On three Tuesdays in April of 2024, I’m scheduled to teach a new Osher class called “After Johnny Came Marching Home: History of the United States in the Last Quarter of the 19th Century.” My Tuesday (Osher) essays for the rest of this year will focus on various aspects of this course. This will serve two purposes: 1) To tell you about a time in history that is often overlooked in survey American History courses, and 2) to force myself to work on preparing for this class. I’ve done a lot, don’t get me wrong, but I have boatloads left to do. Over the course of writing these essays, I have come to realize that I process ideas by writing about them. When I write something, I am forced to think about it methodologically, and that always helps me realize what I know and (more importantly) what I don’t know.
This is the time period frequently referred to as The Gilded Age. This was the title of a Mark Twain book, in which he described this era in rather dark terms. I’m reading this as part of my preparation for this class. I’m focusing on six parts of this story. The class will have six segments – two hour-long segments each time it meets. My plan is to devote an hour to each of the six elements of the story. Here’s a brief description of each element:
From Innovator to Robber Baron
The technological advancements of the last half of the 19th century were sweeping and life-altering. The inventors and early adopters of things like the electric lightbulb, telephone, internal combustion engine, steel, refined oil, and others had little idea of how these developments would shape the world in the Gilded Age and beyond. Before this, inventions had generally been adopted over time, and their impacts, although unpredictable, were gradual. In the Gilded Age, change was almost immediate and always unpredictable. The rise of the Robber Barons (or Captains of Industry – names matter to historians) grew from the fact that neither economic nor political systems had been designed to cope with the changes these inventions brought about, and these men – Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Morgan, and others – took advantage of a combination of vision, energy, and luck to move into positions that allowed them to accrue great wealth and power. The story of political efforts to address previously unheard-of concentrations of power is a primary mover of events in the Gilded Age.
From Rural to Urban
The chart below shows the increasing urbanization of America during the Gilded Age.
The battle between rural and urban interests is as old as civilization itself, but it took shape in the United States in the decades after independence. You’ll recall that Hamilton and Jefferson were on opposite sides of this conflict. Hamilton, a New Yorker, spoke for the urban commercial interests; Jefferson, a Virginian, spoke for the rural agricultural interests – the “yeoman farmer” whose virtues, he claimed, were the best America had to offer. As the Civil War ended and the economic and political systems of the nation were reframed to accommodate a new economic reality, the battle between urban and rural interests took new forms. The political parties took several decades to accommodate to these new challenges. In the meantime, powerful political leaders fought with voters to determine who was actually going to be in charge of this newly dynamic nation.
From Barter to Bimetallism
One part of this conflict was an effort to determine what money was – exactly. In the 21st century we generally take money for granted – not the money that we have, but the very concept of money itself. This was not the case in the Gilded Age. Financial exchanges in the pre-industrial age were accomplished essentially by barter – goods were exchanged for other goods, including gold and silver (which had both an official and a natural value). Metal coins were valued by the amount of precious metals they contained. Jewelry was melted into coins and, conversely, coins were transformed into jewelry or stored in vaults while the owners waited for the price of the metal to go up. Paper money, although widespread at various times, was viewed with suspicion. The story of money is inextricably bound up in the politics of the Gilded Age. The story can be summed up in a few sentences.
The businessmen – the industrialists and bankers – were fixated on a gold standard. This kept prices stable, which meant that the money that they loaned would have the same value as the money the received when the loans were paid back. That’s what lenders want. It also allowed them to control the flow of money, as they could release or scoop up precious metals to meet their goals. On the other hand, farmers and other debtors preferred an expansion of currency (including silver and so-called “greenbacks”) that would stimulate inflation, including increasing prices for the products of their farms. Paying back loans in currency that had depreciated in value (that’s what inflation does) was financially beneficial to them.
From Abolition to Plessy v. Ferguson
The passage of the post-Civil War constitutional amendments was the beginning of a long (and ultimately unsuccessful) to right the wrongs of slavery. Beginning in the 1870s, the national government’s commitment to righting the wrongs of a slave-based economy and to reconstructing the nation foundered as the pursuit of prosperity overcame the pursuit of justice. National efforts to attain and maintain the benefits of freedom and equality for anyone who wasn’t white soon took a back seat to the desire for wealth and power. Although this was a more gradual process than most modern Americans realize, by the 1890s, “Jim Crow” had taken over as a guiding philosophy for the nation and African-Americans had been firmly relegated to a secondary position, where they would remain for the next 100+ years.
From Permanent Indian Frontier to Wounded Knee
From the earliest English settlements on the North American continent in the early 17th century, opposition from the indigenous people already living on the continent was a constant feature of colonial life. After independence, when the white settlers on the east coast began to move inland in large numbers, this opposition was constantly emerging in every location where settlers moved. The pattern was repeated over and over again
Settlers moved to a new region, often initially unopposed by the natives already living there.
As the white settlements grew, the native Americans in the area began to push back, often violently
Eventually, either national or state governments would step in to mediate relations between the settlers and the natives
The resulting treaties or other land transfers would legalize the residency of the settlers and establish a new location where the natives would be allowed to live in peace.
After a few years, settlers would relocate to the area reserved for the natives, and the same pattern would recur.
In 1840, the United States identified a vast swath of land west of the Mississippi River as The Permanent Indian Frontier.” Over the next 60 years, however, the land reserved for Native Americans would shrink to only a few locations by 1900.
The story of how this happened can only be described as a slow-moving genocide as the white settlers took over land that had been promised to Native Americans, time and time again, until the 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, ended native resistance for all time.
From Republic to Empire
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution of 1787 set down the founding ideals for the United States – that “all men are created equal,” that they are “endowed by their creator by certain inalienable rights,” and that the nation would be governed by “We the people.” The nation created in 1776 and the government created in 1787 – both in Philadelphia – were aspirational documents. The framers were creating a democratic republic – a new form of government that would embody the ideals of liberty from the Declaration and the constraints of order from the Constitution.
Although the word “republic” appears only one time in either of these documents – in Article IV of the Constitution, which guarantees the states a “republican” form of government, the concept of republicanism was well known in the 18th century. They understood what a Republic was — a government in which voters choose representatives who make and carry out the laws.
The founders were also well aware of a concept called “Republican virtue,” which referred to the type of person who would serve as an elected official in this form of government. In general, “Republican virtue” meant that the elected representatives were expected to be honest and interested in the public good rather than their own prosperity or power. Limiting the right to vote so that only property-owning males had the power to elect officials meant that they had more invested in the outcome and thus were more likely to vote judiciously. The Checks and Balances written into the Constitution would make it more likely that elected officials would be forced to act “virtuously” because the system would not let them get away with unvirtuous acts.
Education was important because only an educated electorate would recognize and vote for candidates who exhibited “Republican Virtues.” After the Revolution, the concept of “Republican Motherhood” developed, meaning that women were important to the Republic because they were responsible for raising the next generation of leaders (to be clear, this would be their sons) who would need “Republican Virtue” to play their expected role.
By 1900, however, the United States had veered from its focus on nurturing “Republic Virtue” in its politics and politicians and had, instead, set its sights on becoming an imperial power. In the middle of the 19th century, people generally accepted the idea that Manifest Destiny meant that the United States should spread across the North American continent. By 1900, this had evolved into a belief that the United States had a responsibility to spread across the globe. By the first years of the 20th century, William Howard Taft (who was the first American Governor-General of the Philippines and would later become the 27th President of the United States) would refer to Filipinos as his “little brown brothers” who would develop into full participants in the modern world only with the guidance of the United States.
Over the next several weeks, I’ll be developing these ideas more completely and incorporating them into a presentation that will take shape (I hope!) by the time I am scheduled to teach this class in April 2024.
One more song for you to listen to today — Janis Ian sings a less celebratory version of this song, Johny I Hardly Knew Ya, which was written in Ireland a few years after the version you listened to earlier. It is frequently used as an anti-war statement in contrast to the rousing When Johnny Comes Marching Home.
Am looking forward to reading your "full" essays as they develop. I find it somewhat horrifying that we are struggling with the same issues now: 1) Internet czars could be today's Robber Barons (think Musk, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.); 2) we are struggling again with urban vs. rural (access to broadband, mega-farms vs. family farms); red vs. blue in many, perhaps most, states; and the rule by the minority created by the Electoral College. 3) the racial divide at every level of our society. 4) Our indigenous population - I learned today that S.D. is today 40% indigenous, but in no way represented at any level based on that split. 5) our republic seems to be sliding faster and faster toward an autocracy, and 6) I forgot cryptocurrency. Perhaps we can learrn - in the next eleven months from our past, but it seems highly unlikely.
My opinion is that it is the only point. Our currant method of electing the President is B.S.