Chapter 19: The South and the West Transformed

• Urbanization

• Entrepreneurs in the north sought to exploit undeveloped regions

• People moving and populating a location

• Industrialization 

• *same as above*

• Development of industries in undeveloped regions

The Myth of the New South

• New South: “presents a perfect democracy” of small farms and diversifying industries

• Henry W. Grady

• Major prophet of the so-called New South during the 1880s

• Editor of the Atlanta Constitution

• Believed in the promise of a real democracy

• Old South: “rested everything on slavery and agriculture, unconscious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy growth”

• Vocational Training

• Promote regional prosperity, sectional peace, and racial harmony

• Form of education

• Growth of textile industry in the south

• Produced cotton-based bedding and clothing

• Surpasses New England as the largest producer of cotton fabric

• The Duke Family and the rise of tobacco industry

• North Carolina

• Washington Duke sold tobacco in small pouches with his wagon and 2 mules

• Builds a factory which produced 125,000 pounds annually

• American Tobacco Company

• James Buchanan “Buck” Duke wanted greater success than his father

• Lots of advertising

• Mass production of cigarettes

• Duke brought many competitors under the American Tobacco Company

• Controlled 9/10 of nation's cigarette production

• Coal production: grew from 5 million tons (1875) to 49 million tons (1900)

• Birmingham, Alabama

• Sprang up in the 1870s in the shadow of Red Mountains

• Iron ore

• “Pittsburgh of the south”

• South around 1900: least urban, least industrialized, least educated, and least prosperous region

• Reality of farms in the south

• Majority of southern farmers were not flourishing 

• Prolonged deflation in crop prices affected the entire population during the last third of the 19th century

• Sharecropping

• Poverty → sharecroppers or tenants

• (sharecroppers) labor ⇔ seed, fertilizer, supplies, crops

• (tenants) entitled taking ost of the crops, not much better off

• Crop-lien system: rural merchants furnish supplies to small farm workers ⇔ liens (mortgages) on their future crops

• Literacy rates in the south: 

• 11% of whites were illiterate

• 50% blacks illiterate

• Downside to cash crops

• Prices drop

• The more cotton the lower the prices

• Farmers borrowed money and struggled to get out of debt

• Redeemers

• Supposedly served the south from Yankee domination

• Eager to promote diversity

• Supported post-war democratic leaders

• Bourbons

• Said to have forgotten nothing and learned nothing

• Named after the French royal family

• Black suffrage post-Reconstruction

• White supremacy tolerated a lingering black voice in politics

• Quickly raised barriers of racial segregation in public places

• Bourbons disenfranchised African-American voters to ensure white control

• Segregation in the south

• Schools, churches, hotels, rooming houses, and private social relations

• Public accommodation → trains, depot, theatres, and diners

The New West

• Great Plains

• Land in the west

• Grassy

• Flatland between Rockies and Mississippi River

• Demographic of Great Plains

• Indians, Mexicans, Asians, trappers, miners, and Mormons

• Pioneers and two-fisted gunslingers

• Miners (California) moved east and Texas cowboys move into the Utah Great Basin

• Anglo-Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, Europeans, and Chinese immigrants transformed the patterns of western society and culture

• Poor could not relocate

• Mostly men

• Largest number of immigrants from northern Europe and Canada

• Northern Plains ⇒ Germans, Scandinavians, and Irish

• Nebraska ⇒ (1870) ¼ of 123,000 residents were foreign-born

• North Dakota ⇒ 45%

• 200,000 Chinese arrived in California

• Exodusters: thousands of African-Americans migrate away from the south

• Colorado and mining

• South Platte River (near Pikes Peak) → gold

• Brought ≈ 100,000 59ers

• Nevada and Mining

• The Comstock Lode was discovered near Gold Hill, Nevada

• H.T.P. Comstock was a Canadian-born fur trapper drifted to the Carson River diggings (1856)

• Gold and Silver

• Due to settlers attraction, Nevada became a territory

• 1864 statehood

• Sand Creek Massacre

• Colorado governor promises Indians protection at Sand Creek (Fort Lyon)

• Colonel John M. Chivington’s untrained militia attacks an Indian camp with a white flag

• Red River War (1874-1875)

• Sioux agreed to settle within Black Hills Reservation in the Dakota Territory

• Indian resistance ⇒ general Philip Sheridan forced the Indians to disband

• 72 Indian chiefs imprisoned for 3 years

• Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer

• Reckless and glory-seeking

• Led an exploratory expedition into the Black Hills

• Miners flood to Black Hills despite promises that the army would keep them out

• Great Sioux War

• Largest military event since Civil War

• Campain against Indians

• 15 months long and 15 battles

• Led by Sitting Bull

• Custer finds the Sioux and Cheyenne allies on the Little Bighorn River

• Custer + troops annihilated

• Sitting Bull: Sioux leader

• Battle of Little Bighorn: Indians defeat Custer’s troops

• Other Indian Wars

• Blackfeet and Crows leave Montana

• Utes leave West Colorado

• Modocs leave California-Oregon

• Nez Perce leave Idaho

• Geronimo

• Chief of Chiricahua Apaches

• Indian Wars end (1886) with his capture

• Fought white settlers in the Southwest for 15 years

• Ghost Dance

• (1888) Wovoka (Jack Wilson) dreams of Indian Redemption

• Wovoka says to hasten this deliverance “Indians must take up a ceremonial dance at each new moon”

• Fed upon old legends of a coming messiah

• Spread rapidly

• Wounded Knee

• (South Dakota) accidental rifle discharge led nervous soldiers to fire into a group of surrendering Indians

• 200 Indians + 25 soldiers died here

• A century of Dishonor

• Helen Hunt Jackson - novelist and poet

• Focused on Indian cause

• 1881

• Dawes Act

• Sponsored by Senator Henry L. Dawes (Massachusetts)

• Act of dividing tribal lands and dividing tribes into family groups & granting 160 acres per family head and less to non-family heads

• Abilene (Kansas)

• Joseph G. McCoy- Illinois livestock investor

• First successful Kansas cowtown

• Use of railroads to move cattle to Kansas

• Joseph Glidden

• Illinois farmer

• Invented barbed wire

• Struggle of Prarie Life

• Unforgiving environment and mercurial weather

• Land cheap but other things not

• Freight rates high

• Indebtedness

• Bad soil

• Buffalo dung (chips)

• Battle with elements

• James Oliver

• A Scottish immigrant

• Chilled-iron plow

• Bonanza Farm

• In Minnesota, Dakotas, and Central California

• Big farms with machinery for mass production

• Small Farmers

• Couldn’t keep up

• (1890s) in open revolt against the “system” of corrupt processors (middlemen) and “greedy” bankers who they believed conspired against them

• Pioneer Women: fight for survival ⇒ equal partners between men and women

• 1890: National census reported that people were across the entire continent

• Frederick Jackson Turner

• Developed an influential frontier thesis

• “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” → delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893

Chapter 20