Wall Street and the fruited plain : money, expansion, and politics in the Gilded Age / James T. Wall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wall, James T.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Politics and government--1865-1933.

United States.

Politics and government.

United States--Economic policy.

Economic policy.

United States--History--1865-.

History.

Physical Description:

x, 382 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : University Press of America, [2008]

Summary:

Wall Street and the Fruited Plain delves deep into the parody known today as the "Gilded Age." The last decades of the 19th century saw both industrial and agricultural explosions in the United States. However, the base metal beneath this glittering facade was comprised of sweat-soaked, underpaid laborers, many of whom had just splashed ashore from Europe's seething cauldrons.

In the early years of the period, the nation underwent the wrenching challenge of Reconstruction, nominally resolved in the compromise of 1877. In the Gilded Age, America expanded both internally and externally. The frontier moved from Kansas to California. Trappers, miners, cattlemen, and-finally-homesteaders, with the help of a burgeoning railroad network, fanned out across the central plains and the western plateaus. Wall Street dominated not only the economic and social life of the country, but the politics as well. A series of lackluster presidents between Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt facilitated this dominion and by the end of Roosevelt's first Administration, America had become an adolescent headliner on the world stage.

Contents:

Section I Reconstruction, 1865-1877 1

Chapter 1 Death of a President 3

Chapter 2 Andrew Johnson on Stage 9

Sidebar: Save Your Confederate Money 11

Sidebar: Southern Resistance: The Klan and the Courts 28

Chapter 3 Grant Takes Command Once Again 33

Essay: Frederick Douglass and the Annexation of the Dominican Republic 42

Essay: The Long Road to Social Reconstruction 65

Section II The Brown Decades, 1877-1892 79

Chapter 1 Politics as Usual 81

Chapter 2 The Cleveland Era 89

Essay: A Nation of Immigrants 97

Section III Closing The Frontier, 1865-1890 117

Chapter 1 What the Frontier Was 119

Chapter 2 The Indian Frontier 125

Chapter 3 The Trappers' Frontier 139

Chapter 4 The Miners' Frontier 147

Sidebar: The Alfred G. Packer Saga 151

Sidebar: Mining in Story and Song 156

Chapter 5 The Cattlemen's Frontier 159

Sidebar: The Cowboy as Hero 162

Chapter 6 The Farmer's Frontier 165

Sidebar: A Standard Gauge 172

Sidebar: Hell on Wheels 175

Section IV Industry, Wealth, And The City, 1865-1901 180

Chapter 1 Industry Grows the City 181

Chapter 2 The Men Who Made the Era 189

Sidebar: Dynamite! 205

Sidebar: Sons and their Fathers' Riches 214

Chapter 3 The City 217

Sidebar: The City's Changing Face 223

Section V The Populist Era, 1890-1896 227

Chapter 1 The Vicious Cycle 229

Sidebar: Solace on the Lonesome Prairie 232

Chapter 2 The Farmers Fight Back 235

Chapter 3 Populists Unite 239

Chapter 4 Cleveland Makes a Comeback 245

Essay: America's Last "Near War" with Britain: A Historical Vignette 250

Essay: From the White City to Coney Island 259

Section VI The Age Of Imperialism, 1898-1904 267

Chapter 1 The 1896 Election 269

Sidebar: William Allen White and the Populists 273

Chapter 2 McKinley's Road to War 275

Sidebar: A Message to Garcia 286

Chapter 3 America in Transition: Progressivism 303

Chapter 4 Theodore Roosevelt's World 309

Chapter 5 The World Seeks a Canal 333

Essay: The San Juan Route: The Nicaragua Canal Company, 1887-1893 338

Chapter 6 The United States Digs a Canal 349.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [371]-373) and index.

ISBN:

9780761841241

0761841245

9780761842583

0761842586

OCLC:

245522753