hello there Welcome to this revision video for Making of America 789 to 1900 This video is going to focus on American cultures How did life in the United States change from 1877 to 1900 In this video we're going to talk about the changes to the ways of lives of indigenous peoples including talking about what happened to the buffalo and the fact that indigenous peoples were made to live on reservations We're going to talk about changes to the lives of African-Americans We're going to look at the political social and economic changes that affected their lives And we're also going to talk about the growth of big business cities and immigration in America during this time including um about the steel magnate Andrew Carnegi So here is the syllabus in terms of what you need to know its changes to the plains Indians ways of life including the impact of reservations and the destruction of the buffalo the impact of economic social and political change on the lives of African-Americans and the growth of big business cities and mass migration between 1877 and 1900 Okay so this is where the American cultures topic fits in with all of the other topics and the time period is from 1877 until 1900 So in the years after 1877 American cultures changed Chicago became a huge city in the west and in 1892 which was 400 years since Christopher Columbus landed in North America Work began on the world's fair which was held there in 1893 Now the world's fair became a showcase of American technology and it took place in Chicago which had grand architecture with wide streets and towering buildings It was a powerful image of American success But the United States on display did not represent all Americans Black Americans were not allowed to take part and were not represented and indigenous peoples were also poorly represented So here are some images of the Chicago World Fair and we can see there it was a grand event um and it was called the World Colombian Exposition and there was a statue of the republic which we're looking over this um incredible white city that was created um in Chicago in 1893 The world's first ferris wheel invented by George Washington Gail Ferris Jr um was showcased at the Chicago World Fair of 1893 And Frederick Douglas and IdaB Wells they were at the Chicago World Fair campaigning for the civil rights of African-Americans at the Chicago World Fair And we can see uh and we'll talk about that in a little bit more detail Um Frederick Douglas made a very famous speech um and IdaB Wells um produced pamphlets um campaigning to improve the rights of African-Americans at the Chicago World Fair Also indigenous peoples were portrayed in a very stereotypical um way The living exhibits um portrayed indigenous peoples in a stereotypical way and as something confined to the past rather than being part of America's present and future So the Chicago World Fair featured um the the three groups that we've been focusing on Um IDB Wells as we said attended Chicago World Fair to protest against the exclusion of African-Americans Andrew Carnegi um who was a steel magnet an example of a big business during this time He attended the Chicago World Fair in 1893 as well and Simon uh Pocon um from the indigenous peoples He made a powerful speech in October 1893 at the Chicago World Fair um talking about the rights of the indigenous peoples So we're going to talk now about the changing lives of Plains Indians or indigenous peoples Now by 1877 many indigenous peoples were made to live on reservations Now a reservation is a put aside area of land that was reserved for indigenous peoples But conditions on the reservations were poor and there was often not enough food for indigenous peoples For example indigenous peoples were given crops like corn and squash to grow which were difficult to grow on the harsh conditions on the plains Many indigenous peoples were reliant on government beef rations and the reservations saw poverty hunger and disease Now why were indigenous peoples made to live on reservations Well firstly um there was the the um impact of military defeat The battle of Little Bigghorn of 18776 was only a short-term success for the Lakota By 1881 Sitting Bull had surrendered and he and his people were sent to live at the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota Supplies on and conditions on the reservations were poor A really important reason was the destruction of the buffalo The as the railroad spread west it led to the opening up of the planes Hunters use railroads to hunt the buffalo Crowds would actually come in by train just to hunt the buffalo for sport Buffalo hides meats and bones were sold Um a buffalo hunter could kill 100 buffalo a day so quickly the buffalo stocks on the planes were were getting depleted The US actually deliberately encouraged the hunting of the buffalo because it was a way in which they could force indigenous peoples onto reservations Without the buffalo indigenous people's ways of life were just not possible And by around the year 1883 the vast herds on the planes were gone In terms of fences and factories cattle ranchers began to fence off areas of land on the plains In the last topic we learned about how John was the first person to rear cattle on the plains um in the late 1860s Well now homesteaders were beginning to fence off land on the plains and the idea of the open range was going Um homesteaders fenced off water supplies It meant indigenous peoples could no longer roam nomatically on the plains In addition canning factories grew in western cities Um people went out to pick wild berries making it harder for indigenous peoples to find their food And in terms of US policies by the late 1870s the US government began a deliberate policy to split up the different indigenous people's tribes For example the Lakota Sue and the Dakota were divided over five reservations The Nespur tribe of Oregon moved were moved 2,000 miles east to an Oklahoma reservation and other tribes were made to share reservations And this was part of a deliberate policy to target indigenous people's ways of life This image from the 1870s of Buffalo school sums up the destruction of the buffalo which took place during this time period Um 3 million buffalo had been killed by 1883 Between 1860 and 1890 it's estimated the population went from around about 30 to 60 million to just 350 So the key thing here is to recognize the destruction of the buffalo destroyed the nomadic ways of life of the indigenous peoples So we're now going to look at some of the different ways in which the lives of uh plains Indians indigenous peoples was changed Now one key point which is down here in purple and bottom and this is key word to think about when you're thinking about the changing lives of indigenous peoples is that the US were assimilating indigenous peoples It was a policy of assimilation So what this means is that the US were trying to make the indigenous peoples more like white Americans And that kind of explains the policy during this time period And throughout all the different examples we're going to look at we're going to see that very much as part of the US policy So in terms of culture and education old people um for indigenous peoples have been respected for their wisdom Men were seen as hunters and warriors Women were seen as crafters and educators of children There was no school but the comm community would educate children But as part of this idea of assimilation one of the groups to be aware of is a group of white Americans formed a group called the Friends of the Indian Now on the surface it aimed to help indigenous peoples So it did root out corrupt government agents and it tried to set up a better uh residential schools or boarding schools That's a key word as well to be aware of Um in 1889 for example one former student became the first female Native American doctor Um but many of these schools were about assimilation So you can see these pictures here for example before and after picture um from one of these boarding schools shows that indigenous peoples have been made to sort of cut their hair and and wear clothes that's similar to white Americans So there's a policy of assimilation Some children um were sent to residential schools run by white Americans They're often Christian boarding schools actually and they were made to learn English and beaten if they used their own languages The children also had to take on white American names sometimes from a list written on a blackboard In history lessons Native American children were taught how Plains Native Americans had attacked and killed innocent white settlers So these are very much about assimilation as you can see from those examples So the indigenous peoples had a system of tribes divided into bands and very few decisions were made by the whole tribe except that involving warfare Decisions were were originally made by chiefs of individual bands But this all changed during this time So as we've seen the Lakota and the Dakota were divided into five different reservations Nespers moved to Oklahoma and other tribes made to share reservations Now what really solidified this was the Doors Act of 1887 Now this gave indigenous peoples 160 acres of land and US citizenship but they gave up they had to give up the right to hold their tribal lands Now this on the surface might seem like it was trying to help indigenous peoples but actually what it meant is that tribal lands were being taken over and um this is basically the idea of assimilation Nearly twothirds of indigenous people's land were owned by white Americans by 1900 and this policy encouraged indigenous peoples to live in houses not tepee and farm land rather than hunt nomatically This led to even more indigenous land being released for white Americans and it led to huge land giveaways like the Oklahoma land rush of 1893 So in terms of religion belief and culture um we know that the Lakota believed in the idea of the great spirit Wacant the idea that all living things have their own spirit and circles and cycles of life were a huge part of indigenous culture and religion and belief things like the horizons the importance of the sun and the moon the cyclical nature of life the buffalo dance um teepeees etc Now during the 1890s a new religious movement called the ghost dance movement sprang up on reservations And it was led by a holy man named Woker The ghost dancers believed that if they danced and prayed then white settlers would be swept off the land and the buffalo would return It led to concern among white Americans living near the reservations and there were rumors that Sitting Bull was going to join the movement Now sitting bull was a powerful lot spiritual leader We know that he was the one that had that vision before the battle of little big horn where he saw the American soldiers as grasshoppers So in 1890 the government sent the army to stop the ghost dance movement and arrest them And actually sue police were told to arrest Satan bull He was dragged out of his cabin in the snow and shot through the head and killed Many of the ghost dancers ran away to Dakota The ghost dancers was eventually tracked down at a place called Wounded Knee There the US Army opened fire and killed over 250 men women and children despite the indigenous peoples being largely defenseless On the 15th of January 1891 over 4,000 ghost dancers surrendered This was the last indigenous people's attempt at resistance in the 19th century Okay so we're now going to talk about the changed lives of African-Americans black Americans between 1877 and 1900 So after the end of reconstruction if you remember in the last topic we learned that reconstruction ended in 1877 with the withdrawal of federal forces from the south allowing the south to pursue their own um sort of state laws to restrict the rights of black Americans So in terms of America's economic development between 1877 and 1900 did create some opportunities for black Americans but the majority continued to live in poverty and faced discrimination The freedoms of the reconstruction era were being eroded In the 1890s civil rights campaigners like Frederick Douglas and IdaB Wells campaigned for the rights of black people So let's talk about IdaB Wells She was born enslaved in 1862 and she got an education through the Freriedman's Bureau So it's another good example of the importance of the Freriedman's Bureau during the reconstruction era She became a teacher and moved to Tennessee She successfully sued a train company in 1884 when the train crew ordered her to move to a carriage for black Americans Although her case was overturned by the Supreme Court in Tennessee as a journalist she traveled across the US and raised awareness about the poor treatment of black Americans and lynchings We know that she was at the Chicago World Fair in 1893 campaigning for the rights of black Americans So in terms of economic change black Americans continued to live in poverty after the end of reconstruction In terms of the South the cotton industry collapsed after the Civil War with European nations getting supplies elsewhere Black Americans mostly had poorly paid jobs Many worked as sharecroppers on former plantations There were challenges in the north Between 1887 and 1900 many black Americans left the south for northern cities to look for work Due to racism black workers were less likely to get a job than white workers even if they were more qualified Businesses sometimes used black workers to break strikes which led to increased tensions such as the strike at Carnegie Steel Works which we'll find out a little bit more about So that idea of a sharecropper is like a really key concept in the south And this is the fact that many um formerly enslaved people ended up working still on the same plantations doing the same role picking cotton And although they were no longer enslaved they were still working um in almost slaveike conditions very poorly paid um lots of hard work long working hours for example So that idea of a sharecropper is a key example to be aware of during this time period Okay There were some opportunities in the west with the exodusters So the Homestead Act was open to black Americans and in 1877 Benjamin Pap Singleton Pap was his nickname tried to encourage ex-slaves to move to Kansas and claim land under the Homestead Act By 1879 over 6,000 black Americans had moved to Kansas By 1880 this had doubled to 15,000 black citizens So this was an opportunity for uh black Americans to move west and begin new lives And many of them were were very successful and they became known as the exod dusters In terms of education in 1882 Booker T Washington set up a school called the Tuskiggee Instit Institute to train black children to be farmers craftsmen and house servants However some people criticized this approach as lacking ambition In 1900 Washington established the Negro Business League to support black businesses By 1900 there were 23,866 black teachers 417 black doctors and 300 black lawyers in the USA So people like Bookery Washington were important campaigners to try and improve education for black children and also to encourage them to go into businesses and to go into professions as well Now um just please do note in terms of the word negro this is an outdated and offensive term today Um but it is historically accurate term for this institution But it's just important to make you aware of that Okay In terms of politics in the south Jim Crow laws kept um living conditions poor for black Americans The laws had the effect of segregating black and white people in America In terms of land ownership among black Americans that increased between 1877 to 1900 but housing was poor In cities most black Americans lived in black only areas whether they were in the north or the south Jim Crow laws were introduced in the 1890s in southern states So what Jim Crow laws did is they created segregation They kept people separate So it meant that black and white people were not allowed to sit on the same part So trains for example in theaters So Jim Crow laws create segregation on trains theaters churches parks and schools In 1896 the Supreme Court ruled that providing separate facilities for black and white people was legal However black churches were important in improving the lives of ordinary black Americans They create a sense of community and identity But by 1900 there were 26 black bishops But many preachers were unwilling to actually openly challenge Jim Crow laws There was also an increase in black scholars during this time Over 100 books and 206 journals were published by black authors from 1865 to 1893 One example is web deo who was part of an educated northern black elite He was a history and economics professor at Atlanta University in Georgia Okay In terms of politics there was quite a lot of political violence about um against black Americans and that increased due to the Kuclux Clan and other factors So let's talk about the redeemers first of first of all So during this time period southern state governments were often run by ex-slaveholders and they were known as the redeemer governments because they wanted to bring back redeem The word redeem means to bring back bring back the sort of policies you know pre-reconstruction Um so these are open policies that are racist towards black people So they tried to undo the changes made during reconstruction Now one of the things they tried to do was to restrict black people from voting So redeemer governments brought in literacy tests to stop black Americans voting They introduced segregation laws and they ignored violence against black Americans Now in Louisiana in 1896 there were over 130,000 black people registered to vote but by 1905 it was just 1,342 So this shows that um the policies such as literacy tests were basically taking away the right to vote from black Americans Um however the constitution did still protect the rights of black Americans So black Americans continued to campaign for better treatment The 13th amendment banned slavery That continued The 14th amendment guaranteed equal rights That did continue although it began to get eroded and things like segregation were allowed and the 15th amendment guaranteed voting rights So they did still exist and whatever the south did it could not make black Americans slave again or remove their right to vote completely So it is important to note that during this time those um constitutional amendments remain and they are never overturned The Kuclutz clan so the KKK clan were a violent group who believed black Americans were inferior The KKK was banned in the 1870s but reformed secretly by the 1890s The KKK had a lot of influence among people in power including state politicians and the southern police forces and the KKK believed the south could have won the civil war So this definitely erodess um civil rights of black Americans during this time and causes many people to live in fear The other thing that happens is lynching creates a huge amount of fear So lynching is when someone is hanged without a proper trial and this created a huge amount of fear and terror across the south In 1892 161 black Americans were lynched by white mobs mainly in the South and hardly any of the people responsible were arrested We know that IDB Wells for example campaigned a lot against lynching Okay so the final topic to be aware of is the growth of big business cities and mass migration So um big businesses grew powerful during this time which created wealth but often the expense of workers So a key word to be aware of here is the word corporations And a key example of a corporation is Andrew Carnegie So we're going to um just go into a bit more depth about Andrew Carnegi now So many white Americans like Andrew Cariji made fortunes during this time He was a billionaire by 1901 having formed the United States Steel Corporation His investment in railroads had enabled him to buy a steel plant in Pittsburgh Now in 1892 there was a dispute over pay leading to a strike at Carnegi Steel Company Violence actually led to the deaths of seven striking steel workers and three security officers Cariji and his business defeated the strike by bringing in non-union immigrant workers such as from Mexico but his reputation suffered Carnage eventually gave away 90% of his wealth becoming a philanthropist and setting up various charities and things like libraries for example Um it was said that the experience of that strike in 1892 sort of changed his minds about how to to treat people In terms of workers workers formed trade unions during this time to protect their rights We've already found out about the strike at the Carnegi Steelworks in 1892 Another good example is in 1893 the Pullman Railroad Car Company cut the wages of its workers in Chicago causing 260,000 workers to go on strike The president sent troops to break the strike Violence broke out and 26 workers were shot So we can often see that the um these big businesses are making money at the expense of workers that are getting poorly paid There's lots of strikes There's violence for example and strikes are broken by sometimes immigrant workers um from places like Mexico and sometimes from African-Americans as well Okay So we talk about the growth of of big corporations So huge corporations were run by a president and board of shareholders rather than individual people And there were earliest examples of big corporations were railroad companies um like the Union Pacific or the Central Pacific for example By around 1850 there were 5,300 man manufacturing uh firms They've been ab absorbed into 334 corporations by the end of this um time period There were lots of cotton and tobacco factories By 1900 the south produced more cotton cloth than the north This led to low cotton prices leading to low wages for cotton pickers who are usually sharecroers Tobacco production increased The American tobacco company controlled 90% of cigarette production So they almost have a monopoly on it which means that jobs are poorly paid and low skilled reducing the rights of workers but making profits for the big businesses and corporations in terms of fossil fuels and minerals for the electrical age So this is very much an electrical age the age of people like Tesla for example and Thomas Edison Corporations mined for coal and iron It led to environmental damage with forest being cut down and chemicals polluting water in but in Montana A million dollars of copper and silver were being extracted each month which were vital for the electrical age Mining was very dangerous It led to lung diseases accidents explosions People got killed mining It led to huge environmental damage as well affecting the lands of indigenous peoples It also used up a lot of water and so some of this mining forced many indigenous peoples onto reservations The cattle industry further changed So um from 1880 huge bonanza farms appeared on the plains The average size was 10,000 acres and bonanza ranches developed By 1886 an over supply of cattle meant that beef prices fell and a harsh winter in 188687 killed millions of cattle It was known as the great dieup It led to the collapse of smaller ranches Bonanza farms paid low wages and took the best land And obviously all of this had a negative impact on workers and the land and individual homesteaders actually as well Okay So cities grew massively during this time period which created new opportunities for wealth but also lots of poverty So in 1870 there were 14 cities in America with more than 100,000 people but by 1900 there were 38 Chicago grew from a tiny town really of 200 to a city of 300,000 by 1870 Now cities like Chicago San Francisco and New York were modern cities In 1884 Chicago had the first steel frame skyscraper which you can see a picture of there It's the home insurance building in Chicago Um and skyscrapers you know kind of sum up these uh these new cities you know um building right into uh the the the sky and and having these huge um impressive buildings Cities controlled local water supplies and used these to increase their own power and attract people to live there During the 1880s the invention of the elevator or lift and skyscraper led to cities building ever taller buildings and they held the promise of America's riches But many were left disappointing disappointed Cities were extremely overcrowded It was not uncommon for 32 families to share a six or eight story tenement uh building an apartment building Overcrowding led to diseases Um and in Chicago 60% of babies died before the age of one Cities also drew people in with the promises of work entertainment education freedom new culture For example women and black Americans gained some benefits from city life and western cities were a driving force behind women getting more rights and eventually getting to vote in the USA in the 1920s So I think you can say the fact that Chicago was chosen as the venue for the 1893 World's Fair shows its remarkable growth in the late 19th century And you can see there some of the images of Chicago um during that time period and also a map of where Chicago is in the USA as well So mass migration um is a feature of this time period as well Immigration grew and immigrants often were met with racism and hostility when they arrived So many migrants were actually inspired by this idea of the American dream The idea that anyone could be successful in America if they worked hard Um and this was represented I think in events like the Chicago World Fair So why did people come to America Well firstly the American economy was booming by the 1880s So there were lots of opportunities there travel to America was faster and cheaper thanks to the invention of steam ships Um there were some push factors here as well So um Jews and other minority groups were being persecuted in places in Europe like Russia or France for example and America offered freedom of religion and thought and I think nothing sums that up more than the Statue of Liberty which was given to um America by France um during this time period Um America began this reputation as this land of the free a land that um supported uh mass migration This idea of of a melting pot of migration um will become important in the 20th century Now what happened when immigrants arrived in the US Well 600,000 immigrants came from Italy in the 1890s Lots of them settled around the New York area Um around 7 million immigrants came to the USA during this era The US government had left immigration rules up to states but in the 1890s began to control it themselves Now Ellis Island in New York was opened in 1892 1892 to process immigrants Immigrants would travel from Ellis Island once they've been processed to New York via ferry Now immigrants had to pass a basic language test and a medical examination in order to be allowed into the United States So what was life like for immigrants living in the US Well most immigrants went to the cities to find work There was anti-immigrant violence Um that was quite common The American Protective Association was set up to protect Protestant Americans from Catholics Jews and Buddhist immigrants So there's quite a lot of racial tensions here Um there were laws that were passed to prevent Chinese workers from moving freely in California It was known as the Chinese Exclusion Act Chinese people made up around 10% of the population of San Francisco but could not leave an area known as Chinatown immigrants often ended up in the poorest areas of cities So life wasn't always fantastic for people that did manage to uh migrate to America Okay so thanks very much for listening to that video about American cultures Um I hope you enjoyed it Hope you learned a lot and good luck with your GCSE exams Bye-bye