History Mid-Term

HIS-102 Mid-Term

Fall 2011

1. John Wilkes Booth assainated Abraham Lincoln in April 1865 in the closing days of the Civil War. He believed that the “South Will Rise Again”!! In Fact, it was the worst thing that could have happened to the south. Explain Lincoln’s death was detrimental to the south and discuss the changes that occurred in the USA from 1865-1900 economically, politically, and socially.
While it is un-doubtable that many citizens of the South were pleased to hear the news of Lincoln’s death. The Confederacy had all but a small organization been defeated or had surrendered at the time of Lincoln’s assassination. He was mourned by the Northern states, save for the Copperheads, a liberal independent group in the union that strongly opposed the republican cabinet and the changes they were making. The United States Civil War was pretty much over by the time John Wilkes Booth made himself famous.
Politically, the issues of the states’ rights versus the power of the national government being supreme were solved in favor of the union. Secession was unconstitutional. The South’s economy based on slave labor and the agricultural estate system was destroyed. Blacks became second class citizens.
2. Explain why the period of 1870-1912 was called “The Gilded Age”? What were the characteristics of this age, who were the presidents, discuss tragic endings to two of those presidents and give descriptions of the life of ordinary workers.
Mark Twain called the late nineteenth century “The Gilded Age”. By this, he meant that the period was sparkling on the surface us corrupt underneath. In the all the rage view, the late nineteenth century was a period of greed and slyness: of greedy Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display. It is easy to sketch The Guided Age as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But it is more useful to... [continues]

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