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**The Industrial 1880s** Decade Project Lisa Machado, Allison Davis, Julian Chicoine, Carl Basbas, and Angelo Acosta

Brief Overview The 1880s was a time period that lasted from January 1, 1880 until December 31, 1889. The Second Industrial Revolution was the main event going on during this decade, so all events surrounding it had some correlation to this revolution. Because of the production of railroads and many other ways of travel that were being produced during this time, the economy was doing pretty well. In fact, the economy was at a very high point in the 1880s. During this time, about 300,000 Swedes came over to the United States of America, in efforts to be a part of this prosperity. Although some major wars did occur: 1882 Angle-Egyptian War, American Indian Wars, and many more, France and Germany still wanted to colonize in the U.S. during this decade.



Major Events in our Decade
Supreme Court Civil Rights Cases  by: Carl Basbas

In 1883, The Supreme Court of the United States decided in a consolidated case--109 US 3--that was made up of 5 cases. The question was whether the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was constitutional. The act said that public places could not segregate against someone because of the color of their skin. The Majority (8-1) ruled that the Civil Rights of 1875 was unconstitutional under the 13th and 14th amendments. Only Justice Harlan believed that Congress had the power to protect people from public places discriminating. The decision of the court was that Congress could not protect people from Individual segregation, but only from states discriminating. This led to people (especially South ) believing they could discriminate against people of color and led to Segregation. media type="custom" key="11838626"

The Haymarket Riot  by: Lisa Machado

In 1886, a riot struck that led to complete madness at the Haymarket Square in Chicago. The affair started off as a rally to support workingmen who were on strike to receive an 8 hour working day, but things got out of control. It was reasonable for this group to get together in efforts to accomplish their goal, but one day, someone anonymously set off a bomb during one of the mass meetings. They set off the bomb when the police officers were coming to investigate and ended up killing eight police officers and many others who were standing by. This decision was very inconsiderate on the part of whoever set off the bomb because innocent people were then tried for murder. Five people were convicted of murder, five of which were put to death and one committed suicide while in jail. The Haymarket Riot situation relates to the OCCUPY situation that we have going on today: the people on strike won't give up until their point it put across and they get what they want. This creates a disfunctional society where people expect too much and think that riots and fighting will solve all their problems, when it actually will not.

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The Dawes Act
By: Chris Canchola

The Dawes Act, named after its sponsor Senator Henry Dawes, was passed by congress in 1887. It allowed the US president to break up Native American reservation land and allot it to individual Native Americans. The head of a family would get one-quarter of a section of a reservation, or 160 acres. A single person under the age of 18 got one-eighth, or 80 acres. The supposed purpose of the act was to protect Native American land rights, though it hardly did this. One of the real main purposes of the act was to assimilate Native Americans into US by giving them individual pieces of land to tend to. Most of the land allotted to the Native Americans was desert land that could not be farmed on. Kids who inherited allotments often couldn’t hold onto them because they were sent away to boarding schools. When multiple people inherited the same allotment of land, the sizez of their pieces were too small for farming. Some tribes were exempt from this law when it was first passed, but later extensions of the act included them. Any excess land that the Native Americans didn’t get was bought by the US government to be settled by Americans. Somewhere around 90 million acres of Native American land were bought by the US government for settlement by 1934 due to this act, which was nearly 65% of what they had. media type="custom" key="11837488"

**The Assassination of President Garfield**
By: Angelo Acosta

On July 2nd, 1881, President Garfield was at the Baltimore and Potomac railroad station in D.C., preparing to leave for a summer vacation to New Jersey. A man thought to be insane by many, Charles Guiteau, ran up behind him and shot two bullets at Garfield's back point blank. He was arrested and later found guilty for murder. The president though, still had a bullet lodged somewhere in his abdomen area. Without proper technology, the doctors who tried to help simply stuck their dirty fingers in the wound, widening it and causing a great deal of pain, and infection. To relieve him from heat and humidity of Washington summer, the first "air conditioner" was invented with a fan and a box of ice. Also, a metal detector was made to find the bullet, but the springs under the bed messed it up. After 80 days that felt like torture, Garfield suffered massive heart attack, exactly 80 days after he was shot. By the time he died, the originally 3 inch-deep wound had expanded to a 20-inch long gash from his ribs to his groin. Over the eighty days, his body weight dropped from 210 pounds to a mere 130.

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** The Chinese Exclusion Act **
By: Allison Davis

During the Gold rush, Chinese people immigrated to America due to their failing economy and the promise of fortune in America. The majority of the Chinese people that immigrated to America were healthy strong men. The Chinese men were getting hired for jobs as miners and construction workers over the white men since they were in better shape, worked for less money, and didn't use Government infrastructure such as hospitals, and education systems. Pretty soon, the Americans were making claims that the Chinese people were stealing all the Jobs and due to popular opposition to the chinese, congress passed the chinese exclusion act in 1882. The act stated that any worker, Skilled or unskilled, was not allowed to enter the US and any Chinese person living in the US already was no longer allowed to be a naturalized citizen. This acts main purpose was to try and get many of the Chinese people out of the US. It worked at first, the number of Chinese Americans dropped by a lot the first few years the law was passed. Since the Chinese Americans were not allowed to live in a normal community they all lived to together in Chinatowns. Chinatowns were sort of a safe haven for the Chinese Americans. They were able to be surrounded by people of their own culture and they were able to celebrate their own traditions. the law was in effect for 61 years. It kept getting renewed.

Presidential Election 1888
By: Julian Chicoine The Presidential Election of 1888 changed how people voted and changed how future elections would be run. Grover Cleveland was Democratic political leader who helped Democrats gain presidential power in the previous election and was the only democratic president elected during the reign of political power that was held by the Republicans. He was a key political figure for the democrats and helped them gain back some power in the senate in 1888 where previously the democrats had only 34 seats they had 37 seats in the senate even though it was still lower then Republicans it was a major improvement. Benjamin Harrison was elected as the Republican candidate with Levi P Morton as vice president. One of the main concerns for both parties was winning the swing states that consisted of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana. Grover Cleveland only won two of these states unlike the previous election where he won all four he lost his state of New York by 14,373 votes. The Republicans won Indiana most likely due to the result of fraud committed. For Fraud not to exist in future elections ballots were made private before this they were not and people attempted to bribe people and commit other acts of fraud to try and get the upper hand in the presidential election. In order to win the votes of the swing states they had to try and get as many votes as possible by fighting for what the people wanted. A key issue that the people were concerned about were tariffs. The Republicans favored spending the money from the surplus on pensions, public works, harbor improvements, and redevelopment. Yet Cleveland didn’t want to see any federal revenues go to pensioners or invested public works. He fought to diminish the ponderous surplus by reducing taxes and tariff rates on imports. He thought this would help consumers and prevent a monopoly.

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