library, 1975) 1 Here is our class definition of Manifest Destiny. Compare it to the info from the textbook: The God-given right to acquire wealth by whatever means necessary. 10) Summarize the Dawes Act. How did it benefit settlers? How did it hurt the Indians? 11) Describe what happened at the Wounded Knee Massacre from the perspective of whites and of Indians. 12) How did the myth of the “Wild West” contrast with the reality? Chapter 16 Part II forthcoming 2
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