Reconstruction and industrial growth

The Civil War worked a revolution in American society and economy, North as well as South. Although the roots of modern America go deep into the years before the Civil War, the actual emergence of modern America occurred after the war. That conflict gave an immense stimulus to industry, speeded up the exploitation of natural resources, the development of large-scale manufacturing, the rise of investment banking, the extension of foreign trade, and brought to the fore a new generation of "captains of industry" and "masters of capital".

The end of slavery, the allocation of homesteads by the state and the speedy settlement of vast expanses in the west of the country accompanied by the savage extermination of the Indian tribes led to a tremendous expansion of the home market. This created the conditions for capitalism to develop at a faster rate than in any other country in the world. The defeat of the Confederacy left the territory of the southern states economically destroyed and devastated and the white population demoralized. At the same time, the abolition of slavery did not ensure equality for the former slaves. The legislatures in the southern states, eager to maintain the superior position of the whites in society began to

pass "black codes" to restrict the freedom of former slaves. However, radical opponents of slavery in Congress tried to protect the rights of former slaves and this led to a conflict between them and president Andrew Johnson, a Southerner, who took over the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and who tried to block these radical moves. The confrontation even made the radicals start impeachment procedures against

the president, though they failed. Congress nevertheless was able to press forward with its programme of "Reconstruction", or reform, of the southern states, occupied after the war by the army of the North. The period of Reconstruction continued up to 1877.

Reconstruction brought new woes and new burdens almost as heavy as those of war. Yet, with amazing vigour, the defeated South turned to the task of physical reconstruction and to the rehabilitation of its agricultural economy and the restoration of the institutions of civilized society. Richmond, Charleston, and Atlanta rose from their ruins. Railroad tracks were relaid; new roads and bridges were rebuilt. Old factories were reopened, and capital was attracted to new industries. Yet notwithstanding the rise of the iron, lumber, tobacco, and textile industries, the South remained predominantly rural and agricultural. Only New Orleans could boast of a population topping one hundred thousand. The vast majority of Southerners stayed on their farms, growing staple crops. With slavery gone it was imperative to work out a substitute labour system. Planters ruined by the war had no money with which to pay wages, and the Negroes, the main work force, had no money with which to rent farms. Under such circumstances the share-crop system originated. In the share-crop system the farmer provided the Negroes with the necessary tools and housing and the latter received, in return, one third of the crop. However, this system made the Negroes still more dependent on the white landowner, and as such they found that life went on for them much as it had before the Civil War. Nevertheless, some positive changes took place after the War. By 1870, southern states were governed by groups of blacks, cooperative whites and transplanted

Northerners (called "carpetbaggers"). Many Southern blacks were elected to state legislatures and to the Congress. These "reconstructed" state governments did much to improve education, develop social services and protect civil rights. Reconstruction was bitterly opposed by most Southern whites, some of whom

formed a secret terrorist organization called the Ku Klux Klan. In white hoods and robes Klansmen intimidated the blacks. They arbitrarily took the law into their own hands and murdered many blacks. Lynch law — the murder of a Negro without trial — was practiced on a wide scale, which gave Mark Twain every reason for calling the United States the "United Lynching States". By 1872, the federal government had suppressed the Klan, but

many whites continued to use violence and fear to regain control of their state governments. Reconstruction came to an end in 1877, when new constitutions had been ratified in all Southern states and all federal troops were withdrawn from the South.

Despite Constitutional guarantees Southern blacks were now "second- class citizens". There was racial segregation in schools, hospitals, trains, parks and other public facilities. Most blacks lost the right to vote because they could not pay the poll taxes or had failed to pass literacy tests. Though legally free, the blacks still lived and were treated very much like slaves. During this period, the United States was becoming the world's leading industrial power, and great fortunes were made by the new "masters of capital". The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. By 1900, total rail mileage increased tremendously (322, 000 kilometres) more than in all Europe. To encourage this expansion, the federal government granted loans and free land to western railroads. The end of the Civil War gave a powerful fillip to industrial activity. In the years after the war almost every industrial record was shattered. More coal and iron ore, silver and copper,

were mined, more steel forged, more rails were laid, more lumber was sawed and more houses were built, more cotton cloth was woven, more flour milled, more oil refined, than in any previous period of American history. In the decade from 1860 to 1870, the total number of manufacturing establishments increased by eighty per cent and the value of manufactured products by one hundred per cent. The industrial revolution was an accomplished fact. It was quite logical that the industrialists perfected the techniques aimed at making labour more intensive. The last quarter of the nineteenth century was marked by important inventions — the telephone by Alexander Bell, the phonograph, the electric light bulb by Thomas Edison, motion picture, the alternating-current motor and transformer by others. In Chicago, Louis Sullivan used steelframe construction to develop a unique American contribution to the cities of the world — the skyscraper. By 1880, 85 towns and cities had local telephone networks. By 1900 there were 800, 000 phones in the country, twice the total for all Europe. In 1893 Henry Ford carried out trials of the first car of his own design, and at the beginning of the 20th century he built a factory which for the first time made use p 82