HIS 220B:U.S. History: Reconstruction through

Contemporary Times

Michele BrewsterJune 2015

Periodizing U.S. History for HIS 220B• 500-1500: Balance of Powers• 1500-1750: Unsettling of World Powers• 1750-1950s/60s: European Domination and Racism

– Force / Violence / Legalized Segregation– Global Imperialism / Colonialism

• 1945-1980s: Cold War– U.S., U.S.S.R., China Engage in Ideological and Military Conflict– Proxy Wars: Superpowers fight each other in smaller

countries: Vietnam as one example– 1960s: Global Decolonization and Civil Rights Movement

• Today: Return to a balance of powers, but highly intensified economic interdependence

15th-19th centuries (1400s-1800s):Transatlantic Slave Trade Drove:

• Forced immigration• Globalization based on International capitalism

• Exploitation of a Cheap, Racialized Labor Force – This principle continues today though in a different

form• Outsourcing labor to 3rd World Countries• Labor and Sex trafficking

15th-19th centuries (1400s-1800s):

• Colonialism and Settler Colonialism was global and transnational

• There was a “specific pan-European understanding of a settler colonial sovereign capacity.” (Lorenzo Veracini, 2)

Progressing Toward Chattel Slavery in the Colonial U.S. Early 1600s to Early 1700sAfrican laborers worked alongside indentured and free Europeans and Native Americans and had more rights and freedoms. They could bring suits against people and had the rights of citizens in some ways. Interracial marriages between African and white servants were not taboo. Most labor was done by English indentured servants. Compare this with…. Late 1600s to Late 1700sSalt water slaves / Plantation generation / Chattel slaveryBegan in the Chesapeake on tobacco plantations/ Most labor by slaves. As conditions improved in England, less indentured servants were willing to leave home and work abroad.

Racism and Racist Laws Created for Economic Benefits of one class

over another

• 1662 Virginia Law – Made slavery hereditary based on condition of mother

• 1663 – Maryland Law – All blacks brought to the colony were automatically enslaved

• 1664 – Maryland forbade marriage between black men and white women

• 1667 Virginia Law – slaves were to maintain that status for life

1861-1865: Civil War

• Industrial North vs. Agricultural, Slaveholding South

1865-1877: Reconstruction

• “How to create an interracial democracy?”

1877-1918: From the End of Reconstruction to the Start of WWI

• The Role of Racism and White Egalitarianism in creating new economies:– Jim Crow in the South and in the Southwest• Native-Americans, Asian-Americans, Mexican-

Americans and African-Americans kept in inferior neighborhoods and inferior jobs through legislative sanction (e.g. Supreme Court and State court cases)

Legalized Segregation

• 1896: Plessy vs. Ferguson– Homer Plessy and 1st Class train ticket – Sat in a section for white people and was made to

leave– His lawyers argued he was denied equal

protection under the law (14th amendment)• Supreme Court ruled against Plessy– Equal, but separate conditions– (We know that this was not equal….)

Wilmington, NC Riot of 1898

• Young editor of a local black newspaper – The Wilmington Record

• Published scathing editorial regarding sexual exploitation of black women

• His publication location was burned down• Many black people were killed– They tried to hold their ground and stay, but law

enforcement worked against them

Destruction of the Manly printing press for the Wilmington RecordNovember 10, 1898

Post-Reconstruction Tactics to deny black male suffrage

• Lynching; violence• Literacy Tests• Grandfather Clauses• Poll tax– By 1908,used in all southern state– Disenfranchised poor whites too

Lynchings

• 1889-1932: 2-3 lynchings per week (3,000)• Postcards were sent to show others the massacre• Ida B. Wells wrote anti-lynching information in her

newspaper, Free Speech– Questioned the supposed rape of white women as the rationale

for lynching• Exposed this charge as “the old racket,” a common trumped-up charge

• She toured Britain saying, “how civilized could America be if it tolerated a barbaric practice like lynching?”

• This awakened northern complacency and public opinion (425)

Ana Julia Cooper (105 years old)Born 1858Died 1964Received her PhD in history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, 1924

The 4th African-American woman to earn a doctoral degree

Saw higher education as the route for African-American women’s advancement…Education would provide self-reliance and the ability to earn a livelihood

Ana Cooper’s Home in WashingtonDC

The M Street High School (Perry School) in Washington D.C.One of the country’s first public high schools for African American students, founded in 1870 as Preparatory High School for African-American youth / Cooper served as Principal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHW-jb6mSvg

African-American Migration into Kansas, OK, California

• Took advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862: for land, education, jobs, to vote

• 1865-1880: 20,000 African-Americans moved into Kansas• By 1900, blacks possessed 1.5 million acres and had more than

24 towns in Oklahoma– 1889: Legislation dispossessed indigenous nations in Oklahoma

• By 1900: 11,000 African Americans living in California– By 1900, there were 50 black towns in the west, including

Allensworth, California• By 1910: 22,000 African Americans living in California• By 1930s and 1940s: African-Americans and further migration

out of the south

Allensworth, California – founded by Allen Allensworth in 1908Founded, financed and governed by African Americans – a self-sufficient, all- black city where African Americans could live their lives free of discrimination

Motto of Allensworth, California by Colonel Allen Allensworth

• “Never abandon the high ground of right for the low lands and swamps of expediency. No man was ever lost in a straight road.”

1877-1918: From the End of Reconstruction to the Start of WWI

• Government supported industrial capitalism over the rights of workers– Legal decisions– Suppression of major strikes (435)

• 1886: 1400 strikes involving 500,000 workers• 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Company• Knights of Labor (In-Class Reading)• IWW (Movie: Reds) (In-Class Reading)

• 1860: 140,000 factories• 1900: 512,000 factories• By 1900: 2/3 labor force in factories

– Carnegie Steel• Vertical Integration for unprecedented consolidation on an unimagined scale

– Kodak Cameras– Otis Elevator– Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone– James B. Duke and the American Tobacco Co.

The Railroads, Government Protection and Subsidies

• 1860: 30,000 miles• 1900: 200,000 miles

• Led to a greater need for coal, iron, steel

John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil

• By 1890s: Rockefeller controlled 90% of the oil business– Predatory Pricing– Vertical and Horizontal Integration

Industrial Capitalism and the Need for New Markets…

• 1870-1900: Industrial output in the U.S. quintupled– Consumer goods such as Wrigley’s gum, cereal,

cookies, cigarettes• Cookies required a lot of sugar

• Producers wanted new markets

Industrial Capitalism and the Need for New Markets…

• American businessmen saw that Europe had colonized more of the Caribbean, Africa and Asia – Could damage American business profits

1877-1918: From the End of Reconstruction to the Start of WWI

• From Continental to Overseas Empire:• Alaska 1867 (purchased from Russia)• Hawaii (July 7, 1893) (overthrow of Queen

Lili’uokalani)• U.S.-Philippine War: 1898-1902 (After the PI

defeated the Spanish)– Philippine-American War officially ended July 4, 1902

• Puerto Rico (Oct 18, 1898) (Sp/Am War)• Cuba (1898-1902)

Imperialism in Africa 1914

Imperialism in the Caribbean 1900s

1877-1918: From the End of Reconstruction to the Start of WWI

• Socialism vs. the Industrial Capitalism Debate

• Socialism– To equitably distribute basic resources and wealth– Revolution as a means to start this process– People can also make demands via unions or strikes

• Fair pay, hours, working conditions

– The state exists to protect the public’s interests: schools, safety, infrastructure, medical care

• The Problem with Capitalism from a Socialist perspective:• Required to pay the lowest wages in order to maximize profit• People are alienated from the product of their labor

The Debate: Socialism vs. Industrial Capitalism

• Free Labor – Abraham Lincoln and the Homestead Act (pro-capitalism)

• Social Darwinism (pro-capitalism): – Survival of the Fittest– Non-whites “unfit for self-rule

• Neoliberalism: The individual must compete for himself or herself; the environment is not a factor (pro-capitalism)

The Great Migration

• A social movement• Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington both

opposed the Great Migration since their economics was tied to the land

• Yet many blacks ignored the opposition and set up networks called “Link Migration”

• They had to “get away” as if it was an international border rather than moving within the states– white businessmen did not want their chief labor source

to leave

The Great Migration

• Until 1910s: 90% of African Americans remained in the south

• First large wave of black migrants began around 1915

• By 1940, almost 2 million blacks had left the south for the north

Push-Factors• Low wages• Sharecropping as a dead end / perpetual debt• Boll weevil and floods• Legalized segregation (“keeping one’s place or having to call a

little white boy ‘mister’)• Sexual exploitation• Lynching, racial and mob violence

– Felt their lives were at risk all the time• Almost no public high schools for blacks• Blacks could not serve as jurors• Standards to accuse and convict blacks were much lower than

for whites

Pull Factors

• Labor shortages during WWI• Ebb of European immigrants• Northern industries receive huge orders for war

materials• Thousands of new industrial jobs available• Higher wages• Women in domestic work or industrial work• Excitement of city life• Better and greater number of schools

The Impact and Changes Wrought by World War I

• Over 1 million women entered the workforce– though non-white and, working-class and

immigrant women had already been working• 25,000 served as nurses• Led to demands for suffrage– June 1919: Senate passed the 19th amendment

• Great Migration– 500,000 blacks migrated to the north

The Impact and Changes Wrought by World War I

• Increase of State Surveillance– The Draft– APL had 25,000 men and pursued draft dodgers• Slacker Raid of September 3-5, 1918• APL members paid $50 for each “deserter” they

brought to camp• Volunteer organization but used as auxiliary of the state• Used coercion and patriotism to enforce state policy

The Impact and Changes Wrought by World War I

• Increase in State Surveillance– German Internment Camps– 7,000 German Americans interned for perceived

allegiance ot Germany– German-Americans would turn in a neighbor– German Americans were deported– German books taken out of libraries– Socialist newspapers taken out of libraries, post

offices– Volunteers considered these activities as patriotic

The Impact and Changes Wrought by World War I

• Supreme Court Decisions, Executive Orders, State and local laws took on new pervasiveness in American life

• PUSH BACK: PROMPTED INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP RESISTANCE AND LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR THE “RIGHTS REVOLUTION” IN THE 20TH CENTURY– Ordinary Americans can use the law to fight for rights

• State as protector of its citizens but also persecutor of its citizens

African Americans and World War I

• 380,000 enlisted• 40,000 fought– “The Fighting Fifteenth”– “Harlem Hellfighters” / 369th Infantry

• 1917: Du Bois and the NAACP – encouraged blacks to join as long as blacks led other blacks into battle

Labor Problems Continue after WWI

• Labor demanded industrial democracy• 1919: 3,500 strikes (1 in 5 workers)• WHY?– 12-hour workday– Worked 7 days a week

• Oct. 1919: 350,000 steel workers

Los Angeles TimesNovember 22, 1919

Problems between 1873-1893

• Rapid industrialization• Inadequate Monetary System• Agricultural Distress• Labor Protest

Debate between Booker T. Washington and

W.E.B. Du Bois

• Booker T. Washington– Founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama– 1895: Gave a speech at the Atlanta Exposition

• Segregation as temporary accommodation between the races in return for white support of black efforts for education, social uplift and economic progress

• W.E.B. Du Bois– 1903: The Souls of Black Folk– Criticized Washington for conciliation and submission to

the south– Must adhere to high ideals and aspirations