The late nineteenth century witnessed a major shift in the American population as citizens moved from rural areas to the cities. Industrialization was the prime reason for the shift; farmers needed fewer workers to work their fields.
In 1834, Cyrus McCormick had invented the mechanical reaper. The same year, Hiram and John Pitts developed a combined portable threshing machine and fanning mill (winnowing machine). Then, John Deere developed a steel plow in 1837. The results of these inventions were that farmers could produce more products with fewer workers.
In 1860, Chicago had roughly 109,000 people in its population; by 1890, Chicago boasted a population of over 1 million people. New York City had over 1.5 million people by 1890, and Philadelphia had over 1 million citizens. Rural citizens and immigrants fueled the population boom. In comparison, the U.S. had only 1.3 million people total in 1753.*1*
Placing a large number of people in such a confined area posed significant challenges. Chicago had covered only 17 square miles in 1860, but it covered 178 square miles in 1890. (The city of Tuscaloosa covers only 56 square miles, while Tuscaloosa County covers 1,340 square miles.) Transportation systems had to develop to carry citizens between areas of the cities, especially from the outlying “bedroom community” areas to the central business districts. Boston built the nation’s first subway in 1897. New York opened its subway in 1904.
Sewage and water supply also posed major problems. Most transportation was still by horse, causing major sanitation problems. Furthermore, few cities had adequate water and sewer systems. New York City built vast reservoirs and aqueducts to pipe water into the city from upstate New York. Chicago pulled its water from Lake Michigan, but it also sent its sewage into the lake. The presence of large stockyards didn’t help the situation. Cholera epidemics were pervasive in Chicago. In 1889, the state of Illinois established the Sanitary District of Chicago, and in 1892 engineers broke ground on a 28-mile Sanitary and Ship Canal to reverse the flow of the Chicago River away from Lake Michigan, taking the city’s sewage with it. This canal is considered one of the 7 wonders of the engineering world.*2*
Space was also at a premium. Before the late 19th century, it was easier to build “out” rather than “up.” Buildings were limited in height by elevator and construction technology. Elisha Otis developed an automatic safety device for elevators in 1854. The first electric elevator began operating in 1889. In Chicago, Louis Sullivan developed building technology that allowed the construction of “skyscrapers” that towered above the landscape.
Skyscrapers were too expensive to house most tenants, however. Therefore, city life was often cramped and dirty for most residents.
From 1870 to 1890, over 7.5 million people immigrated to the U.S. from Europe. Most of these immigrants came from Eastern or Southern Europe: Poles, Czechs, Italians, Hungarians, Russians (mainly Jews fleeing persecution), and others. These immigrants, unlike the British and Irish immigrants before them, did not speak English and could not blend well with the native population. Also, most of these immigrants (like the Irish) were Catholic.
Immigration — both external and from rural areas — caused huge political problems for the “native” city-dwellers. As new residents gained voting rights, the power enjoyed by the older residential groups faced challenges from new ethnic groups.
Most urban governments were ill-equipped for this kind of change. Most cities operated under a mayor-council form of city government. Residents elected the mayor at large and councilmen in district elections. Councilmen came to represent more and more residents. Theoretically, the mayor considered the entire city in his decisions, while councilmen protected and advanced their own districts. In practice, the mayor-council system often led to political gridlock as councilmen refused to trade their districts’ rights and privileges. City governments also worked on the “spoils system” so pervasive in Washington, D.C.
In the midst of the political stalemates, political “machines” arose to facilitate the provision of city services. Councilmen represented far too many residents to know everyone, but ward leaders — the machines’ representatives in the lower levels — maintained familiarity with all the ward’s residents. Residents came to rely on their ward leaders more than on their councilmen. One famous ward leader, John “Honey” Fitzgerald (grandfather of John Fitzgerald Kennedy) later rose to become mayor of Boston.
Machine leaders benefited from contracts to provide city services as businessmen paid kickbacks to the machines to win the contracts. Machines later used this money to provide their own services in their wards. Councilmen relied on the machines to supply votes on Election Day.
While the machines may have helped smooth the transitions in a city from a small urban area to a large metropolis, the political corruption and graft they represented also won them formidable enemies. Machines represented the best way for upper-class residents to maintain control of city government.
Lower class residents needed an advocate on their behalf to improve their lives. In 1889, Jane Addams opened Hull House in Chicago. Hull House, and settlement houses across the nation based on its innovations, provided services to immigrants and the lower classes that city governments refused or could not provide. These services included citizenship classes to immigrants, sports for youth, and kindergartens for children. Settlement houses also gave reformers a place to begin working for better conditions for lower class city dwellers.
Reform Movements of the 1890’s
As industrialization spread across the nation, the problems it brought with it caused many people to initiate reform movements nationwide. These reform movements were often based in religious organizations such as churches and synagogues. Most of the major reform movements started in the American Church.
Darwinism caused a major stir from its inception with Charles Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin hypothesized that higher organisms were descended from lower organisms by a process called “natural selection.” Darwin posed his hypothesis based on his experiences aboard the H.M.S. Beagle as it sailed throughout the Pacific Ocean.
Darwin never intended for his theory to be extended to human civilization, but some quickly saw a correlation between “natural selection,” or “survival of the fittest,” and the society of the late 19th century. According to these people — both in Europe and the U.S. — natural selection had chosen those who would be at the top of society and those who would be at the bottom of society.
The Church fought this vigorously during the 19th and 20th centuries. Walter Rauschenbusch, a Baptist minister in Rochester, NY, advocated a “social gospel” that called on the Church to protect the poor and help them rise in society. The Social Gospel movement called on business owners to pay their employees a decent living wage and provide necessary benefits. The movement also advocated fair housing for all citizens.
Frances Willard expanded the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union during her presidency of the organization from 1879 to 1899. Many women in the nation became active in opposing the sale of alcohol. One of the movements most famous members was Carry Nation, who became known for her barroom smashing episodes with a hatchet.
Women’s suffrage was another major issue for women of this time. The Fourteenth Amendment had guaranteed voting rights to all males 21 years old or older, and the Fifteenth Amendment had guaranteed voting rights to all regardless of race. However, both amendments failed to say anything about women’s right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment actually split the suffrage movement over race, but the two parties reunited in 1890. The National American Woman Suffrage Association was organized in 1890, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as its first president. Stanton had been an abolitionist before the Civil War. In 1848, Stanton had attended the convention at Seneca Falls, NY that produced a statement calling for women’s suffrage.
Stanton was succeeded by Susan B. Anthony in 1982. By the end of the decade, 4 states — Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho — all allowed women to vote in state and local elections.
Foreign Expansion
For most of its history, Americans remembered the famous words of George Washington in his farewell address: “ It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”*3* For the most part, Americans wanted little to do with the outside world. James Monroe had stated the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning Europe not to attempt colonization or interference in affairs of the Western Hemisphere, but the nation had no means of enforcing Monroe’s words.
The situation changed following the Civil War. The U.S. now had a powerful army and navy following the years of fighting the South. During the War, the French emperor Napoleon III had invaded Mexico and installed an emperor in Mexico City. Following the War, the U.S. forced the French to stop supplying Maximillian’s troops, causing his defeat in 1866. Mexican republicans executed Maximillian in 1867.
The 1890’s were the height of the colonization of Africa and Asia by European powers. European nations colonized areas to provide raw materials to their factories and markets for their finished goods. Some American politicians and military experts feared that the U.S. was missing out on the colonial enterprise. American businessmen and farmers worried whether the nation could consume everything it was producing. By the end of the decade, the U.S. was exporting more than it imported.
Some applied Darwin’s theories to nations as well as to individuals. According to these people, only the nations powerful enough to win and maintain colonies were considered the “fittest.”
Alfred Mahan, a captain in the Navy, published his book The Influence of Seapower on History, 1660-1783 in 1890. Mahan believed the U.S. needed a modern navy to achieve a place with the major powers of the world. Powerful nations needed navies to protect their merchant fleets; navies needing bases and fueling stations around the globe to maintain a global presence. Mahan gained powerful supporters such as Theodore Roosevelt.
During Garfield’s presidency, Secretary of State James G. Blaine tried to negotiate a treaty to assure U.S. control of any canal built across Central America. Arthur and Cleveland’s governments negotiated trade treaties with nations in Latin America, but Congress refused to act on them because of their concessions in tariff policies.
Blaine had another chance with Benjamin Harrison’s presidency beginning in 1888. Blaine invited delegates from Latin American nations to a conference in Washington in 1889. Blaine wanted to create a customs union, but the Latin American nations feared American domination. Instead, the conference established the International Bureau of the American Republics, which was renamed the Pan-American Union in 1910. Blaine also negotiated trade treaties with several nations, including Argentina.
Harrison’s presidency also saw the beginnings of the modernization of the American navy. Congress authorized the money for 4 modern steel battleships that could give the U.S. a worldwide presence.
America’s first taste of colonialism came in Hawaii. Captain James Cook first discovered Hawaii in the 1770’s. American missionaries made great inroads in Hawaii in the 19th century. The U.S. and Hawaii signed a Treaty of Reciprocity in 1875 that allowed Hawaiian sugar and other products to enter the U.S. duty-free. Hawaii agreed to give no other nation any concession that would threaten the islands’ territorial integrity. In 1887, the nations renewed the treaty, and the American navy gained the use of Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
Unfortunately, white settlers began causing problems. When Queen Liliuokalani came to the throne in 1891, she began trying to reduce some of the power the American settlers had gained. In 1890, Congress passed the McKinley Tariff Act. The Act eliminated the duty-free status of Hawaiian sugar in favor of sugar cane growers in Louisiana and sugar beet growers in the West. The Hawaiian economy went into depression.
In 1892, during a dispute with settlers, the queen wrote a new constitution that eliminated many of the settlers’ advantages. Rebels who wanted to annex the islands to the U.S. started a revolt. The American government sent 150 marines to aid the rebellion. Liliuokalani surrendered to a provisional government. On 14 February 1893, the U.S. agreed to a treaty of annexation. Just as it seemed Hawaii would join the U.S., Cleveland — who had won re-election in 1892 — said the treaty should not be ratified until he took office again.
Hawaii may have been the first attempt at American expansion of power, but it would not be the last. The U.S. joined Great Britain and Germany in administering the islands of Samoa.
Farm Protests
The sugar concessions of the McKinley Tariff Act demonstrated the power of agrarian interests in the U.S. during the 1890’s. Rural discontent had been growing since the economic crises of the 1870’s. In the 1890’s, the discontent changed national politics.
The Republicans had passed the McKinley Tariff Act, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act (which required the government to buy 4.5 million ounces of silver each month) and the Sherman Antitrust Act to appease voters. Instead, the tariff raised prices on imported goods by as much as 50%; people traded in their silver Treasury notes for gold dollars, depleting the Treasury’s gold reserve; and the Antitrust Act was rarely enforced.
As a result of these policies, the Democrats found a strong base of support in the Midwest. The Republicans relied on moral and social issues, such as alcohol prohibition and the establishment of English as the sole language for education. The Democrats picked up Catholic and immigrant votes from these issues.
Then, a third force emerged. The Farmers Alliance, an outgrowth of the Grange movement from the 1870’s, began running candidates in the South and West. The Alliance won 9 seats in the House of Representatives and 2 Senators; they also helped elect Democratic candidates sympathetic to their cause across the South. The Alliance ran on three issues:
The Alliance also took a strong stand against the gold standard. This required the Alliance to take a stand against the Eastern establishment that supported the gold standard.
The Alliance worked at first by organizing cooperatives of farmers to negotiate prices with middlemen and with shipping companies. Alliance meetings gave farming families the opportunity to join together and alleviate the isolation many of them felt. When cooperatives failed to achieve their goals, the Alliance turned to politics.
At a meeting in St. Louis in 1889, Alliance representatives created the National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union. Charles Macune, president of the Texas Alliance, proposed a “subtreasury plan” to raise farm prices. Macune’s plan called for the government to build a series of warehouses — “subtreasuries” — to store crops until prices rose. This would offset the prevailing practice of farmers selling their products at the end of the growing season, when prices were lowest. In return for storing their crops in the subtreasuries, farmers would receive certificates of deposit for 80% of the existing market value of their crops with a 1% or 2% annual interest rate. Farmers would sell their crops when the prices rose, repay loans, and keep the profits. The certificates would represent another form of paper money that could be exchanged.
The subtreasury plan would greatly expand federal power in agriculture, and the nation was yet to see if it was ready for this kind of federal intervention in the economy.
Alliance successes in the South and West led to a party gathering in Ocala Florida in 1890. The Alliance issued the Ocala demands:
1. the subtreasury program would be enacted;
2. the abolition of private banks;
3. regulation of transportation facilities;
4. unlimited coinage of silver into money at a fixed ratio to gold;
5. an income tax;
6. restriction of aliens owning land in the U.S.; and
7. direct election of Senators rather than their appointment by state legislatures.
The Ocala meeting did not result in a third party, but after Southern Democrats began harassing Alliance members, the Alliance delegates to the 1892 St. Louis convention formed the People’s Party, or the Populists. The Alliance met again in Omaha, Nebraska on 4 July 1892 and nominated James B. Weaver as the Populist presidential candidate.
Congress never even considered the subtreasury plan. When the issue of silver coinage arose, the argument was that people would hoard their gold, spend their silver, and cause inflation in the country. Furthermore, international trade was supported by the gold standard. The Populists refused to believe the country would suffer internationally from coining silver or that rampant inflation would swallow savings.
In the 1892 election, the Republicans reluctantly re-nominated Harrison, though he had little support within the party. The Democrats re-nominated Grover Cleveland, the man Harrison had beaten in 1888. Neither candidate campaigned openly. The Populists in western states decided to join with the Democrats (who spoke little of Cleveland’s support of the gold standard) and elect Populist candidates on the state level and Democrats on the national level.
In 1892, a strike occurred at Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead steel plant near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The plant’s manager cut wages and refused to negotiate with the union representing his skilled workers. Pinkerton detectives, working for the company, terrorized the town of Homestead while strikebreakers retook the mills. Sate troops had to restore order, the plant manager was shot and stabbed (he survived), and the strike was broken. The Democrats took the side of the strikers; the Populists pointed out the farmers were also having troubles with the industrialists.
Democrats in the South turned to their time-honored means of defeating the Populists: terror and violence. Cleveland won the presidential election by over 400,000 votes; the Democratic Party won both houses of Congress.
A major point was crossed in American history in the 1890’s. In the 1890 census, the government announced the end of the “frontier.”
*1*Source: World Book Encyclopedia.
*2*Source: Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Available online: http://www.mwrdgc.dst.il.us/history.htm.
*3*Washington’s Farewell Address, available online: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/washing.htm.