AP U.S. History 6.14: Continuity and Change in Period 6

Technological advances, large-scale production and new markets built an industrial economy after 1865, and business consolidated. A trust let stockholders in several companies hand their shares to a single set of trustees. The Standard Oil Trust, formed on January 2, 1882, let nine trustees run all of its companies, so Standard Oil could act as a monopoly. Toward the end of the century, trusts came to dominate a number of major industries. In 1893 President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat speaking at his second inauguration, took aim at them:

Read it for change and continuity. The size of the combinations was new. The yardstick Cleveland measured them by, open competition, was old.

Growth came with financial panics and downturns. In 1897 President William McKinley said "The depression of the past four years has fallen with especial severity upon the great body of toilers of the country, and upon none more than the holders of small farms."

Hard times sharpened the argument about government. Some held that laissez-faire, leaving the economy alone, and competition brought growth in the long run, and they opposed government help in downturns. A limited-government ideal ran deep. In March 1893 Cleveland, a Democrat whose party had won on tariff reform, attacked tariff protection, bounties and subsidies as paternalism, favors for some paid by others: "The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government its functions do not include the support of the people."

Others organized. Workers formed local and national unions and confronted business leaders. Farmers, squeezed by consolidation and their dependence on railroads, formed cooperatives, and economic instability led agrarian activists to found the People's (Populist) Party, which called for a stronger government role in regulating the economy. In 1887 Congress made railroads the first industry subject to federal regulation, answering decades of public demand, though in practice the law was not very effective.

Sources: McKinley, 1897 (Avalon Project); Cleveland, 1893 (Avalon Project); Interstate Commerce Act (National Archives).

Migration changed where and how Americans lived. Cities with new factories drew immigrants from Asia and from southern and eastern Europe, and African American migrants within and out of the South, and ethnic neighborhoods built a new urban culture. The West filled fast. In 1889 Harrison compared Dakota with the original states at the founding: "The Territory of Dakota has now a population greater than any of the original States (except Virginia) and greater than the aggregate of five of the smaller States in 1790." As migrants poured in and the bison population was decimated, competition for land and resources among white settlers, American Indians and Mexican Americans grew more violent. The federal government violated treaties with American Indians, met resistance with military force and confined them to reservations.

Some of this had roots in earlier periods. In the 1840s and 1850s a strongly anti-Catholic nativist movement had tried to limit immigrants' political power. What was new in 1882 was a federal law, the first significant one restricting immigration and the first to shut out an ethnic group of workers. The Chinese Exclusion Act declared that "the coming of Chinese laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain localities."

Sources: Harrison, 1889 (Avalon Project); Chinese Exclusion Act (National Archives).

Some patterns outlasted the changes. On May 18, 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring separate railroad coaches for each race. The majority wrote: "If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane." The decision upheld racial segregation, known as Jim Crow, and helped mark the end of most of the political gains African Americans had made during Reconstruction. Justice Harlan dissented: "Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." Facing increased violence, discrimination and scientific theories of race, African American reformers kept fighting for political and social equality.

Politics kept old lines too. The major parties appealed to lingering divisions from the Civil War and fought over tariffs and currency, while reformers charged that greed had corrupted government at every level. New ideas cut both ways: Social Darwinism defended those at the top as deserving, while advocates of the Social Gospel challenged the social order.

Source: Plessy v. Ferguson (National Archives).