In July of , a brazen American adventurer, William Walker, grabbed control in Nicaragua and proclaimed himself president, then legalized slavery, but a coalition of Latin American states overthrew him. America also eyed Cuba with envy. So after two attempts to take Cuba failed, and after Spain captured the American steamer Black Warrior on a technicality, three U.
Pierce was embarrassed and more fuel thrown on the Slavocracy theory. Caleb Cushing was sent to China on a goodwill mission. The Chinese were welcoming since they wanted to counter the British. Missionaries also sought to save souls; they largely kindled resent however.
Relations opened up Japan when Commodore Matthew C. The Southerners wanted a route through the South, but the best one would go through Mexico, so Secretary of War Jefferson Davis arranged to have James Gadsden appointed minister to Mexico.
Two reasons this was the best route: 1 the land was organized meaning any Indian attacks could be repelled by the U. A northern railroad would be less effective since it would cross over mountains and cross through Indian territory.
The South now appeared to have control of the location of the transcontinental railroad, but the North said that if the organization of territories was the problem, then Nebraska should be organized. Southerners had never thought of Kansas as a possible slave state, and thus backed the bill, but Northerners rallied against it. Nevertheless, Douglas rammed the bill through Congress, and it was passed, repealing the Missouri Compromise. Northerners no longer enforced the Fugitive Slave Law at all, and Southerners were still angry.
The Democratic Party was hopelessly split into two, and after , it would not have a president elected for 28 years. US History. Subject X Printer-friendly version. Need Help? Need Notes? About Course-Notes.
Be sure to include which edition of the textbook you are using! If we see enough demand, we'll do whatever we can to get those notes up on the site for you! Skip to main content. Printer Friendly. Congress gave land to railroad companies totally ,, acres. For railroad routes, companies were allowed alternate mile-square sections in checkerboard fashion, but until companies determined which part of the land was the best to use for railroad building, all of the land was withheld from all other users.
Grover Cleveland stopped this in Railroads gave land their value; towns where railroads ran became sprawling cities while those skipped by railroads sank into ghost towns, so, obviously, towns wanted railroads in them. Spanning the Continent with Rails Deadlock over where to build a transcontinental railroad was broken after the South seceded, and in , Congress commissioned the Union Pacific Railroad to begin westward from Omaha, Nebraska, to gold-rich California.
Many Irishmen, who might lay as much as 10 miles a day, laid the tracks. When Indians attacked while trying to save their land, the Irish dropped their picks and seized their rifles, and scores of workers and Indians died during construction. Over in California, the Central Pacific Railroad was in charge of extending the railroad eastward, and it was backed by the Big Four: including Leland Stanford, the ex-governor of California who had useful political connections, and Collis P.
Huntington, an adept lobbyist. The Central Pacific used Chinese workers, and received the same incentives as the Union Pacific, but it had to drill through the hard rock of the Sierra Nevada. In , the transcontinental rail line was completed at Promontory Point near Ogden, Utah; in all, the Union Pacific built 1, mi.
The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe stretched through the Southwest deserts and was completed the following year, in Hill, probably the greatest railroad builder of all. Railroad Consolidation and Mechanization Older eastern railroads, like the New York Central, headed by Cornelius Vanderbilt, often financed the successful western railroads.
Advancements in railroads included the steel rail, which was stronger and more enduring than the iron rail, the Westinghouse air brake which increased safety, the Pullman Palace Cars which were luxurious passenger cars, and telegraphs, double-racking, and block signals. Nevertheless, train accidents were common, as well as death.
Revolution by Railways Railroads stitched the nation together, generated a huge market and lots of jobs, helped the rapid industrialization of America, and stimulated mining and agriculture in the West by bringing people and supplies to and from the areas where such work occurred.
Railroads helped people settle in the previously harsh Great Plains. Due to railroads, the creation of four national time zones occurred on November 18, , instead of each city having its own time zone that was confusing to railroad operators. Railroads were also the makers of millionaires and the millionaire class. Wrongdoing in Railroading Railroads were not without corruption, as shown by the Credit Mobilier scandal.
Railroad owners abused the public, bribed judges and legislatures, employed arm-twisting lobbyists, elected their own to political office, gave rebates which helped the wealthy but not the poor , and used free passes to gain favor in the press.
Government Bridles the Iron Horse People were aware of such injustice, but were slow to combat it. The Grange was formed by farmers to combat such corruption, and many state efforts to stop the railroad monopoly occurred, but they were stopped when the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Wabash case, in which it ruled that states could not regulate interstate commerce, such as trains. The Interstate Commerce Act, passed in , banned rebates and pools and required the railroads to publish their rates openly so as not to cheat customers , and also forbade unfair discrimination against shippers and banned charging more for a short haul than for a long one.
Miracles of Mechanization In , the U. Now-abundant liquid capital. Fully exploited natural resources like coal, oil, and iron, the iron came from the Minnesota-Lake Superior region which yielded the rich iron deposits of the Mesabi Range.
The city grew from a small compact one that people could walk through to get around to a huge metropolis that required commuting by electric trolleys. Electricity, indoor plumbing, and telephones made city life more alluring. In cities, criminals flourished, and impure water, uncollected garbage, unwashed bodies, and droppings made cities smelly and unsanitary.
Worst of all were the slums, which were crammed with people. To escape, the wealthy of the city-dwellers fled to suburbs. The New Immigration Until the s, most of the immigrants had come from the British Isles and western Europe Germany and Scandinavia and were quite literate and accustomed to some type of representative government.
Southern Europe Uprooted Many Europeans came to America because there was no room in Europe, nor was there much employment, since industrialization had eliminated many jobs. America was also often praised to Europeans, as people boasted of eating everyday and having freedom and much opportunity.
Profit-seeking Americans also perhaps exaggerated the benefits of America to Europeans, so that they could get cheap labor and more money. However, it should be noted that many immigrants to America stayed for a short period of time and then returned to Europe, and even those that remained including persecuted Jews, who propagated in New York tried very hard to retain their own culture and customs.
However, the children of the immigrants sometimes rejected this Old World culture and plunged completely into American life. Among the people who were deeply dedicated to uplifting the urban masses was Jane Addams, who founded Hull House in to teach children and adults the skills and knowledge that they would need to survive and succeed in America.
She eventually won the Nobel Peace Prize in , but her pacifism was looked down upon by groups such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, who revoked her membership. The new cities also gave women opportunities to earn money and support themselves better mostly single women, since being both a working mother and wife was frowned upon. These new bigots had forgotten how they had been scorned when they had arrived in America a few decades before.
Trade unionists hated them for their willingness to work for super-low wages and for bringing in dangerous doctrines like socialism and communism into the U. Anti-foreign organizations like the American Protective Association APA arose to go against new immigrants, and labor leaders were quick to try to stop new immigration, since immigrants were frequently used as strikebreakers. Finally, in , Congress passed the first restrictive law against immigration, which banned paupers, criminals, and convicts from coming here.
In , another law was passed banning the importation of foreign workers under usually substandard contracts. Literacy tests for immigrants were proposed, but were resisted until they were finally passed in , but the immigration law also barred the Chinese from coming the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Ironically in this anti-immigratnt climate, the Statue of Liberty arrived from France—a gift from the French to America in Churches Confront the Urban Challenge Since churches had mostly failed to take any stands and rally against the urban poverty, plight, and suffering, many people began to question the ambition of the churches, and began to worry that Satan was winning the battle of good and evil.
The emphasis on material gains worried many. A new generation of urban revivalists stepped in, including people like Dwight Lyman Moody, a man who proclaimed the gospel of kindness and forgiveness and adapted the old-time religion to the facts of city life.
The Moody Bible Institute was founded in Chicago in and continued working well after his death. Roman Catholic and Jewish faiths were also gaining many followers with the new immigration. By , Americans could choose from religions, including the new Salvation Army, which tried to help the poor and unfortunate. Darwin Disrupts the Churches In , Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species, which set forth the new doctrine of evolution and attracted the ire and fury of fundamentalists.
They contended that the Bible was merely a collection of moral stories or guidelines, but not sacred scripture inspired by God. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll was one who denounced creationism, as he had been widely persuaded by the theory of evolution. Others blended creationism and evolution to invent their own interpretations. The Lust for Learning A new trend began in the creation of more public schools and the provision of free textbooks funded by taxpayers.
By , there were 6, high schools in America; kindergartens also multiplied. Catholic schools also grew in popularity and in number. It included public lectures to many people by famous writers and extensive at-home studies.
Americans began to develop a faith in formal education as a solution to poverty. Booker T.
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