Wall Street and the Fruited Plain Money, Expansion, and Politics in the Gilded Age

by Wall, James T.

• ISBN13: 9780761841241
• ISBN10: 0761841245
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-09-17
• Publisher: UPA
• More Book Details
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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." "James T. Wall is Professor Emeritus having taught at the University of Tennessee, Georgetown University, West Point, Edinburgh University in Scotland, and National University of Costa Rica."--BOOK JACKET.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. vii
Reconstruction, 1865-1877	p. 1
Death of a President	p. 3
Andrew Johnson on Stage	p. 9
Sidebar: Save Your Confederate Money	p. 11
Sidebar: Southern Resistance: The Klan and the Courts	p. 28
Grant Takes Command Once Again	p. 33
Essay: Frederick Douglass and the Annexation of the Dominican Republic	p. 42
Essay: The Long Road to Social Reconstruction	p. 65
The Brown Decades, 1877-1892	p. 79
Politics as Usual	p. 81
The Cleveland Era	p. 89
Essay: A Nation of Immigrants	p. 97
Closing The Frontier, 1865-1890	p. 117
What the Frontier Was	p. 119
The Indian Frontier	p. 125
The Trappers' Frontier	p. 139
The Miners' Frontier	p. 147
Sidebar: The Alfred G. Packer Saga	p. 151
Sidebar: Mining in Story and Song	p. 156
The Cattlemen's Frontier	p. 159
Sidebar: The Cowboy as Hero	p. 162
The Farmer's Frontier	p. 165
Sidebar: A Standard Gauge	p. 172
Sidebar: Hell on Wheels	p. 175
Industry, Wealth, And The City, 1865-1901	p. 180
Industry Grows the City	p. 181
The Men Who Made the Era	p. 189
Sidebar: Dynamite!	p. 205
Sidebar: Sons and their Fathers' Riches	p. 214
The City	p. 217
Sidebar: The City's Changing Face	p. 223
The Populist Era, 1890-1896	p. 227
The Vicious Cycle	p. 229
Sidebar: Solace on the Lonesome Prairie	p. 232
The Farmers Fight Back	p. 235
Populists Unite	p. 239
Cleveland Makes a Comeback	p. 245
Essay: America's Last "Near War" with Britain: A Historical Vignette	p. 250
Essay: From the White City to Coney Island	p. 259
The Age Of Imperialism, 1898-1904	p. 267
The 1896 Election	p. 269
Sidebar: William Allen White and the Populists	p. 273
McKinley's Road to War	p. 275
Sidebar: A Message to Garcia	p. 286
America in Transition: Progressivism	p. 303
Theodore Roosevelt's World	p. 309
The World Seeks a Canal	p. 333
Essay: The San Juan Route: The Nicaragua Canal Company, 1887-1893	p. 338
The United States Digs a Canal	p. 349
Works Cited	p. 371
Index	p. 375
About the Author	p. 383
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