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Gilded Age & Progressive Reforms DBQ. CHART - What was the nature of each reform ( pol , soc, or econ)? Explain.
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Gilded Age & Progressive Reforms DBQ CHART - What was the nature of each reform (pol, soc, or econ)? Explain. Free Response – (1) Do you think this statement from Mark Twain about the Gilded Age is an appropriate/accurate description of this time period? (2) Address the necessity of reforms during this time period and who was responsible for enacting such reforms. Defend your answer using at least 6 of documents from the DBQ.
Document A Columbia, the feminine symbol of the United States, protecting a Chinese man against a gang of Irish and German thugs. "Hands off-Gentlemen! America means fair play for all men."
Document C Red Gentleman to Yellow Gentleman. "Pale face 'fraid you crowd him out, as he did me."
Document E “The treatment of the Chinese in this country is all wrong and mean. . . There is no reason for the prejudice against the Chinese. The cheap labor cry was always a falsehood. Their labor was never cheap, and is not cheap now. It has always commanded the highest market price. But the trouble is that the Chinese are such excellent and faithful workers that bosses will have no others when they can get them. If you look at men working on the street you will find a supervisor for every four or five of them. That watching is not necessary for Chinese. They work as well when left to themselves as they do when some one is looking at them. It was the jealousy of laboring men of other nationalities — especially the Irish—that raised the outcry against the Chinese. No one would hire an Irishman, German, Englishman or Italian when he could get a Chinese, because our countrymen are so much more honest, industrious, steady, sober and painstaking. Chinese were persecuted, not for their vices [sins], but for their virtues [good qualities].” The passage above is from Lee Chew, “The Biography of a Chinaman,” Independent, 15 (19 February 1903), 417–423.
Document F Cameron Report (Modified) To the PRESIDENT: Washington, July 8, 1876 “There have been certain wild and hostile bands of Sioux Indians in Dakota and Montana. I refer to Sitting Bull's band and other bands of the Sioux Nation. These Indians continue to rove at pleasure, attacking scattered settlements, stealing horses and cattle, and murdering peaceful settlers and travelers. The present military operations are not against the Sioux Nation at all, but against certain hostile parts of it that defy the Government. No part of these operations are on or near the Sioux reservation. The accidental discovery of gold on the western border of the Sioux reservation, and the settlement of our people there, have not caused this war. The young Indian warriors love war, and frequently leave the reservation to go on the hunt, or warpath. The object of these military operations was in the interest of the peaceful people of the Sioux Nation, and not one of these peaceful Indians have been bothered by the military authorities.” Very respectfully, J. D. CAMERON, Secretary of War Source: The President of the United States asked the Secretary of War, J.D. Cameron, for a report of the military actions leading up to the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Document G The Italian in New York The Italian comes in at the bottom. In the slums he is welcomed as a tenant who "makes less trouble" than the Irishman: is content to live in a pig-sty and lets the rent collector rob him. Ordinarily he is easily enough governed by authority—except for Sunday, when he settles down to a game of cards and lets loose all his bad passions. Like the Chinese, the Italian is a born gambler. His soul is in the game from the moment the cards are on the table, and very frequently his knife is in it too before the game is ended. “I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: First, the streets were not paved; second, they weren’t paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them” Observation from a ‘random’ Italian immigrant
“Several days before Christmas 1896 one of my Irish playmates suggested that I go with her to a Christmas party at Hull-House. I asked her if there would be any Jewish children at the party. She said that there were Jewish children at the parties every year. I then began to understand that things might be different in America. In Poland it had not been safe for Jewish children to be on the streets on Christmas. At the party, the children of the Hull-House Music School sang some songs, that I later found out were called “Christmas carols.” I shall never forget the sweetness of those voices. I could not connect this beautiful party with any hatred or superstition that existed among the people of Poland. As I look back, I know that I became an American at this party. I was with children who had been brought here from all over the world, with their fathers and mothers, in search of a free and happy life. And we were all having a good time at a party, as the guests of an American, Jane Addams.” Document I Source: The document below was written by Hilda Satt Polacheck in the 1950s, in her book I Came a Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl. She tells about her memories of Hull House from 1896.
Document K Excerpt from “The Jungle” “There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for the sausage. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption [tuburculosis] germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.”