M02 Overview

The Gilded Age (1870-1900)

Figure 1. A book cover entitled The Wonderful Wizard of OZ shows the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, Dorothy (who rides atop the Lion), and Toto on their journey. Father Goose, whose stories and songs are also present in the book, follows behind.

Figure 1. L. Frank Baum’s story of a Kansas girl and the magical land of Oz has become a classic of both film and screen, but it may have originated in part as an allegory of late nineteenth-century politics and the rise of the Populist movement.

 

In this module, students will examine the development of the industrial city, changes in urban geography fostered by industrialization and immigration, and the subsequent reform movement to fix the urban problems that industry created.  The late nineteenth century was a time of not only industrial and economic expansion, but urban growth as well. Major aspects of the history of the industrial city and the new form of urban, and suburban, living that came into existence in the late 1800s are covered.

L. Frank Baum was a journalist who rose to prominence at the end of the nineteenth century. Baum’s most famous story, The Wizard of Oz, was published in 1900, but “Oz” first came into being years earlier, when he told a story to a group of schoolchildren visiting his newspaper office in South Dakota. He made up a tale of a wonderful land, and, searching for a name, he allegedly glanced down at his file cabinet, where the bottom drawer was labeled “O-Z.” Thus was born the world of Oz, where a girl from struggling Kansas hoped to get help from a “wonderful wizard” who proved to be a fraud.

Some scholars have speculated that this favorite children’s story is an allegory for some of the major political challenges of the late 1800s. Dorothy, a simple but virtuous and sympathetic farm girl, is caught in a chain of events that she does not understand. Similarly, many farmers felt overwhelmed by an economy and a political system that bore little resemblance to earlier generations. They had a great deal of debt, a depressed money supply, and were often at the mercy of railroad companies that were free to charge ruinous rates to ship their crops.

And just like Dorothy, these farmers sought allies who also needed help. There is some speculation that the Scarecrow is meant to represent other farmers, the Tin Man stood for industrial workers, while the Cowardly Lion represented the well-meaning but ineffectual politician William Jennings Bryan. Ultimately, the Wizard in the big city was just a humbug, manipulating events behind the scenes, but possessing little power. Many farmers came to the same conclusion about their government in Washington. Dorothy ultimately realized she had the power to bring herself back to Kansas all along, by using her silver slippers (the famous film changed this to glittering ruby slippers to better take advantage of filming in color). In a similar fashion, the true-to-life farmers of the late 1800s took matters into their own hands. In organizing for fairer practices and debt relief, they too looked to silver—flushing the economy with silver coinage—as the solution to their dilemma.

Since then, many have speculated that the story reflected Baum’s political sympathies for the Populist Party, which galvanized midwestern and southern farmers’ demands for federal reform. Whether he intended the story to act as an allegory for the plight of farmers and workers in late nineteenth-century America, or whether he simply wanted to write an “American fairy tale” set in the heartland, Populists looked for answers much like Dorothy did. And the government in Washington proved to be meek rather than magical. In the face of an ineffectual and unresponsive government in Washington, ordinary people worked to create a better system of politics to serve them. Alongside farmworkers, reformers, and the first generation of freed Blacks, they attempted to stymie the corruption and backhanded deals that characterized a period we call the Gilded Age.

Age of Empire—American Foreign Policy

Figure 2. A poster is titled, “William H. West’s Big Minstrel Jubilee.” A label at the bottom reads “The Charge of San Juan Hill. Wm. H. West Impersonating Col. Roosevelt, Leading the Famous ‘Rough Riders’ to Victory.” An illustration shows a mounted Roosevelt leading a charge of Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War.

Figure 2. This poster advertises a minstrel show wherein an actor playing Theodore Roosevelt reenacts his leadership of the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War and illustrates the American public’s zeal for tales of American expansionist glory.

 

Ask yourself: how does U.S. foreign policy affect you today? Consider things like the size of the country’s military, or its relationship with different countries around the world. As you think about these things, think about how they got to be that way. Americans were asking themselves the same questions in the 1890s, and their answers continue to affect us in the present.

One of those responses came from the historian Frederick Jackson Turner, who presented his ideas at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. As he approached the rostrum to speak before historians, Frederick Jackson Turner appeared nervous. He was presenting a conclusion that would alarm all who believed that westward expansion had fostered the nation’s principles of democracy. His conclusion: The frontier—the encounter between European traditions and the native wilderness—had played a fundamental role in shaping American character, but the American frontier no longer existed. Turner’s statement raised questions. How would Americans maintain their unique political culture and innovative spirit in the absence of the frontier? How would the nation expand its economy if it could no longer expand its territory? 

Later historians would see Turner’s Frontier Thesis as deeply flawed, a gross mischaracterization of the West. But the young historian’s work greatly influenced politicians and thinkers of the day. Like a muckraker, Turner exposed the problem; others found a solution by seeking out new frontiers in the creation of an American empire. The above advertisement for a theater reenactment of the Spanish-American War shows the American appetite for expansion. 

This modules also covers the rise of American imperialism from 1890-1912. Relatively isolated from foreign entanglements for most of its history, the United States entered dramatically into an era of foreign policy expansion in the 1890s. After taking Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, and parts of the Caribbean and Central America, the United States would occupy these areas under President Theodore Roosevelt as strategic points. The Philippine experience and the wider expressions of expansionism during this period reflect and reveal fundamental and enduring dilemmas of America’s relationship with the rest of the world. These ripples start as far back as the Puritans and flow forward to familiar patterns of foreign affairs in our own time.  The pace of America’s growing global ambitions, as seen in the construction of the Panama Canal, was the most dramatic expression of the country’s increasing presence in foreign affairs.

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