cowboy; roundupCowboys at “mess” during a roundup before a cattle drive in 1887; photo by J.C.H. Grabil.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The expansion of the railroads
In 1862 Congress authorized the construction of two railroads that together would provide the first railroad link between the Mississippi valley and the Pacific coast. One was the Union Pacific, to run westward from Council Bluffs, Iowa; the other was the Central Pacific, to run eastward from Sacramento, California. To encourage the rapid completion of those roads, Congress provided generous subsidies in the form of land grants and loans. Construction was slower than Congress had anticipated, but the two lines met, with elaborate ceremonies, on May 10, 1869, at Promontory, Utah.
Promontory PointThe completion of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, 1869. Copyright © 2008 by Dover Publications, Inc. Electronic image © 2008 Dover Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
In the meantime, other railroads had begun construction westward, but the panic of 1873 and the ensuing depression halted or delayed progress on many of those lines. With the return of prosperity after 1877, some railroads resumed or accelerated construction; and by 1883 three more rail connections between the Mississippi valley and the West Coast had been completed—the Northern Pacific, from St. Paul to Portland; the Santa Fe, from Chicago to Los Angeles; and the Southern Pacific, from New Orleans to Los Angeles. The Southern Pacific had also acquired, by purchase or construction, lines from Portland to San Francisco and from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
The construction of the railroads from the Midwest to the Pacific coast was the railroad builders’ most spectacular achievement in the quarter century after the Civil War. No less important, in terms of the national economy, was the development in the same period of an adequate rail network in the Southern states and the building of other railroads that connected virtually every important community west of the Mississippi with Chicago.
railroad bridge over the Ohio RiverRailroad bridge over the Ohio River, Bellaire, Ohio, 1872.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The West developed simultaneously with the building of the Western railroads, and in no part of the nation was the importance of railroads more generally recognized. The railroad gave vitality to the regions it served, but, by withholding service, it could doom a community to stagnation. The railroads appeared to be ruthless in exploiting their powerful position: they fixed prices to suit their convenience; they discriminated among their customers; they attempted to gain a monopoly of transportation wherever possible; and they interfered in state and local politics to elect favourites to office, to block unfriendly legislation, and even to influence the decisions of the courts.
Indian policy
Large tracts of land in the West were reserved by law for the exclusive use of specified Indian tribes. By 1870, however, the invasion of these lands by hordes of prospectors, by cattlemen and farmers, and by the transcontinental railroads had resulted in the outbreak of a series of savage Indian wars and had raised serious questions about the government’s Indian policies. Many agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs were lax in their responsibility for dealing directly with the tribes, and some were corrupt in the discharge of their duties. Most Westerners and some army officers contended that the only satisfactory resolution of the Indian question was the removal of the tribes from all lands coveted by the whites.
In the immediate postwar years, reformers advocated adoption of programs designed to prepare the Indians for ultimate assimilation into American society. In 1869 the reformers persuaded President Grant and Congress to establish a nonpolitical Board of Indian Commissioners to supervise the administration of relations between the government and the Indians. The board, however, encountered so much political opposition that it accomplished little. The reformers then proposed legislation to grant title for specific acreages of land to the head of each family in those tribes thought to be ready to adopt a sedentary life as farmers. Congress resisted that proposal until land-hungry Westerners discovered that, if the land were thus distributed, a vast surplus of land would result that could be added to the public domain. When land speculators joined the reformers in support of the proposed legislation, Congress in 1887 enacted the Dawes Act, which empowered the president to grant title to 160 acres (65 hectares) to the head of each family, with smaller allotments to single members of the tribe, in those tribes believed ready to accept a new way of life as farmers. With the grant of land, which could not be alienated by the Indians for 25 years, they were to be granted U.S. citizenship. Reformers rejoiced that they had finally given the Indians an opportunity to have a dignified role in U.S. society, overlooking the possibility that there might be values in Indian culture worthy of preservation. Meanwhile, the land promoters placed successive presidents under great pressure to accelerate the application of the Dawes Act in order to open more land for occupation or speculation.
Industrialization of the U.S. economy
The growth of industry
By 1878 the United States had reentered a period of prosperity after the long depression of the mid-1870s. In the ensuing 20 years the volume of industrial production, the number of workers employed in industry, and the number of manufacturing plants all more than doubled. A more accurate index to the scope of this industrial advance may be found in the aggregate annual value of all manufactured goods, which increased from about $5,400,000,000 in 1879 to perhaps $13,000,000,000 in 1899. The expansion of the iron and steel industry, always a key factor in any industrial economy, was even more impressive: from 1880 to 1900 the annual production of steel in the United States went from about 1,400,000 to more than 11,000,000 tons. Before the end of the century, the United States surpassed Great Britain in the production of iron and steel and was providing more than one-quarter of the world’s supply of pig iron.
Rockefeller, John D. John D. Rockefeller.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Carnegie, AndrewAndrew Carnegie.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (cph 3b35116)
Vanderbilt, CorneliusCornelius Vanderbilt.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (cph 3a11569)
Stanford, LelandLeland Stanford.From The Days of a Man, Being Memories of a Naturalist, Teacher, and Minor Prophet of Democracy, by David Starr Jordan, Vol. 1, 1922Many factors combined to produce this burst of industrial activity. The exploitation of Western resources, including mines and lumber, stimulated a demand for improved transportation, while the gold and silver mines provided new sources of capital for investment in the East. The construction of railroads, especially in the West and South, with the resulting demand for steel rails, was a major force in the expansion of the steel industry and increased the railroad mileage in the United States from less than 93,262 miles (150,151 kilometres) in 1880 to about 190,000 miles (310,000 kilometres) in 1900. Technological advances, including the utilization of the Bessemer and open-hearth processes in the manufacture of steel, resulted in improved products and lower production costs. A series of major inventions, including the telephone, typewriter, linotype, phonograph, electric light, cash register, air brake, refrigerator car, and the automobile, became the bases for new industries, while many of them revolutionized the conduct of business. The use of petroleum products in industry as well as for domestic heating and lighting became the cornerstone of the most powerful of the new industries of the period, while the trolley car, the increased use of gas and electric power, and the telephone led to the establishment of important public utilities that were natural monopolies and could operate only on the basis of franchises granted by state or municipal governments. The widespread employment of the corporate form of business organization offered new opportunities for large-scale financing of business enterprise and attracted new capital, much of it furnished by European investors. Over all this industrial activity, there presided a colourful and energetic group of entrepreneurs, who gained the attention, if not always the commendation, of the public and who appeared to symbolize for the public the new class of leadership in the United States. Of this numerous group the best known were John D. Rockefeller in oil, Andrew Carnegie in steel, and such railroad builders and promoters as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Henry Villard, and James J. Hill.