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Darwin's Origin Of Species introduced theories like natural selection and survival of the fittest. Americans took this language and used it to explain success and failure in a social aspect. This became known as Social Darwinism and prompted people of higher classes to ask the government not to assist the poor or give their corporations less power.
Mark Twain and Charles Dudley's book, the Gilded age suggests that the age they are living in
appears golden on the outside, but is
consumed by greed and corruption.
The Era was named after
It.
1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn
General Custard of the U.S. army was sent to confront the Native American force after the government demanded Native Americans stay on reservation territory. The Native Americans, angered that Americans were mining on their sacred land and forcing confusing policy at them, banded together under Sitting Bull, a charismatic Lakota tribe warrior. Custard and all of his men were slain and only 50 Native Americans fell in battle.
1877: Munn V Illinois, Great Railroad strike, REconstruction ends:
Munn V. Illinois asserted that state governments can regulate private industries for the common good. Waite, for the Court, took a broad view of the state's police power. He argued that the states may regulate the use of private property "when such regulation becomes necessary for the public good."
1879: George’s progress and poverty
Henry George wrote a book titled progress and poverty. The book didn’t have any direct governmental influence but took the public by storm. Henry George believed the solution to poverty would be a” single tax that levied heavily on the increase of real estate.” While not everyone believed in the solution, the explanations of social and economic issues within the United States resonated with most people.
1881: Sitting Bull imprisoned: Sitting Bull, the leader of the Native American tribes who fought at little big horn, surrendered his rifle in 1881. The tribes were on the brink of starvation as they were on land with low amounts of resources, and the rapid killing of buffalo made it hard for them to survive.
1883: Railroad companies create four time zones, civil service act, What social classes owe to each other: The major railroad companies in 1883 all came together and divided the US into four time zones. This indicates just how important they were to the economy. The civil service act was passed by Congress, which gets rid of the spoils system, allowing for government workers to be elected by a civil service commission. William Graham writes a book, what do the social classes owe each other? It’ basically answers that question with the word nothing.
1884: Elk V.S. Wilkins, The Cooperative Commonwealth:
Elk V.S. Wilkins decided that native Americans couldn’t become citizens without the consent of the government. The first book to popularize socialist ideas to an American audience was the cooperative commonwealth. The belief that the government should control certain private corporations was spread.
1886: Haymarket affair, Wabash v.s. Illinois, the statue of liberty dedicated: The Knights of Labor was working repeated strikes on companies. After the company announced they required less labor for higher machinery, a bitter strike resulted. Violence erupted with the union members and police and four of the union members were hanged. In protest of the hanging speeches were made at Haymarket square. A man threw a bomb at a police officer and the police opened fire on union members, painting it as a violent foreign socialist group. The Wabash v Illinois case limited state control over interstate commerce.
1886
1887: Dawes act, interstate commerce commission created: The Dawes act divided up Native American land in an attempt to auction off pieces of it to them in exchange for becoming U.S. citizens. The result was a takeover of much Indian land by white farmers. The interstate commerce commission was made to make sure railroad companies were giving farmers reasonable rates for shipping their goods and weren’t favoring certain shipping companies.
1888 Edward Bellamy's looking backward: A very influential book about a socialist utopia in the future.
1890: Jacob Rii’s how the other half lives. Sherman anti-trust act, Massacre at wounded knee: How the other half lives, a photo book that exposed the conditions of the lives of many immigrant Americans. Out-lawed monopolistic business acts, ending some of the precedents set during the Gilded Age. Near wounded knee creak, the U.S. soldiers went to disarm the Lakota tribe, it ended in a massacre of native Americans.
1890: Jacob Rii’s how the other half lives. Sherman anti-trust act, Massacre at wounded knee: How the other half lives, a photo book that exposed the conditions of the lives of many immigrant Americans. Out-lawed monopolistic business acts, ending some of the precedents set during the Gilded Age. Near wounded knee creak, the U.S. soldiers went to disarm the Lakota tribe, it ended in a massacre of native Americans.
1894: Henry Demarest, Llyods Wealth against commonwealth: Attacked monopolies like standard oil. The book also went after companies that destroyed nature. “Nature is rich; but everywhere man, the heir of nature, is poor.”
1895: United States V. E.C. Knight. CO Limited the U.S. governments ability to control monopolies. E.C. Knight was a sugar refining company with a monopoly on sugar distribution. The question was, can the U.S. control monopolies on the distribution of goods as well as production? It ruled in favor of E.C. Knight.
1899: Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class: Very anti-establishment book on how corporations and businessmen are only concerned with making money, while workers have to cooperate for them.
1905: Lochner v. New York: The Bakeshop act in New York prevents Bakers from working 60 hours a week. In this case, it was claimed unconstitutional. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes commented, "decided upon an economic theory which a large part of the country does not entertain."