After Reconstruction and the Industrial Revolution The End

After Reconstruction and the Industrial Revolution The End of Reconstructions and the Turn of the Century

Reconstruction (1865 -1877) • We know that as the Union worked to politically and socially rebuild the South that: • Radical Republicans, moderate presidents, and Southern Democrats disagreed about the integration of newly freed blacks • Congress (under the Radical Republicans) had freed the slaves, given them equal protection under the law, and allowed them to vote (enfranchisement) • Several establishments, organizations, and efforts either worked to help new freed blacks; and some that hindered their progress • • • Morehouse College Freedman’s Bureau 40 Acres and a mule Black Codes Ku Klux Klan • Eventually, political power returned to the Southern Democrats after the election of President Hayes in 1876 • Russia sells Alaska to the US

After the Fall of Reconstruction • According to scholars, there were three main causes for the failure of Reconstruction: • Northern whites were only superficially concerned with the equalitarian purposes of Reconstruction • Well-organized, and often violent resistance and opposition of Southern whites • The illiteracy, inexperience and poverty of the freed men • The South faced many obstacles: • 4 million new additions to the population • Building a new economy industrialization • politics • However, while the South was working to deal with their issues; the rest of the country was rapidly modernizing

Industrialization in America is on the Rise • Railroads • Impacted the steel industry; steel was used to lay railroad tracks • The railroads, as the single largest business in the United States at this time, also changed the way businesses were organized. (Central Pacific Railroad) • • Creation of nation-wide businesses government subsidies to railroads and private investments Professionally trained employees were needed New methods of accounting Internal organization led to the consolidation of many railroads • The construction of the transcontinental railroad would not have been possible had a large labor supply of immigrant labor not been available and without the public investment in railroads by land grants and guaranteed construction costs • Irish and German laborers; trouble working on railways because of nearby gold in California • Chinese laborers replaced them; paid lower wages many died during dangerous work

Development of the West • The federal government granted vast areas of western land to railroad owners • Railroad right-of-ways were 10 miles wide, plus 400 feet so the railroads could sell the land to help finance the cost of construction • The railroads earned money by transporting settlers west and goods east

New Technology Advances Industry and Life • The effects of technological advances made after Reconstruction forever changed how people lived • The most famous inventor of the period is Thomas Edison. He invented the electric light bulb, the phonograph, motion pictures, a system for distributing electrical power, and many other technologies powered by electricity • Edison also established the concept of industrial research, and he founded a research laboratory staffed by engineers and technicians in New Jersey • Edison’s technological achievements were used by other inventors, as evidenced by the development of long-distance electricity transmission, which enabled Edison’s electric light to illuminate buildings, streets, and neighborhoods across the United States