America's Post-Civil War Growing Pains

Assignment 1: America’s Post-Civil War Growing Pains

1865-1900

Stanley Makowski

Dr. Black M.A. Ph. D.

History 105

January 27, 2013

In this paper I will identify 2 major historical turning points during the Reconstruction period. I will also analyze the impact of these turning points on America’s society, economy, politics and culture. The 1st historical turning point was the invention of the inexpensive, practical electric light bulb by Thomas Edison in 1880. This landmark invention brought a new level to industrialization. It wasn’t just a light bulb that brought this about, but the infrastructure that he invented to make the lightbulb practical, the distribution network for electricity that allowed transportation and other industries to switch from steam power to electric motor power. By the late 1880s, the demand for transportation and industry brought electric generation from dusk – to dawn lighting to 24 hour service. Edison’s invention of a practical electrical distribution network gave industry and cities significant ability to expand and grow during the last 2 decades of the 19th century.

The 2nd historical turning point was the Populist movement (the 1890s version of the Tea Party Movement the 1st decade of 2000). These were in alliance of farmers who entered the political arena to advocate their concerns over shipping and storage costs, and low crop prices brought about by deflation of the currency being on the gold standard. The Populist movement crossed racial barriers by combining both black and white sharecroppers in the South, with Midwestern farmers in the North. Their movement gained enough momentum after the financial panic of 1893, to gain them several congressional seats, and almost got the gold standard repealed.

I believe if Lincoln had not been killed directly after the war that he would have been able to keep the former plantation owners from taking over the governments of the former Confederate states. He would’ve...