The Gilded Age In America
The American West
In 1860 the United States was bounded on the west by California and Oregon; the eastern portion of the country reached to the states that bordered on the Mississippi River plus Texas. The vast area in between included the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, soon to become the last frontier of America. Native American tribes populated the region, including the Sioux, Blackfoot, Pawnee, Apache, Navajo, Nez Perce, Cheyenne and others. Unlike the rich, lush farmland in the eastern part of the United States, the Great Plains stretched for mile upon mile with barely a tree in sight, with low annual rainfall that often left the land dry and parched. In the Rockies deposits of silver, copper, gold, lead and other minerals were waiting to be exploited. By the end of the Civil War the state of Kansas poked into the West, but the rest of the territory was but sparsely settled. That would soon change.
Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”: Around 1890 historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave an address to the World Congress of Historians in Chicago in which he put forth what has become known as the “Frontier Thesis.” His essential idea was that through repeated frontier experiences, from the time of the arrival of the first English settlers, Americans have been exposed to conditions which encouraged the development and growth of democratic ideas. This contact with what were often primitive conditions also generated certain kinds of traits in Americans—a willingness to take risks, energy, a practical rather than theoretical turn of mind, and a sense of self-reliance and rugged individualism. Having survived these frontier experiences, Americans also developed a high degree of self-confidence and a powerful belief in their own destiny as a people and a nation.
Although critics have dissected Turner’s ideas, which he elaborated in later writings, they may easily be connected with other ideas about the nature of American society, such as Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and with philosophies such as “manifest destiny,” which emerged in the 19th century. By itself the frontier thesis cannot explain “Americanism” in any definitive way, but taken together with other historical theories, it does make some sense. The vast extent of territory between the Atlantic and Pacific, the natural resources, the constant fighting with Indians and the isolation from most international struggles until the beginning of the 20th century all contributed to what can be defined as the American character, though like most generalizations such terms must be used with caution.
In any case, when the Civil War ended Americans did go west, in great numbers. They went in search of gold and silver or other mineral riches, of land, of space and of opportunity. Some travelers came from families who had been here for generations, some were immigrants who passed quickly through the teeming eastern cities and found themselves in the Rocky Mountains or the Great Plains, often gathering within close-knit ethnic communities of Germans, Swedes or Poles.
That view of the West has a certain vitality and charm—brave pioneers facing the elements with only what they could carry in a covered wagon; but it also has an ugly side: gross and careless exploitation of resources, or the driving of Indians who had lived in western areas for centuries onto reservations often hundreds of miles from their native soil. That rugged American individualism, which so many have admired, has also led from time to time to less-than-admirable behaviors: a certain degree of lawlessness, a don’t-give-a-damn self-centeredness and a healthy contempt for even legitimate authority.
For good or ill, the pioneers came, they saw and they conquered. They plowed and farmed and built and mined and hunted. They brought millions of acres of what was once thought to be desert land into cultivation. They hammered down thousand of miles of railroad track and discovered passes through the formidable mountain ranges. They constructed villages and towns and cities in areas that had been virtually uninhabited as far back as one could trace, providing what some have called a kind of safety valve for the often squalid conditions in the eastern factories and cities. America, it has been said, had only one revolution (unless one counts the Civil War) because a necessary ingredient of revolution is discontent, and Americans who were discontented could always go somewhere else—in most cases without even thinking about leaving their country.
All of those factors outlined above were a powerful force in the late 19th century, and they combined with another, perhaps even more powerful force, the second industrial revolution. The two phenomena—the frontier and the boom in industry—complemented and fed off one another. Industry helped build the railroads, tamed the Great Plains for farmers and ranchers and provided the tools they needed to survive in great numbers. The west provided space and resources—space for those who became weary of the drudgery of the factory and resources in the form of raw materials for the production of what Americans needed. Together these elements transformed the country from a rich, vibrant, but in many ways naïve and innocent country into the most powerful industrial force on the planet, a position which the United States has more or less continuously maintained through the end of the 20th century.
Cowboys and Farmers: Farming on the frontier was challenging to men and women accustomed to rich land, plentiful rainfall and close-knit communities such as existed in the Ohio, Hudson, Susquehanna, Tennessee, Cumberland and other river valleys. The Plains by contrast were flat, dry, treeless and immense. The wind that blew across the prairies was often seen and felt as a ghostlike thing, a spirit that sometimes drove people mad. Water was as valuable for some as gold, and frequently fought over.
The fact of life about farming and ranching in the West was that while land was plentiful, water was scarce, and the competition for resources often degenerated into violence. The value of cattle depended upon the ability of the rancher to get his herd to market, which often meant driving them hundreds of miles over open plains to get to the nearest railhead. Abilene, Kansas, became one of the first towns developed as a center for the shipment of cattle, and its developer, Jesse Chisholm, introduced the enterprise to Abilene and sent scouts out to attract ranchers, thus giving rise to the famous Chisholm Trail.
Farmers seeking to protect their crops against large herds of cattle soon discovered the new invention of barbed wire, which they began stringing across the plains to protect their crops and their water. Cattlemen often found themselves in conflict with farmers as their movements over range lands became more restricted. In addition, cattleman themselves began wiring off their ranges, and the competition for space led to wire cutting, rustling and other practices that often degenerated into violence. The resulting “barbed wire wars” sometimes had to be broken up by United States cavalry.
All the same, the cowboy was an institution in Western life. Thousands of them, many of Mexican or African-American descent, raised herds of cattle on the plains. But instead of being a romantic saga as often depicted in books and films, the life of a cattleman, as well is that of a farmer, was often dull and tedious. Driving a large herd to a railhead in Abilene or Dodge city Kansas meant spending days in the saddle, and riding along behind herds of animals that raised dust and had to be constantly controlled, sleeping under the stars and riding through rain and storms. It is little wonder that when the cowboys arrived at their destination and received their payoff they were ready for some excitement in the dance halls and saloons.
Frontier towns like Tombstone or Virginia City were not as wild and wooly nor as romantic as they are often portrayed by Hollywood, but they were real nonetheless, and events such as the famous “gunfight at OK Corral” really did happen. But Saturday nights on the frontier were as likely to be dominated by church socials, dances, or meetings at which political issues were discussed along with the likelihood of rain as by drunken cowboys rampaging in the streets shooting everything in sight. As soon as they were ready, these western settlements applied for territorial status and then statehood, and by 1912 the “lower 48” were all in the Union. (Hawaii and Alaska became states in 1959.)
Western Railroad Building: Changing the Landscape
The story of the destruction of Native American cultures is intimately connected with the building of railroads across the western part of the United States. During the period of struggle between Indians and whites in the late 19th century, Indian leaders often traveled east to plead their case before sympathetic audiences. One chief was asked what could be done to help preserve the Indian cultures of the West. His answer: “Stop building the railroads.” He may as well have asked for the sun to stop shining. The building of the transcontinental railroads and all their branches was an inevitable part of the Industrial Revolution that drove America following the Civil War.
The building of the first transcontinental railroad by the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad companies was a monumental feat. Whether the men were battling winds and blizzards on the open plains, or tunneling through the Sierra Mountains at the painfully slow rate of eight inches per day, the work was grueling and dangerous. Every mile of track was laid by hand; every spike was driven by strong men with hammers; every wooden tie was lifted into place by railroad workers, sometimes called “Gandy dancers.” The workers who built the railroad came from the ranks of immigrants who flooded the country following the Civil War: They were primarily Italians, Irish, and Chinese. The Chinese especially became very adept at the skills necessary to tunnel through the California Sierra mountains, using hammers, chisels and black powder to blast through the rock.
Plans for the first railroad had begun well before the Civil War, and in fact the Central Pacific started building east from Sacramento, California, in 1863. But the Civil War delayed progress until 1865. Then the Union Pacific started out from Omaha, Nebraska, and the two companies worked towards each other to cover almost 2000 miles. In addition to the physical challenges of the mountains, plains, cold and heat, the workers were constantly harassed by Indians who felt that the building of the railroads across reservation lands was a violation of their treaties. They also understood that the railroads would bring even more white settlers into their territory, which could hardly bode well for their existence, which had already become tenuous in any case. Indeed, the completion of the first railroad in 1869, as well as the other transcontinental lines that followed in the ensuing decades, changed the lives of the Plains Indians forever.
In addition to labor and materials, the railroads obviously needed large amounts of capital. Since the federal and state governments saw the railroads as a boon to national and local economic prospects, they were willing to underwrite much of the cost by distributing to the railroads the one commodity which they held in abundance: land. Across the vast open spaces in the West were millions of acres of land which, however, could not be converted into profitable farming land without some means for the farmers to get their produce to market. No one would pay a substantial price for land until the prospect existed that a railroad would be constructed to move cattle, grain and other products to urban areas.
Rather than giving funds directly to the railroads in the form of grants or loans, the government divided the land along the railroad rights-of-way into square sections, and alternate sections were given to the railroads, and the rest were offered for sale directly to settlers. Because the government could command a much higher price for land that would be serviced by a railroad, settlers were willing to pay a premium for the promising sites. Conversely, the lands granted to the railroads could be similarly sold to settlers in order to raise the necessary capital for the actual building. There is no question that this great land giveaway benefited the railroads, the settlers and, indirectly, the workers who were employed in building the long lines. But to the land-grant legislation the government attached the right of federal agencies to use the railroads at discount prices once they were completed. One historian has estimated that the federal government recouped most of its investment just in the period of the First World War, when thousands of troops and tons of supplies were moved over the rails.
Any time large amounts of money change hands, the opportunity for corruption and misuse of funds is bound to exist, and the building of the railroads proved to be no exception. The owners of the railroad companies formed a construction organization called Credit Mobilier, which was owned and controlled by the same people who owned the railroads. The railroad executives then awarded lucrative contracts to Credit Mobilier, thus lining their own pockets. In order to keep the government from getting too fussy about how this shady business was being transacted, the Corporation gave hundreds of shares of stock to congressmen, senators, and state legislators under the pretext of ensuring that the donations would allow government officials to exercise oversight over the roads themselves. In the end, millions of dollars were raised, often changing hands under the table, and huge profits were enjoyed, to the benefit of thousands. But in the long run, many miles of railroad track often failed to produce profits and ended up being written off as losses.
What about the farmers who quickly came to depend on railroads for their livelihood? Unfortunately they soon discovered that the railroads, which had a monopoly on the only transportation medium that served their direct needs, could exploit them outrageously, charging any rate they chose, charging for storage of farm goods such as grain in railroad owned silos, and even manipulating railroad rates to take advantage of people in areas on short spur lines who had only one avenue to get their produce where it needed to go. Such exploitation helped to fuel the farmers’ movement which eventually became the core of the Populist movement. It also contributed to the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1877. Like most other technological advances of that industrial era, the railroads did much good and considerable harm. In any case they changed the lives of Americans in ways of which we are scarcely aware. Our four time zones, for example, were created by railroads, and the phenomenon of the white collar job was generated largely by railroads, which needed thousands of clerks to manage schedules, billing, and myriad other jobs that were part of the operation of any large corporation.
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of the most powerful railroad men of the era. He started in the steamboat business in partnership with Thomas Gibbons, and their victory in the famous case of Gibbons v. Ogden help make both men wealthy. A ruthless competitor, Vanderbilt shifted his interest to the railroad business, where he expanded his holdings by price wars and other competitive practices. He gained control of the New York and Harlem Railroad and eventually created the New York Central system which linked New York with Chicago. He built Grand Central terminal in New York City, and although he was not known for philanthropy, he gave $1 million to the university which bears his name.
Even today, in the 21st century, railroads move millions of tons of materials and products far more efficiently than they can be moved by any other means. Railroads no longer occupy the romantic imagination of travelers as they once did, but they remain a vital part of the American economy.
Summary of major points of Railroads:
Industrialization
If a farmer living in 1500 were suddenly transported to the year 1800, he might notice change, but it would hardly be startling. Most labor was still accomplished by human muscle and animal power, ships were propelled by wind and sails, and transportation even over modest distances was measured in days or weeks, not hours. But if you took a farmer or artisan from 1800 and set him on the ground in 1900, the changes he would see would no doubt be overwhelming.
Although we cannot imagine life in the year 2100, it must be said that up to this point in our history the 19th century was the century of the greatest change in the history of man. True, the airplane, spaceship and atomic bomb were products of the 20th century, but those inventions were not unimaginable in 1900, and they did not have the overwhelming impact of, for example, the train powered by a locomotive that forever changed man's appreciation of the concept of time. When the first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858 and Queen Victoria exchanged a message with the President of the United States, people thought a miracle had been wrought.
The acceleration of change between the end of the civil war and the turn of the century was truly astounding. The inventions of Thomas Alva Edison, the entrepreneurial genius of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie and the other so-called “robber barons,” and the contributions of thousands of other imaginative men and women changed daily life in America, often for the better, but also for the worse. In 1820 the factory had been a small, family-oriented business with perhaps a dozen or 20 employees. The textile mills of New England were larger, as were the ship yards along the Atlantic Coast, but in most businesses the owner was also the manager, and he knew the name and something of the life of everyone who worked for him.
By 1880 factories were employing hundreds, even thousands of workers, and the owners and upper-level managers rarely saw their workers on a day-to-day basis and had little concept of life in their factories. But the advances were impressive: the light bulb, high-grade steel, mechanical devices of all sorts, mass production, the skyscraper, electric power, internal combustion engines, the transcontinental railroad, canned food and ready-made clothing, indoor plumbing, artificial lighting, and countless other advances transformed the lives of all Americans.
At the lower end of the economic scale, life did not necessarily get better. As millions of immigrants poured into the country, cheap labor was the norm, and although workers attempted to organize themselves for better pay and working conditions, they knew that the hordes pouring through Ellis Island and other ports of entry would provide workers eager to displace them even at wages scarcely enough to live on. As machines took over much of the process of manufacturing, workmanlike skills often became irrelevant. A man might stand all day pulling a handle or turning a valve or doing some other mindless, repetitive task, which meant that he could be replaced in minutes should he suffer an injury or illness.
As the cities rose and bridges, rail lines, and port facilities expanded, the progress was visible everywhere, even if thousands were too tired or absorbed in their own misery to notice. Large businesses required clerks, accountants, and other white-collar workers, and the new middle class prospered as never before. The weekend, usually consisting of a free half-day on Saturday and all day Sunday, gave workers a chance to rest. As the workday shortened and leisure time increased, the abundance of cheap newspapers and magazines provided endless sources of information for the literate and curious. Schools and universities expanded dramatically, although among very poor people, children were often sent to the factory rather than to school, and truant officers often roamed the halls of the factories, driving students back to the classroom.
The status of the working man was recognized when the first Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, and the paid summer vacation became an expectation for many middle-class workers. Although health insurance, unemployment insurance and accident benefits did not evolve fully until the Progressive Era, millions of Americans found life easier and more pleasant.
Industrialization in America, though slow to start because of the Civil War, took off during the last half of the 19th century, so that by the year 1900 American steel production had outstripped that of the rest of the world by a wide margin. The United States had over 200,000 miles of railroads by 1914, about as many miles as the rest of the world put together. American farm products and manufactured goods were sent abroad in a growing American fleet of merchant marine vessels, and American travelers toured the globe in search of interesting spectacles.
The age of industrialization was also age of exploitation—of people, land, and resources—and while many benefited from the results, many also suffered. As industrialization and urbanization changed the face of America forever, those who took the time to look backward were astounded at how far the nation had come in just a few decades.
Gilded Age Part 2 | Updated August 15, 2008