CH23 – Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age

Time Frame: 1869-1896

Objectives: At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Describe the political corruption of the Grant administration and the mostly unsuccessful efforts to reform politics in the Gilded Age.
• Describe the economic crisis of the 1870s, and explain the growing conflict between hard-money and soft-money advocates.
• Explain the intense political partisanship of the Gilded Age, despite the parties’ lack of ideological difference and poor quality of political leadership.
• Indicate how the disputed Hayes-Tilden election of 1876 led to the Compromise of 1877 and the end of Reconstruction.
• Describe how the end of Reconstruction led to the loss of black rights and the imposition of the Jim Crow system of segregation in the South.
• Explain the rise of class conflict between business and labor in the 1870s and the growing hostility to immigrants, especially the Chinese.
• Explain the economic crisis and depression of the 1890s, and indicate how the Cleveland administration failed to address it.
• Show how the farm crisis of the depression of the 1890s stirred growing social protests and class conflict, and fueled the rise of the radical Populist Party.
• [wpaudio url=”http://college.cengage.com/history/us/kennedy/am_pageant/14e/assets/students/audio/kennedy_ch23.mp3″ text=”Listen to a summary of Chapter 23″ dl=”0″]

Assignments

Resources

• Behind the Veil
  Gives a glimpse into the lives of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South, from Duke University
• Documents from the Gilded Age
  From Professor Scott Nelson, College of William and Mary