Into a New Century

Unit 8

Vocabulary

• Alliance – an agreement between two or more groups or people; unite for a common purpose

• Hydroelectric – relating to the production of electricity by waterpower

• Labor union – a group of workers who get together to solve problems or cause change

• Lynch – to seize someone believed to have committed a crime and put the person to death immediately without trial

• Neutrality – the position of taking neither side

And more vocab

• Pandemic – a widespread disease that crosses many countries

• Paternalism – the practice of management in which the desire to help or protect inhibits personal choice and responsibility

• Segregation – the act of separating people by race

• Stalemate – reaching a point where neither side can reach a conclusion

• Suffrage – the right to vote

First in Flight

December 17, 1903

Wilbur and Orville Wright

Kill Devil Hills, NC

No one had ever powered a plane with an engine

Orville “flew” the plane, Wilbur ran alongside

Plane stayed aloft for 12 seconds

Textile Mills

• NC was the most industrialized southern state

• Hundreds of textile mills opened– Cheap labor and easy access to cotton– Southern mills were cheaper to operate

• US textile production moved south• Jobs for white workers; very few blacks• Growth was powered by hydro electric

power

The Growth of Industry

• Changed NC life and culture• Business profits helped build towns, churches,

schools, hospitals and libraries• Shaped social classes

– Past • Either small farmers, large landowners or slaves

– Present • Factory employees formed a working class depending on

factory wages• Middle class professionals, lawyers, managers and

merchants

Life as a Mill Worker

• Operated on family labor system– Every family member expected to work (even kids as

young as 9 or 10)• Mill work offered more reliable income than

sharecropping BUT had less independence than farmers– Control over workers’ lives; practiced paternalism– Built mill villages and rented houses to workers

• Became communities• If too many family members quit or were fired then

the family to move– Supplied electricity to their workers; it was turned off

at 9 p.m

“Welfare Work”

• To keep workers from moving offered “Welfare Work”

• Mill owners offered education, entertainment, community centers, brass bands, baseball teams, home economics classes and contests (best yards or healthiest babies)

• Designed to develop workers’ habits and goals; i.e. team sports; had to follow rules and work as a team to achieve goals

The Progressive Era

• Social programs designed to promote progress in the US; progress and safety North Carolina Progressives

• Politicians– Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, President– Woodrow Wilson, President– Charles B. Aycock, NC Governor

Improving State Schools

• CBA knew with improved education would come an improved economy

• School only lasted 3 months students came only when there was no farm work

• Students organized into grades, expected to master one grade’s material before moving to the next

• School term expanded to 6 months and more children attended

• School became a path to a better life– Jobs as clerks, managers, teachers and engineers

Fight Against Child Labor

• One worker’s wages not enough, entire family had to work

• Child labor benefitted factory owners.• Kept wages low• Trained a new generation of workers

• Progressive reforms argued– Working young damaged children’s health– Denied them opportunities

• Congress passed a law stating children under 14 could not be hired– NC mill owners fought and won, law was overturned

• 1938 child labor abolished with Federal Fair Labor Standards Act

Separate and Unequal

Two school systems, one white, one black– White schools received three times more

money per student as black schools

• Black school – rickety wooden structure surrounded by a bare clay yard

• White school – brick structure with green lawn, playground with swings, sand, slides, see-saws, crossbars and basketball court, fenced in with barbed wire

Jim Crow Laws

• US Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that states could establish “separate but equal” institutions for blacks

• Paved the way for Jim Crow laws; separate but NOT equal– Blacks rode in the back of the bus, separate railway cars, kept

blacks from buying houses in white neighborhoods• Jim Crow was the name of a character in minstrel

shows; featured whites with blackened faces. Sang songs that made blacks seem funny and foolish

• Jim Crow became a common term for segregation

Jim Crow

• Jim Crow

Minstrel Shows

• White actors appear in “blackface”

Segregation

• De jure segregation – segregation required by law– De jure is Latin for “legal”– i.e. a law that forces blacks to ride on segregated

railroad cars– Existed throughout the South

• De facto segregation – segregation not required by law– De facto is Latin for “in fact” – i.e. when employees refuse to hire black workers for

certain jobs– Existed throughout the nation

Segregation Customs and Culture

• Employers hired whites for skilled jobs and blacks for unskilled jobs

• Blacks called whites with a sir or ma’am but whites called each other by their first names

• Blacks expected to give up seats on buses to white passengers and step off the sidewalks to let whites pass

• Failure to follow these “rules” could result in violence

• Violators were lynched by white mobs, which usually went unpunished

The Revival of the Klan

• Black inferiority was a theme in popular culture• Northern and southern romanticized the old

South• The Birth of a Nation, 1915, the country’s first

major feature film, based on a book by NC author Thomas Dixon.

• Helped revive the Ku Klux Klan– Klan became strong outside of the South, 3 million

members– Gained political power in several states– Klan members were now against blacks, Jews,

Catholics and immigrants

African Americans Fight Back

1.NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People– Challenged legal segregation and worked for

anti-lynching laws

2.Directly challenging Jim Crow laws was dangerous– Blacks were encouraged to build up their own

institutions rather than challenge white supremacy

World War I

• The Great War– Countries separated into alliances to protect one

another if attacked• Great Britain, France and Russia were the Allies• Germany and Austria-Hungary were the Central

Powers• 1914, an assassin murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand

of Austria-Hungary• Everyone declared war on everyone… the Great War

begins– Europeans think it will be a quick conflict but it

becomes a stalemate.

WWI cont’d

– Trench warfare• Soldiers dug trenches and fired on each other with

little success• Soldiers lived in cold, muddy trenches for months

• US stayed neutral for a while but economy depended on exports to Europe– Blockades made shipping to Europe dangerous and

soon deadly– 1917 German submarines began to attack US ships

At Home During the War

• At home residents:– Grew “victory gardens”– Bought Liberty Bonds– Canned extra food– Women sewed and knitted for soldiers– Students sang patriotic songs– Speakers travelled the state urging others to

save and sacrifice

Mills and Army Camps

• Workers in factories provided materials for war• Men away at war, women worked outside the

home for the first time• State’s economy boosted by:

– wartime demands for goods raised crop prices, textile wages and factory profits

• US Army opened three major training camps– Camp Greene, Camp Polk and Camp Bragg

The Great Migration

From 1916 to 1930 over 1 million blacks left the South, called the Great Migration

• Blacks moved to the North to find jobs vacated by men at war

• Positives– No Jim Crow laws– Factories would hire black workers– Jobs paid more, schools were better and

blacks could vote

The Great Migration cont’d

• Negatives– Still faced constant discrimination– Lived in segregated neighborhoods– Hired for the dirtiest and most difficult jobs– White and immigrant workers resented job

competition

The War Ends

• American reinforcements fought with French and stopped Germans; they surrender

• Woodrow Wilson, President– Helped write the Treaty of Versailles, created

League of Nations (precursor to United Nations)

– Rejected Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations

• Warren G. Harding elected -less reform at home and less foreign involvement

Influenza Pandemic

• New enemy – disease– 1918 – 1919 an influenza pandemic spread

throughout the US and world– More than ¼ of Americans caught the flu– Nearly 700K died (only 52K Americans were

killed in World War I)

• Worldwide, influenza killed more than 20 million in two years

The Roaring 20s

• Economic activity was sparked by WWI

• Advances in transportation and communication helped people in NC see more of the world

• 1920s was a time of economic growth and social change

• Called the Roaring 20s

Prohibition

• During the 1920s, drinking, selling or making alcoholic beverages was illegal in the US – Prohibition– Some thought drinking was a sin– Some thought banning drinking would make people

better workers and eliminate drunken abuse of wives and children

• 18th Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages anywhere in the country

Prohibition cont’d

• Prohibition increased demand for illegal alcohol, people called bootleggers because they tucked flat bottles of alcohol in their boots

• Moonshiners – hid their stills in the woods and ran them only at night

• Nationally Prohibition was a failure– Most people did not stop drinking, they just drank

illegally – Gangsters (Al Capone) grew rich buying and selling

illegal alcohol– 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment

Women’s Suffrage

• Congress passes 19th Amendment – women’s right to vote– NC did not ratify

• Men did not think women should vote• Did not like to be told WHO can vote

• White women register• Black women planned

– Studied for test– Registered in large numbers– Officials could not find “harder” test and gave them

white test, which they easily passed

Scopes Trial

• Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species• Fundamentalists challenged Darwin’s ideas in

the 1920• Passed laws to keep evolution from being taught

in school – John T. Scopes, teacher in Tennessee taught

evolution anyway– Arrested, tried and found guilty

• NC was never able to ban evolution in the classroom

Troubles on the Farm

• Sharecroppers made little money– State’s cotton crop was attacked by the boll

weevil – insect that ate crops– Competition from other countries lowered

prices on cotton and tobacco

• State needed cotton, landowners demanded cotton be grown, even though prices were low– Cotton once made farmers rich, now kept

them poor

Textile Tensions

• Produced high profits but paid workers low wages– Hard for families to “make it” on salary

• Mills hired “efficiency experts” who found ways for workers to work faster and get more done– Increased workload sometimes by double

Labor Unions

• Defended worker’s interests and united them– Used a strike as a weapon - in a strike all workers

refused to work until conditions are met– Owners had to find new workers or reach an

agreement with striking workers

• Factory owners did not like labor unions– Did not want to have to negotiate with workers

• Not all workers joined, some feared losing their jobs

Strikes in Gaston County

• Workers joined unions and went on strike– Demanded less work and better pay– NC governor sent the state militia to Gastonia– Conflict turned violent– Later union organizers were attacked, one

woman was killed– Mill reopened and workers returned with no

demands met