Primary Sources and Activities for
Studying the Gilded Age in North Carolina
he North Carolina Office of in-depth look at how life changed in T Archives and History offers a wealth North Carolina in the late 1800s. of resources to help teachers and students of history gain a richer understanding of These materials include primary sources life in the past. To make some of these such as documents from the State Archives;
resources more accessible to teachers, artifacts and photos from the N.C. Museum representatives of the North Carolina of History; images from State Historic Sites Museum of History, and the State Archives; the Division of State newspaper articles from Historic Sites, State the State Library, and Archives, and more. Staff also wrote the Education Branch and compiled historical of the Director’s Office articles giving over- formed an Education views and background Committee. Using information. primary sources and Life changed dramatically for other information from many North Carolinians during In addition, the commit-
their organizations, the Gilded Age. Thousands of tee developed activities IVES AND HISTORY committee members people left their farms to work focused on the primary developed supplemental in factories such as this one, the sources to help students materials and activities Highland Park Gingham Mills of interpret these sources about the Gilded Age Charlotte. Image from the 1899 book and learn about the past in North Carolina. Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, in more detail. in the State Library’s collection.
The committee chose to focus on the In the future, the committee hopes to con- Gilded Age because it was a time of dra- tinue to provide resources on selected matic transformation in the nation and in topics or time periods in North Carolina’s North Carolina, a time when how and history and welcomes feedback about the where Americans lived and worked usefulness of this collection. Please send changed in so many ways. Although the in your comments about this collection as committee could not provide a compre- well as suggestions for future resource hensive look at the Gilded Age and had to packets by filling out the evaluation form
N.C. OFFICE OF ARCH focus on selected themes, it hopes that at the end of this publication. these supplemental materials will enrich students’ understanding of the past and will help teachers give students a more
(continued): Resources for Teachers for Resources Inside this issue: Inside this issue
Standard Course of Study Goals 2 Timeline: North Carolina in the Gild- 23 ed Age Gilded Age Overview 2 Agriculture in the Gilded Age 3 Resources/Enrichment Activities 28 The Impact of Industrialization, as 6 Suggestions for Further Reading 29 Illustrated by the Tobacco Industry Answer Key 33 Aspects of African American Life 14 Appendix: Enlarged Copies of 37 Selected Documents and Photos Innovations and Inventions 18 Mansions and Mill Homes 20 Evaluation Form 41 North Carolina and the Gilded Age Meeting Goals from the An Age of Contradictions Standard Course of Study or many people, the term “Gilded During the Gilded Age, thousands of
Age,” which refers roughly to the these factory workers joined together These materials and activities were F time between 1870 and 1900, evokes in unions to protest their working designed to help students meet a variety images of great wealth. People think of conditions. Unions used strikes as one of goals from the Standard Course of prosperous businessmen such as Andrew way to try to force businesses to make Study, including the following: Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, who changes; in 1886 alone, 700,000
became wealthy as workers went on Eighth Grade: North Carolina History their steel and oil strike. Congress Goal 5: The learner will evaluate the industries flourished even made Labor impact of political, economic, social, and who built extrava- Day a national and technological changes on life in gant mansions on holiday in 1894, a North Carolina from 1870 to 1930. Fifth Avenue in New recognition of 5.01 Identify the role played by the York City and else- labor’s importance. agriculture, textile, tobacco, and furni- where. George Wash- The Gilded Age was a complex Yet strikes sometimes ture industries in North Carolina, and ington Vanderbilt time, a time of great wealth for ended violently, with analyze their importance in the eco- even built his 250- some—as seen in this photo of G. W. state or federal nomic development of the state. room Biltmore Estate Vanderbilt’s Biltmore House—and troops fighting the 5.04 Identify technological advances, in North Carolina of economic hardship for others. strikers. An explo- and evaluate their influence on the in the early 1890s. In Photo from the November 28, 1896, sion of a bomb that quality of life in North Carolina. North Carolina, the issue of Harper’s Weekly, in the State killed a police officer 5.05 Assess the influence of the politi- Dukes, the Reynolds, Library’s collection. in Haymarket Square cal, legal, and social movements on the the Cones, the Carrs, in Chicago in 1886 political system and life in North and other prominent families grew eroded popular support for unions. Over Carolina. rich as tobacco and textile industries time, unions made little progress in the
prospered. fight for shorter work weeks, higher Ninth Grade: World History pay, the elimination of child labor, and Goal 6: Patterns of Social Order: The Yet the Gilded Age was a more complex the right for collective bargaining. learner will investigate social and eco- time; it could even be described as an nomic organization in various societies age of contradictions. It was a time of During this same time, African Ameri- throughout time in order to understand great wealth for some, and of economic cans in the South began to enjoy some the shifts in power and status that have hardship for most. Immigrants from of the fruits of freedom, exercising their occurred. other countries flooded the North right to vote, starting businesses, and 6.03 Trace the changing definitions of looking for work. In the South many serving during the Spanish American citizenship and the expansion of suffrage. farmers, struggling with low crop War. But they also faced racism and Goal 7: Technology and Changing prices and the difficulties of the later endured violent opposition to Global Connections: The learner will sharecropping system, left their farms their attempts to vote and to gain eco- consider the short- and long-term to work in the new factories and mills nomic power. The end of Reconstruc- consequences of the development of that were rapidly being built in the tion in 1877, the 1896 Supreme Court new technology. growing cities. Yet in return for getting ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson that upheld 7.03 Examine the causes and effects of a dependable paycheck, factory segregation, and the white supremacy industrialization and cite its major costs employees worked for low wages and movement in North Carolina in the and benefits. for long hours (10-12 hours a day), late 1800s all posed severe challenges
often for 6 days a week. In addition, to their search for equal rights. Eleventh Grade: United States History women and children worked in the Goal 5: Becoming an Industrial Society factories as well, usually for lower By necessity, this resource guide can (1877-1900): The learner will describe wages. The labor of these workers focus only on selected themes. Even innovations in technology and business made factory owners wealthy and also within those themes, it offers just a practices and assess their impact on created a huge array of consumer glimpse of some of the ways North economic, political, and social life in goods, which were aggressively Carolinians experienced change in the America. marketed across the country through realms of agriculture, industry, race
innovations in advertising. relations, inventions, and lifestyles.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 2 Aspects of Agriculture in the Gilded Age Sharecropping and Tenant Farming
fter the Civil War, thousands of former slaves and Tenant farmers usually paid the landowner rent for A white farmers forced off their land by the bad farmland and a house. They owned the crops they economy lacked the money to purchase the farmland, planted and made their own decisions about them. After seeds, livestock, and equipment they needed to begin harvesting the crop, the tenant sold it and received income farming. Former planters were so deeply in debt that from it. From that income, he paid the landowner the they could not hire workers. They needed workers who amount of rent owed. would not have to be paid until they harvested a crop— usually one of the two labor-intensive cash crops that Sharecroppers seldom owned anything. Instead, they still promised to make money: cotton or tobacco. Many borrowed practically everything—not only the land and of these landowners divided their lands into smaller a house but also supplies, draft animals, tools, equip- plots and turned to a tenant system. ment, and seeds. The sharecropper contributed his, and his family’s, labor. Sharecroppers had no control over which crops were planted or how they were sold. After harvesting the crop, the landowner sold it and applied its income toward settling the sharecropper’s account.
Most tenant farmers and sharecroppers bought every- thing they needed on credit from local merchants, hoping to make enough money at harvest time to pay their debts. Over the years, low crop yields and unstable crop prices forced more farmers into tenancy. The crop-lien system kept many in an endless cycle of debt and poverty. During the Gilded Age many African Americans and Between 1880 and 1900, the number of tenants in- whites lacked the money to buy farmland and farm creased from 53,000 to 93,000. By 1890, one in three supplies. They became tenant farmers and sharecrop- white farmers and three of four black farmers were either pers. This image shows African American workers tenants or sharecroppers. picking cotton around 1899. Note the factory in the background, which reflects the growth of industry in the state. Image from Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, in the State Library’s collection.
Activity: The Struggles of Sharecroppers and Tenant Farmers
hen crops were sold in the fall of each year, which they promised to pay back the money they owed. W tenant farmers hoped to have enough money to In this contract they conveyed certain items of personal pay landowners the rent for the house they lived in and property to the person to whom they owed money. (To the land they farmed and to pay merchants for food they convey means to transfer the title or ownership of an had bought on credit during the year. Sharecroppers item to another person.) If they paid their debt, these hoped to pay landowners for rent of a house and land as items would not be sold. But if they failed to pay their well as for farming supplies and tools; they also hoped debt, the mortgage allowed the person to whom money to pay local merchants for the food they had bought was owed to sell the conveyed items to pay off the debt. during the year. The W. R. Miller Papers at the State Archives contain Often the crops did not bring in enough money, and the many examples of chattel mortgages. Some of these tenants and sharecroppers went into debt. One way they mortgages state that the debtor is a cropper or tenant could continue farming was to sign chattel mortgages, in farmer of C. R. Miller, a landowner in Orange County.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 3 Aspects of Agriculture in the Gilded Age
Activity: The Struggles of Sharecroppers and Tenants (continued)
Study the following documents to get a sense of how difficult it was for farmers to get out of debt and what items they risked losing when signing a mortgage.
READING:
When sharecroppers and tenants could not pay their debts to landowners, they usually signed chattel mortgages, promising next year’s crop and/or items of personal property to the landowner if they were unable to pay back the debt in a certain amount of time. In this mortgage Jessa Buttler states that he is in debt to Charles R. Miller. The mortgage is one of many in the W. R. Miller Papers in the State Archives.
The following chattel mortgage contains many misspell- QUESTIONS: ings but is reprinted as it was written, with some editori- al corrections for clarity. The farmer, Jessa Buttler (also 1. How much money does Mr. Butler owe Charles spelled as Jessy Butler in another document), apparently Miller? was unable to read or write and had to sign this mort- gage with an X, representing his mark. It is unclear who wrote the document for him. 2. What items of personal property does he convey “I Jessa Buttler of the county of Orang in the state of to Charles Miller? NC am indebit to Chs R. Miller of orang conty in sade state on the sum of eighty eight dollars and twenty cts for which he holds my note to be due on the 15 day of October 1883 and to secure the payment of the same I do 3. When does Mr. Butler have to repay his debt to hearby conveay to him these articles of personel proper- prevent Charles Miller from selling his personal ty to wit my gray horse Charles . . . 8 years olde and property? blind and my intire crop of corne wheat oats tobacco shuck foder straw . . . . I am to farm on Chs R Miller lands . . . . but on the spec[i]al trust that if I file to pay sade debit 4. When did Mr. Butler sign this contract? How and intrest in or before the 15 day October 1883 then he much time does that give him to earn the money may sell said property or so much thereof as may be ne[ces]- to pay off the debt? sary by public auction for cash first giving twnty days notis at three public places and aply the proceeds of such sales to the discarge of saide debit and intrest on the same and pay any surplus to me giving under my hand and seal this 3 day of March 1883.”
Witness: J. W. Miller My Mark: X Jessa Buttler
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 4 Agriculture in the Gilded Age
Activity: The Struggles of Sharecroppers and Tenants (continued)
READING:
Another document reflects Mr. Butler’s attempts to pay 2. Because he was unable to pay off the full off his debt. This document, reproduced below, shows amount owed, what do you think happened to the principal of the debt, the interest that was added to the personal property that Mr. Butler conveyed the debt, and how much money Mr. Butler owed as of to Mr. Miller in the chattel mortgage? October 26, 1890.
3. Mr. Butler presumably signed another chattel mortgage on Feb. 26, 1884, this time for $64.71. How much interest was he charged between February 26, 1884, and Oct. 26, 1890?
4. With the addition of $7 in witness fees and the deduction of 18 cents for surplus money left over when Mr. Butler paid off a different, $50 debt, Mr. Butler now owes Mr. Miller $106.04. If he were to pay off his debt immediately, how Principal…………………………………………..88.20 much money would he actually have spent to Interest from march the 3 1883 to feb. 26 1884…. 9.92 pay back the original amount of $88.20? (11 mo 23 da) 95.12 Paid on bond……………………………………....30.41 Amt for new principal…………………………….64.71 To find this answer, take the answer to question Interest on $64.71 from feb. 26 1884 to ………….34.51 #1 (showing how much Mr. Butler paid in Oct. 26 1890 (6 yrs 8 mo) Feb. 1884) and add it to the $106.04 that he Amt due on bond………………………………...$99.22 owes as of Oct. 26, 1890. Witness fee at Greensboro……………………… 7.00 Amt. Due C. R. Miller $106.22 [Surplus money credited to Mr. Butler……………..0.18 after he paid back a different debt] ______5. Do you think Mr. Butler would be able to pay $106.04 off this debt in the next year? Why or why not?
QUESTIONS:
1. Notice that in addition to having to pay back the principal, or original amount, of $88.20, Mr. Butler is also being charged $9.92 in interest after one year. This brings the total amount owed up to $95.12. How much was he able to pay off on Feb. 26, 1884? (Hint: Look for the line that says “Paid on bond.”)
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 5 The Impact of Industrialization, as Illustrated by the Tobacco Industry The Growth of Industry in North Carolina
ome powerful statistics show the impact of industri- between 1880 and 1900. By 1900, the state had 177 S alization in North Carolina during the Gilded Age. textile mills and 44 furniture factories, and it was home The number of people working in to a main office of the largest industry in North Carolina dou- “By 1900, the state had 177 textile tobacco company in the world, bled each decade between 1880 the American Tobacco Company, and 1900. As workers came to the mills and 44 furniture factories, which was founded by the Duke cities to work in the growing facto- family in Durham. and it was home to a main office ries, cities grew in size. Wil- mington was the only city with of the largest tobacco company It would be an overwhelming more than 10,000 residents in project to try to study the impact 1870, but by 1900 Charlotte, Win- in the world, the American of industrialization in these three ston, Raleigh, Greensboro, and Tobacco Company….” major industries, which were Asheville all had more than spread across the state. Instead 10,000 people living in them. this section will examine aspects of the tobacco industry in Durham. A study of the During this time, the tobacco, textile, and furniture tobacco industry illustrates some themes that were im- industries all flourished. For example, by 1880, the state portant nationally and in North Carolina during the was home to 126 tobacco factories, with North Carolina Gilded Age—labor unrest, attempts at unionization, and tobacco products being sold nationally. In addition, an the benefits and dangers of machine use in factories. average of six new textile mills were built each year
Background on the Duke Family
n 1865 Washington Duke and his family started a Several factors lay behind the I tobacco business on their farm, and by 1874 they Duke family’s success: the hard had moved their business to a factory they had built in work of their employees, the downtown Durham. At first the Dukes, and later their heavy use of advertising to pro- employees, made smoking tobacco, which customers mote cigarettes, and the intro- could buy and smoke in their pipes. But in 1881 Wash- duction of machines that could ington Duke’s son James B. Duke declared, “My com- make cigarettes more quickly pany is up against a stone wall. It cannot compete with and more cheaply than workers The decision of James the Bull. . . . . I am going into the cigarette business.” could make them by hand. Duke to start using ma- chines instead of people to roll cigarettes offers a The Bull that James Duke was referring to was Bull The story of how the Dukes telling example of the Durham, a world-famous brand of smoking tobacco that hired workers to hand roll ciga- effects of the industrial was also made in Durham. James Duke recognized that rettes in 1881 and later replaced revolution on workers. for the Duke company to succeed, it needed to sell those workers with machines Photo courtesy of Duke something in addition to smoking tobacco. As a result, offers a telling example of the Homestead State Historic W. Duke Sons and Company began making cigarettes. effects of the industrial revolu- Site. This decision and the popularity of the company’s ciga- tion on workers in the state. It rettes ultimately resulted in W. Duke Sons and Compa- also offers insight into the formation of unions in North ny becoming a wealthy and powerful business. In 1890 Carolina, and why unions generally failed. A further James Duke convinced his firm’s competitors to merge look at other aspects of the tobacco industry in Durham with his company; in this way he created the American adds more detail about labor unrest in North Carolina Tobacco Company, the largest tobacco company in the and some of the impacts of industrialization on workers. world until it was broken up in 1911.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 6 The Impact of Industrialization, as Illustrated by the Tobacco Industry The Bonsack Machine and Labor Unrest
n 1881 James Duke traveled to New York and hired Workers in the Duke factory I approximately 125 Eastern European Jewish immi- were concerned grants to hand-roll cigarettes for W. Duke Sons and about the intro- Company in Durham. These workers were skilled hand duction of rollers, able to roll three or four cigarettes per minute; the Bonsack they had learned the trade in Europe, where cigarettes machine, which were first developed, and had worked for a company in could roll as New York. At the time of Duke’s visit, they were on many cigarettes strike against that New York business, presumably for in a day as 48 hand-rollers. better wages or shorter hours. Photo courtesy of Duke Homestead These workers moved to Durham and started work for State Historic Site. the Dukes. By 1883, the workers were rolling 250,000 cigarettes daily. In 1884, however, James Duke learned In 1885 James Duke met with the National Executive of a recently invented Board of the union and cut the number of cigarettes that machine that could theoreti- union workers were allowed to make. This reduced how cally roll as many cigarettes much money union members could earn. Duke also in a day as 48 workers installed a second machine. could make. This machine was known as the Bonsack In 1885 the Durham chapter of the CMPU closed when machine after the name of the union became exclusively a union for cigar makers. the inventor, James Bonsack. Some workers joined the Knights of Labor, but factory Companies were reluctant foremen threatened to fire any members of the Knights. to invest in the machine, because they believed Eventually most of the Jewish hand rollers left Durham. consumers preferred hand- According to one author, the workers were given $25 in rolled cigarettes and also severance pay, which would have been equal to several because the machine often weeks’ pay. Some workers stayed to train their replace- broke down. But with the ments, native North Carolinians who were hired to roll This February 10, 1883 cigarettes at a lower salary. illustration from Frank help of a mechanic from the
Leslie’s Illustrated shows Bonsack Company, James workers in a Virginia factory Duke was able to get the By 1888, all cigarette rollers had been replaced by rolling cigarettes by hand. machine to work well. He machines, according to an August 23, 1888, letter writ- In 1881 James Duke hired also arranged for the Dukes’ ten to the Knights of Labor’s publication, the Journal of 125 Eastern European company to get the machines United Labor. “Machinery... is the curse of the laborer,” immigrants to move to North at a cheaper rate than his wrote the author. The writer criticized the ingratitude of Carolina to hand roll ciga- competition could. a local cigarette manufacturer who “owes his mills and rettes. Photo courtesy of Duke fortune to the cigarette makers who today are thrown Homestead State Historic Site. Some of the cigarette rollers out of employment.” resisted the introduction of the machine. The mechanic who worked on the machine, ACTIVITY: Tim O’Brien, said he received death threats. Three months after the first Bonsack machine arrived, several 1. Pretend you are a cigarette roller working for the workers formed a local chapter of the Cigarmaker’s Dukes in 1885. Write a letter to the journal Progress Progressive Union (CMPU). Over the next few years expressing your concerns about the Bonsack machine. several wrote letters to the union’s journal documenting their concerns. [Source: Much of the information in this article came from Jennifer Farley’s “Socialism & Trade Unions in Durham, North Carolina: 1881 to 1886,” which appeared in the Fall 2000 issue of the Gold Leaf, a publication of Duke Homestead State Historic Site.]
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 7 The Impact of Industrialization, as Illustrated by the Tobacco Industry Activities: Working in a Tobacco Factory
n 1926 the Durham Morning Herald printed an I interview with Laura Cox, who had started working for the Dukes in the early 1880s. She described how cigarettes were rolled by hand at that time. This method would have been the same method used by the Jewish cigarette rollers who had moved to Durham in 1884 and who taught native North Carolinians how to roll cigarettes.
READING:
“One started the day’s work off by getting a supply of tobacco on her table. A good day’s work was considered to be the production of about 2,000 ciga- This illustration from the Jan. 15, 1887, issue of Harper’s rette[s], and it took about two pounds and three Weekly shows women hand rolling cigarettes in a Virginia factory, following the same process that Duke employee ounces of tobacco for every thousand cigarettes. . . Laura Cox described in her interview. Photo courtesy of Duke .After getting the tobacco on the table the employe Homestead State Historic Site. [e] took a portion of it and put it under a damp cloth. This was done in order that the tobacco would retain its freshness until it was used up. After getting the 2. If workers were able to roll 3 cigarettes per tobacco all under the cloth it was pressed flat so as minute, how many hours would it take for to get it in better form to work with….The employe[e]s them to roll 2,000 cigarettes, which was the would take a portion of the tobacco from under the expected amount per day? cloth and place it on the table directly in front of her. . . . Directly in front of the employe[e] was a small paste-board square called the ‘kleunky’ on 3. The picture above can reveal clues about the which the actual rolling was done. Taking the tobacco division of labor in factories according to up in one hand, it was placed on the paper very gender and race. Study the picture and answer carefully, particular attention being given to its the following questions: What race are the smoothness and the clean appearance of the paper it employees working in the cigarette rolling was being wrapped in. After the cigarette had been room? Who is actually rolling cigarettes? rolled, it was stuck together with paste which every What do you think the men are doing? operator had in easy reach. . . . . When the employe[e] had made a good number of cigarettes, she would stack nine of them between her fingers and trim the 4. Like many other factory workers at the ends with a pair of sheers [sic]. This operation time, cigarette rollers were working 6 days required great skill for it was very easy to ruin a week, for 10 to 12 hours at a time. Try to several cigarettes with one miscut with the sheers.” imagine what your life would be like today —January 17, 1926 Durham Morning Herald, if you had to work 60 to 72 hours per week. on microfilm at the State Library What activities would you have to give up?
QUESTIONS:
1. Based on Laura Cox’s description, do you think rolling cigarettes by hand required skill?
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 8 The Impact of Industrialization, as Illustrated by the Tobacco Industry Activities: Other Signs of Labor Unrest in the Tobacco Industry
oing on strike was one ways for workers to seek G better pay and better working conditions. During the Gilded Age in North Carolina, some workers did go on strike, but they usually did not succeed in getting what they wanted. Read the following newspaper excerpts to discover some of the challenges that striking workers faced.
READING: In 1875 and 1881 workers at W. T. Blackwell’s company went on unsuccessful strikes, with unfor- “According to the Raleigh Sentinel the hands tunate results. Image courtesy of the North Carolina employed at Blackwell’s tobacco factory, at Durham, Collection, Durham County Library. struck work about breakfast time and walked out of the house. Bill Hammitt, as they call him, took the work. It was soon perceived that a strike was on next train for Petersburg and brought up on Tusday foot. Mr. W. T. Blackwell was sent for at once. He [sic] forty picked hands to fill the places of the is not a bit of an orator, but a most effective speaker, strikers. And now the strikers are “lonely and sad” going at once to the point. He asked what was want- and nothing to do.” ed. The leader, an Englishman, announced that they —Greensboro Patriot, Sept. 8, 1875, on micro- wanted the discharge of the inspector of cigarettes, film in the State Library and they wanted more pay. ‘As for the first,’ said Mr. B., ‘I propose to run this establishment. I select- QUESTIONS: ed my inspector. The reputation of my factory de- pends on my judgment. As for more pay, I will not 1. What happened to the workers who went on yield to demands made in this way. Now let every strike? one of you go back to his work. I will give you one minute to do that. If not, there is a door big enough 2. If you were an employee at another company for you all to go out fast enough. Take your choice.’ and saw what happened to the Blackwell workers, would this make you more or less likely to join “All went back to work, and thus ended the strike. a strike at your company? “But to guard against a recurrence, Mr. Blackwell 3. What seems to be the writer’s attitude toward dispatched a representative to New York by the evening the workers? train to engage a sufficiency of first-class workmen.”
READING: QUESTIONS:
On August 6, 1881, The U.S. Tobacco Journal described 1. What choice did Blackwell give to the strikers? an attempted strike in the Bull Durham factory. Read the excerpt below to learn what choices were offered to the 2. Given the statement that Blackwell has sent a strikers. representative to New York, what do you think will happen to the strikers? “W. T. BLACKWELL & CO. SETTLE A STRIKE QUICKLY” 3. What attitude does the writer express toward the “On Friday morning the cigarette hands in the factory workers? What attitude is expressed toward of Blackwell & Co., Durham, N.C., eighty-nine in Blackwell? Find specific words or phrases to number, on entering their department very coolly support your answer. took their seats and turned their backs upon their
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 9 The Impact of Industrialization, as Illustrated by the Tobacco Industry Activities: Unionization and Reactions to the Knights of Labor
uring the Gilded Age, many workers joined “Social equality has a bitter taste to us, D unions in hopes of improving their working con- ditions and wages. An example of the popularity of although it is a sweet morsel to some unions early in the Gilded Age is shown by the fact that people of the North. . . . ” between 1877 and 1880, the number of national unions grew from three to eighteen. —1887 editorial in The Tobacco Plant newspaper, criticizing social equality between whites and blacks in The Knights of Labor was one national organization that the North and by extension criticizing the Knights of Labor, which was open to both blacks and whites some North Carolina workers joined. In its 1878 platform, or statement of goals, the Knights of Labor expressed concern about the accumulation of wealth by some employed as a razor-back hog is of artillery people and the possible “pauperization,” or impoverish- practice. . . . ment, of workers. It called for the reduction of the workday to 8 hours; the prohibition of the employment “Now the writer has seen a good deal of the North of children under age fourteen in factories, workshops, and its ‘institutions’ of late years. It is a great coun- and mines; equal pay for men and women; and more. It try—a very great country in many respects. There also called for the use of arbitration, or negotiations, are a great many things, animate and inanimate, to rather than strikes, “whenever the employers and em- be seen there which we do not have in North Caroli- ployees were willing to meet on equitable grounds.” na or in the South. Their cities are larger and their business buildings are bigger than ours. Their hotels The Knights of Labor opened its first assembly in Raleigh are conducted on a more extensive scale—we in 1884 and expanded into most counties in North stopped at one in Ohio where whites and blacks Carolina, but made little progress toward its goals in the occupied adjoining rooms, sometimes the same state. Resistance from business managers limited its room, and ate at the same table. At another hotel in effectiveness. In addition, the fact that the union was the same State the proprietor was found to be a very open to both whites and blacks made it unpopular black man and his wife a very white woman, and the among many white southerners, who resisted the idea of ‘guests’ of both races were waited on by tolerably social equality between blacks and whites. white servant girls. That is one of the ‘animate’ things which we do not have here. . . . It is a matter An editorial in a Durham newspaper expressed concern of taste. But our ‘guardians’ of the North are slow to about the Knights of Labor. Read the following excerpts concede that we have a right to taste as we do. to understand the author’s concerns and how these con- Indeed, some of them tell us we have no business to cerns reflect common attitudes among some whites of taste at all unless we taste as they taste. Social the time. equality has a bitter taste to us, although it is a sweet morsel to some people of the North, and because it READING: is not palatable to our social stomachs they want to force it down our throats. . . .” The Tobacco Plant Feb. 2, 1887, p.2 QUESTIONS: “The ‘Pauper Labor of the South’” 1. What does the writer mean by ‘social equality?’ “Some of the Northern newspapers are devoting more space than brains to an alleged ‘discussion’ of 2. What can you learn about how blacks and the ‘pauper labor of the South.’ As a rule, the men whites interacted in North Carolina in 1887? who indite these editorials are as ignorant of South- What forms of segregation in the state are ern institutions, the people of this section and the implied by this editorial? relations existing in Dixie between employer and
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 10 The Impact of Industrialization, as Illustrated by the Tobacco Industry
Activities: Reactions to the Knights of Labor (continued)
The editorial continues on Feb. 16, 1887:
“We have no fear of anarchy, socialism, or social 3. What fears does the writer express about the possi- equality gaining a foothold among the Knights of ble actions of strikers when other workers break the Labor of the South. On the whole, we think the strike? organization is a good thing for men who have trades and laborers generally in the cities. . . . If a manufacturer of cigars, say, can pay a man a dollar a hundred for making a brand of cigars which he 4. What would you do if you were an employer and can sell at a price which will allow him a reasonable someone agreed to work at a lower pay than the profit, after paying for the tobacco, the tax and the strikers are demanding? skilled labor at that rate, he ought to do it, and the cigar makers union would be likely to see that he did do it. On the other hand, if the employe[e] should want two dollars per hundred for making the 5. The writer says that if an owner can give a raise to same brand, the manufacturer would lose money by his employees and still get a reasonable profit, he paying such a price and of course, the increase should do so. Can you see a problem with this state- could not and therefore would not be given unless ment? Who determines what is a reasonable profit? there was a corresponding increase in the price of that brand of cigars. In the latter case the request should be acceded to. Suppose there was a ‘scab’ ready to take his place, at the old price, did you say? Well, if we were the employer we would not hire the ‘scab,’ but if we did so employ him you would have no right to destroy our property nor would you be justified in mobbing the ‘scab.’. . . The best thing and about the only thing you could lawfully do would be to make a ‘union’ man of the ‘scab.’”
—Excerpts of editorial from The Tobacco Plant, on microfilm at the State Library
QUESTIONS:
1. Think about the scenario described by the writer, in which workers at a cigar factory ask for a higher wage and presumably go on strike. Other people, whom the writer calls “scabs,” are willing to take the workers jobs at a lower rate of pay. (“Scab” was a common and critical term at the time to refer to someone who breaks a strike.) Why do you think some people would be willing to work for lower pay?
2. What would you do if you were a worker who had gone on strike and you could not convince the “scab” to join the strike?
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 11 The Impact of Industrialization, as Illustrated by the Tobacco Industry Activities: Some Effects of Using Machines in Factories
he invention and growing use of Washington Duke and his T machines in factories during the sons first began pro- Gilded Age meant that factories could cessing smoking tobacco produce more items more cheaply than by hand in a corn crib, a building formerly used on if all the work were done by hand. their farm to store corn. There were some benefits to the use of This 1904 photo shows machines. Because machine-made Washington Duke posing items could be sold for a lower price next to his first “factory.” than hand-made items, consumers Photo courtesy of Duke could buy more products. As consum- Homestead State Historic ers bought more, the demand for prod- Site. ucts increased, which meant factories could grow and hire more workers. And as noted before, many workers were glad to have a steady paycheck READING: from a factory, rather than trying to make a living from farming. Read the following passage about how the Dukes pro- cessed tobacco on their farm, when they first started But machines posed problems for workers as well. As their tobacco business. noted in the discussion about the Bonsack machine, machines sometimes replaced skilled workers, who lost “My farm was 2 ½ to 3 miles from Durham. I ran their jobs or who might be given the chance to work at a the farm and manufactured tobacco at odd times. lower paying, less skilled jobs. In addition, some Everything was done by hand. We beat the tobacco machines posed health risks to workers. For example, up with sticks by hand when it was dry, and then loud machines could damage workers’ hearing. One run it through a fine wire sieve. With the help of my textile worker, who worked in Durham’s textile mills in boys we could put up 400 to 500 pounds per day.” the 1900s, recalled that it was not until the 1960s that —Quote by Washington Duke, from an April 5, workers were required to wear ear plugs; by then, she 1896, article in The News and Observer, on micro- noted, it was too late for many workers, who had already film in the State Library lost their hearing. In addition, machines used in the textile industry put a lot of cotton lint into the air. This QUESTION: lint was inhaled by the workers, and many of them would develop breathing problems years later. 1. Washington Duke is describing a time when he and his three sons were producing smoking tobacco by Machines, with their rapidly moving parts, could also hand. If four people were working and making 500 injure people. One history of the company that made pounds per day, how many pounds of tobacco did Bull Durham tobacco notes a few of these injuries: In each person produce? 1889 a worker named Joe Bynum had his hand caught in a cylinder and suffered a broken finger and severe cuts on his hand. Another worker, Wayland Rollins, operated READING: a machine to cancel revenue stamps and had his foot crushed in the machine. The following description of the Dukes’ tobacco factory appeared in an April 5, 1896 article in the News and Again the tobacco industry offers examples of both the Observer. benefits that factory owners found in using machines and some of the dangers posed to those working with “[The tobacco] then passes into a granulating the machines. machine, not the old fashioned method of f[l]ailing it to pieces with poles, adopted by
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 12 The Impact of Industrialization, as Illustrated by the Tobacco Industry Activities: Some Effects of Using Machines in Factories
Mr. Washington Duke, when he first By 1874 the Duke family established this great establishment, but had built a factory in immense machines run by steam and downtown Durham, and crushing the leaf into granulated parti- by the 1890s they had built a large, brick facto- cles as fast as a man can feed the leaf ry where hundreds of into it. It goes from here into oscillating employees worked. Pho- sieves, where all the dust and finer to courtesy of Duke Home- particles are taken out of it. . . .The stead State Historic Site. factory has a daily production of . . . ten thousand pounds of smoking tobacco.”
QUESTIONS: 3. In 1896 the factory was producing 10,000 pounds of smoking tobacco daily. How much of 1. What might be some of dangers of working with an increase is this production when compared to a granulating machine? Think not only about the 500 pounds being produced daily by hand in the crushing of the leaves but also the dust 1866? How many people would be needed to generated by this process. produce 10,000 pounds a day if the work were still being done by hand?
2. Who set the pace of work—the workers or the 4. If you owned a factory, would you choose to machines? What challenges might this pace use a machine to do this work or would you hire pose for workers? workers to do it? Activity: The Employment of Women and Children in Factories
s North Carolina families left their farms and began Average Number of Hands Employed A to work in factories, they found themselves work- Males Above 16 Years: 40 ing long hours for low pay. Often women and children Females Above 15 Years: 0 would work in the factories with the men to help support Children and Youth: 20 their families. Indeed, in some textile towns, where homes were owned by the factory owners, a family had Wages and Hours of Labor to provide a worker for every room in the house where Number of Hours in an Ordinary Day of Labor they lived. This encouraged women and children to work. May to November 11 November to May 10 The use of machines also encouraged the employment of women and children, because some of these machines Average Day’s Wages for a Skilled Mechanic $1.50 did not require great physical strength to operate. This Average Day’s Wages for Ordinary Labor $.40 was especially true in the textile mills. In addition, factory owners liked to employ women and children QUESTIONS: because it was considered acceptable to pay them lower wages. 1. How many young people under the age of 16 worked in the W. Duke, Sons & Company READING: factory in 1880?
Review the following information from the Industrial 2. If you worked 10 hours a day and received 40 Schedule of the 1880 census to learn more about the cents per day as payment, how much money are employees of the W. Duke, Sons & Company: you being paid for each hour’s work?
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 13 Aspects of African American Life in the Gilded Age Activities: Division of Labor by Race
n the tobacco industry, as in other industries, there In tobacco factories I was a division of labor between the work that whites blacks often worked as did and the works that blacks did. Generally, whites stemmers, removing the were given the higher paying jobs, while jobs for African stems from each tobacco Americans were lower paid and involved more manual leaf. This job was usu- labor. In addition, men were generally paid a higher ally done in rooms that wage than women received. were kept warm and humid to make the leaf A study of primary sources can reveal hints about gender more pliable. African and racial divisions of labor. Read the following ad to Americans also pre- learn about the race and gender of the workers the Duke pared tobacco leaves to This picture from the Janu- tobacco company hired to make cigarettes: make plug, or chewing, ary 15, 1887, issue of Harper’s tobacco. A visitor to the Weekly shows black women “WANTED! 25 White Girls to Make Cigarettes. W. P. H. Mayo and Brother stemming tobacco (removing Duke, Sons & Co.” plug factory in Rich- the central stem from tobacco —The Tobacco Plant, Jan. 11, 1882 mond, Virginia, noted leaves). During the Gilded both the hot working Age in the South, black and conditions of the factory white factory workers usually worked in different rooms Examine this drawing of women working in a cigarette as well as the skill of doing different jobs, with Af- rolling room for the Allen and Ginter Company in the African American rican Americans generally Virginia. The image comes from the February 10, 1883, workers. given lower paying and more issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. physically demanding work.
READING:
“After being taken from the hogsheads in which it is received, the leaf tobacco is first sorted into its several grades; then it is stemmed, sweetened in a mixture of syrup and licorice, steam-dried, shredded, moulded into shapes, cut into dimensions, enveloped in leaf wrappers, weighed, pressed, tagged, and packed for shipments. All this work must be carried on in a temperature of about ninety degrees, as a single blast of colder air would unfit the prepared material for use, and it is all done with the utmost rapidity, precision, and cleanliness.” —Harper’s Weekly, Jan. 15, 1887
QUESTIONS: QUESTION:
1. What race are the women in the picture? 1. Try to imagine working in a 90 degree room.What dangers might this type of tempera- ture pose to workers? 2. In the center of the picture there is one African American man. What job does he appear to be doing? Would this be a physically demanding job? [Source: Information and images from Harper’s Weekly and the Tobacco Plant from the State Library’s collection; image from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper from State Historic Sites.]
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 14 Aspects of African American Life in the Gilded Age Activities: African Americans and Voting Rights
n March 1867, as part of its Reconstruction Acts, carried out a I the U.S. Congress required that the defeated violent over- Southern states give African American men the right throw of city’s to vote. In 1869 Congress passed the 15th Amend- government that ment, which applied to all states. The amendment, resulted in the which was ratified by the states in 1870, reads as deaths of an follows: unknown number of blacks and the Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States departure of Red Shirts, such as these men from Lau- to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United many blacks rinburg, intimidated black voters in from the city and 1898 by parading through African States or by any State on account of race, color, or American communities with their guns previous condition of servitude. the state. Much more can be in view. Photo from the State Archives. learned about this brutal event by reading the Wilmington Race Riot Commission’s report at the web site www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/1898-wrrc/report/report.htm.
With the Democrats in power, the North Carolina legis- lature wrote an amendment to the state constitution in 1899; the amendment was approved by voters in 1900. This amendment required a literacy test and a poll tax for men who wished to register to vote.
Many poor whites and blacks at this time were unable to After the Reconstruction Acts of March 1867, black read and write and could not pass the literacy test required men were allowed to vote in the South. This scene for voting. shows a crowd of African Americans registering to vote in Asheville. The article stated, “The late slaves of Read the following selection of the law to understand the South have exhibited unusual interest in the work of registration, their first necessary step toward secur- how the law allowed illiterate whites to vote, but not ing the privilege of suffrage which they esteem so high- most illiterate blacks. ly.” Scene from the September 28, 1867 issue of Harper’s Weekly, from the State Library’s collection. READING:
Article 6, Section 4: Every person presenting Though some southern whites supported the right of himself for registration shall be able to read and blacks to vote, others used violence and intimidation to write any section of the constitution in the English discourage black voting and to erode the alliance between language and before he shall be entitled to vote he blacks and white Republicans. Over time many southern shall have paid on or before the first day of March states changed voting laws to disenfranchise black men, of the year in which he proposed to vote his poll tax but they were careful to do so in a way that did not as prescribed by law…. appear to violate the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But no male person who was, on January 1, 1867, or at any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under the In North Carolina some white Democrats used intimida- laws of any state in the United States wherein he tion tactics to keep away black voters and to win control then resided, and no lineal descendant of any such of the state legislature in 1898. In Wilmington they also person, shall be denied the right to register and vote
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 15 Aspects of African American Life in the Gilded Age Activities: African Americans and Voting Rights
at any election in this state by reason of his failure The State Archives has examples of voter registration to possess the educational qualifications herein cards from Alamance County in 1902, after the new prescribed. . . . amendment took effect. Study the following cards to —Constitution of the State of North Carolina, as learn more about these voters. published in Public Laws and Resolutions of the State of North Carolina Passed by the General Assembly at Its Session of 1901, in the State Library’s collection.
QUESTIONS:
1. Many black men in North Carolina in 1899 had either been slaves before the end of the Civil War or had ancestors who had been slaves. Before the Reconstruction Acts of March 1867, these men did not have the right to vote.
Many of these men were also illiterate. Would they have been able to vote under North Caro- lina’s new law, which stated an illiterate person could vote if he or his ancestors had been able 1. Would this voter have been able to read or write any to vote prior to Jan. 1, 1867? section of the constitution as required by the new amendment? Look at the voter’s signature to find a 2. Does this North Carolina amendment mention clue that shows this person was unable to read and race? Why do you think the writers of the write. (The first signature is the voter’s; the second amendment were careful not to mention race as signture is the registrar’s.) a reason to keep a person from voting? 2. Why was this voter allowed to vote, even though he was unable to read or write? READING
Even though race was not mentioned in North Carolina’s amendment, it was commonly understood that the reason for this amendment was to prevent blacks from voting. Read the following excerpt from a letter describing a speech given in support of the amendment.
“Politics is getting hot in this county now. Papa is speaking nearly every day and a good many nights also. . . . Papa and Hayes spoke there [at Silk Hope] again and they did good work too. . . . Papa had last speech and at the end he told every body who were in favor of white supremacy and were for the amendment to stand up, and every body there stood up.” 1. Notice that this voter, who was also unable to read —July 6, 1900 letter by John London, from the and write, was not eligible to vote in 1867. (He Henry Armand London Papers, N.C. State Archives would have been 18 in 1867, too young to vote.) Why was he allowed to vote in 1902?
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 16 Aspects of African American Life in the Gilded Age Activity: The Stories of Charles Waddell Chesnutt
he stories of Charles W. Chesnutt offer one way to which he had worked out T gain insight into race relations in the South during on the streets, with a ball- the Gilded Age. Chesnutt was born in 1858 in Cleve- and-chain attachment, at land, Ohio, as the son of free blacks who had emigrated twenty-five cents a day. from Fayetteville, N.C. Shortly after the end of the Civil Since that time the ceme- War, the family moved back to Fayetteville, where tery gate had been locked Chesnutt attended a school founded by the Freedman’s at night. Bureau. He later became a teacher and by 1880 was the principal of the Fayetteville State Normal School for “So Sophy stayed outside, Negroes. He married and in 1883 moved with his new and looked through the family back to Cleveland, Ohio, where he hoped to have fence.” better opportunities and a chance to pursue a writing career. —Text taken from pp. 287- 288 from “The Bouquet,” published Chesnutt published two collections of short stories and in The Wife of His Youth and Other This illustration from three novels. His fiction illuminates many aspects of Stories of the Colored Line. Chesnutt’s story “The African American experience in the South. His short Bouquet” shows Sophy, story, “The Bouquet,” for example, explores issues of ACTIVITY: an African American prejudice and segregation in telling the story of a white girl, peering through the Visit http://docsouth.unc.edu/ teacher and a young black student, named Sophy. When gate of the cemetery, which southlit/chesnuttwife/ the white teacher, Miss Myrover, dies, Sophy tries was open to whites only. cheswife.html to find an electronic unsuccessfully to attend the teacher’s funeral and burial. copy of Chesnutt’s short story collection, The Wife of The following excerpt from “The Bouquet” offers a His Youth and Other Stories of the Colored Line. Read telling example of how segregation and prejudice the full text of “The Bouquet,” which runs from page affected daily life. 269 to page 290, and answer the following questions.
“The cortége reached the cemetery and filed 1. In what period of history does the story take slowly through the gate; but Sophy stood out- place? In which state is the story set? side, looking at a small sign in white letters on a
black background: - 2. What happened to Mary Myrover’s father and
brother? What do you learn about the financial “ ‘Notice.This cemetery is for white people situation of the Myrover family? Why are they only. Others please keep out.’ in this situation?
“Sophy, thanks to Miss Myrover's painstaking 3. What do you learn about the education of black instruction, could read this sign very distinctly. children during this period? In fact, she had often read it before. For Sophy
was a child who loved beauty, in a blind, 4. What do you learn about the personal interac- groping sort of way, and had sometimes stood tions of whites and blacks during the period? by the fence of the cemetery and looked through
at the green mounds and shaded walks and 5. List incidents in the story that point to segrega- blooming flowers within, and wished that she tion in the state at the time. might walk among them. She knew, too, that the
little sign on the gate . . . was no mere formality; [Source: The image and the excerpt of Chesnutt’s story were copied for she had heard how a colored man, who had from Documenting the American South’s electronic copy of “The wandered into the cemetery on a hot night and Bouquet.” This work is the property of the University of North Caro- fallen asleep on the flat top of a tomb, had been lina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, arrested as a vagrant and fined five dollars, teaching, and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.]
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 17 Innovations and Inventions The Columbian Exposition: A Celebration of the New
he Gilded Age was a time of innovation, when T new inventions changed how Americans lived and worked in both large and small ways. The invention of the telephone, for example, began to change the way people communicated, and the development of the type- writer resulted in thousands of American women gaining jobs in the work force as typists, a low-paying job that most men did not want. Examples of Gilded Age inventions that continue to be used today include light bulbs, electric fans, cash registers, motion picture cameras, aspirin, paper cups, zippers, dishwashers, escalators, vacuum cleaners, carbonated soda, and gas- Visitors to the 1893 Columbian Exposition could see some of the inventions of the age, such as the phono- powered cars. graph, electric light bulbs, electric elevators, the first Ferris wheel, and more. They also could send home The World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in picture postcards, another recent invention of the Gild- 1893, featured many of these new creations and offered ed Age. This postcard was sent by Leslie Weil to his a chance for some Americans to see these inventions for family in Goldsboro, NC. From the Gertrude Weil Papers, the first time. More than 27 million people visited this State Archives. fair, which covered 633 acres of land and featured large buildings housing exhibits on the fine arts, machines, READING: agriculture, the states, the culture of other countries, women’s accomplishments, and more. “After supper we saw the electric fountains, there are 2 of them & each has about 30 streams arranged in 3 circles One innovation that the Exposition particularly celebrated that can be regulated at different heights & shapes & was how electricity could be used to power lights, different colored lights can be turned on at will, white, machines, and transportation. The fair’s buildings were red, purple, green in different shades. It is a beautiful illuminated at night by electric lights, and electric boats scene—beyond all comparison.” plied the waters of the lagoon that had been created —July 15, 1893 letter from Leslie Weil to his for the fair. The exposition even had an Electricity family, Gertrude Weil Papers, State Archives Building, featuring items such as electric lamps, eleva- tors, irons, stoves, fans, and sewing machines. “I also rode on the moving sidewalks two or three times. It extends from one end of the pier to the other…We The Exposition also introduced Americans to foods we rode all around the lagoon in an electric launch and saw take for granted today, such as hamburgers, Cracker the electric fountain which I admired greatly.” Jacks, and Quaker Oats. For entertainment visitors could —July 26, 1893 letter from Herman Weil to his ride the first Ferris Wheel; see reproduction “villages” family, Gertrude Weil Papers, State Archives representing countries such as Algeria, China, and Germany; watch performances and hear music by ACTIVITY: people from other countries, and more. 1. Pretend you are one of the visitors to the Columbian North Carolinians were among the crowds of people Exposition in 1893. Write a letter home describing who visited the exposition. In July 1893 members of the some of the inventions you have seen or new food Weil family of Goldsboro traveled to Chicago to see the you have tried as well as your reactions to them. fair. Their letters home detail some of the inventions they saw as well as the excitement they felt.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 18 Innovations and Inventions Lunsford Richardson: Inventor of Vick’s VapoRub
uring the Gilded Age, North Carolinians were also D producing new products. One of the most famous North Carolina inventions of the Gilded Age was Vick’s salve, later known as Vick’s VapoRub. Read the following article to learn more.
READING:
“You may not recognize his name, but you’ve probably used his cold remedy. Lunsford Richardson was a pharma- cist in Greensboro at the turn of the twentieth century. Like many druggists of his day, he made medicines for treat- Gilded Age inventor Lunsford Richardson developed a ing minor ailments. His biggest-selling remedy was Vicks salve that later became famous as Vick’s VapoRub. Photo courtesy of the N.C. Museum of History. Croup and Pneumonia Salve. We know it today as Vicks VapoRub. “Richardson used his brother-in-law Joshua Vick’s last “Lunsford Richardson grew up on a plantation near Selma in name, rather than his own for the product, because he Johnston County in the mid-1800s. He was the youngest of thought it was easier to remember. Once customers tried five children. During the Civil War his father served in the the salve, it practically sold itself. As a result, he decided to Confederate army. The boy saw how the war ruined North market it to a wider audience. And in 1898 he founded the Carolina’s economy. He dreamed of establishing a worldwide Lunsford Richardson Wholesale Drug Company. business that would help the state prosper once more. “In 1907 H. Smith Richardson, the inventor’s son, became “After he graduated from Davidson College, Richardson the company’s sales manager. He started selling Vicks became principal of Little River Academy in Cumber- salve throughout the Southeast and soon suggested that land County. In 1880 while he was visiting his sister in the name be changed to Vicks VapoRub. Later, product Selma, he decided to switch to a career that would help demonstrations, free goods to druggists who placed him achieve his dream. He used his savings to purchase large orders, and newspaper coupons for free samples a small drugstore and soon began concocting home reme- attracted new customers across the country. In 1922 the dies such as liver pills, headache powders, and liniment. company mailed five million VapoRub samples to people in rural areas west of the Mississippi River. “Richardson’s children inspired him to invent his most successful remedy. When all three caught bad colds at “Vicks VapoRub eventually became a household name the same time, they were treated in the usual manner of in the United States and beyond. When Lunsford Rich- the day. A cloth spread with warm medicine, called a ardson died in 1919, sales of VapoRub had topped $3 poultice, was placed on each child’s chest, and a vapor- million. When his son passed away in 1972, sales had izer lamp circulated the medicine to clear up the conges- climbed to $450 million! Vicks VapoRub has been a tion. The kids got well, but Richardson thought he could popular cough and cold remedy for nearly 100 years. come up with a better treatment. Lunsford Richardson’s dream of a worldwide empire has definitely come true.” ‘What he came up with was a medicine that combined a poultice and a vaporizer. Richardson mixed menthol, ACTIVITY: camphor, oil of eucalyptus, and other ingredients with petroleum to create a salve. When the soothing salve 1. Write a slogan for Vick’s VapoRub. How would was rubbed on the chest, the person’s body heat released you use your slogan to sell the product? the salve’s vapors to make breathing easier. [Source: This article, written by N.C. Museum of History staff, originally appeared in the May 21, 2004, News and Observer.]
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 19 Mansions and Mill Homes Mansions and Mill Homes: The Contrast in How People Lived
hroughout America’s history, people have always and some middle-class people could afford to build T lived in different kinds of homes, depending on attractive homes with many of the modern conveniences how much money they had. But during the Gilded Age such as indoor plumbing, electric lights, and some form the contrast between the rich and the poor became much of heating. more visible, as some people grew extremely wealthy and built lavish mansions, while others lived in simple Meanwhile farmers, factory workers, and mill workers homes and even cabins. often lived in simple three or four-room homes, while some sharecroppers and tenant farmers continued to North Carolina has one example of a Gilded Age man- live in log cabins that were built before the Civil War. sion, the Biltmore House in Asheville. Built from 1889 to 1895, this 250-room home required the labor of hun- Compare the pictures of the following homes and dreds of workers and cost millions of dollars to build. imagine what life was like for people living in these homes. Though most people in North Carolina could not afford to build a mansion like the Biltmore House, upper-class
Activity: Comparing Homes
The Biltmore House (Asheville, N.C.) The Executive Mansion (Raleigh, N.C.)
Image from the November 28, 1896, issue of Harper’s Weekly, in the State Library’s collection. Image courtesy of the State Archives. The Biltmore House was built in Asheville in the early 1890s for George Vanderbilt, whose family had made its Built between 1883 and 1891, the Executive Mansion in fortune in the railroad industry. Biltmore contains four Raleigh is the official residence for North Carolina’s acres of floor space and was originally was surrounded governors. It includes 35,000 square feet of living, by 125,000 acres of land. Some notable features in the office, and storage space and has more than 50 rooms. house include a dramatic staircase off of the entrance The first floor includes a parlor for ladies and a parlor hall; a large banquet hall with a seventy-foot high ceiling; for gentlemen, reflecting the Victorian tradition of bathrooms with indoor plumbing and hot and cold water having separate rooms for men and women to talk after for the tubs; a smoking room for the men; an indoor meals. The mansion sits on five acres of land and cost swimming pool; an indoor winter garden furnished with $58,843 to build. small palm trees; servants rooms; and more. 1. What aspects of the Executive Mansion show that 1. What features indicate that this house was built this building is intended for someone with an important by a very wealthy person? status in the state?
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 20 Mansions and Mill Homes Activity: Comparing Homes
Benjamin Duke’s house (Durham, N.C.) Mill, Commercial Features, this book offers several sample floor plans for mill houses and makes sugges- tions about how these homes should be built.
According to Tompkins, each house should be on a half -acre lot, which gives families enough room to raise a flower and vegetable garden while not giving them too large a lot to maintain. As he notes, “Most families have scant time to devote to gardening, because so many members of the family are occupied in the mill” (p.117).
Tompkins also notes that each house usually has its own privy, or outhouse, which would be located outside the home, rather than having indoor bathrooms with plumbing. Image courtesy of the State Archives. The image below shows a typical 3-room home in a Benjamin Duke, who like the rest of his family became cotton mill town; Tompkins notes that it cost $325 to wealthy through the Duke family’s tobacco business in build. Durham, built an attractive home in the late 1880s. Although there are no known pictures of the inside of the house, two newspaper articles reveal some insight into what the house looked like.
According to a January 25, 1889, article in the Tobacco Plant newspaper, the home had “all the modern improvements, heater, hot and cold water, electric lights, etc.” The article also praised the relief painting that decorated the house, especially the dining room dec- orations, which cost about $500, and the overhead deco- ration in the halls showing cupids, birds, and tropical scenes. A Feb. 22, 1902, article in the Durham Morning Herald mentioned some of the rooms on the first floor, including a drawing room; a reception room; a dining Image from Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, in the State Library’s collection. room; a sitting room; and a library. (These articles can be found in the microfilm collection of the State Library.) 1. Imagine what this house looked like inside. Using 1. What are some features that indicate this house this picture and your imagination, compare this was built by a wealthy person? house to the Biltmore Mansion and Benjamin Duke’s house. Name some of the differences.
Mill worker’s house 2. Do you think this house had electric heat and In 1899 D. A. Tompkins, who built several cotton mills lighting? in North Carolina, wrote a textbook about cotton mills for use by textile schools and investors. Called Cotton
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 21 Mansions and Mill Homes Activity: Comparing Homes
Factory superintendent’s home Home in the mountains
Image from Image by Cotton Mill, Margaret Commercial Morley, Features, courtesy of the in the State N.C. Museum Library’s of History. collection.
This image shows a house of a factory superintendent, This picture was taken by Margaret Morley around 1900 who would have been paid more money than other in the North Carolina mountains. Cabins like this were cotton mill workers. Tompkins notes that this home cost typical for many mountain farmers. $1,500 to build. 1. How many rooms do you think this cabin has? 1. How is this house different from the home What do you think it looks like inside? How do shown for a typical cotton mill worker? you think it is heated and lighted?
2. Compare this house to some of the other ones in this article. Name some of the differences.
Activity: Comparing Lifestyles
he Gilded Age was Left image an age of contrast courtesy of T the State and contradictions. Pho- Archives; tographs can help make right image these contrasts more courtesy of clear. Study the follow- the N.C. Museum of ing pictures. One shows History. women gathered for a bridal luncheon in New 2. What are some signs that the women in New Bern in 1898; the other Bern are wealthy? Be sure to look at details of shows a mountain family gathered on the porch of their clothing as well as items on the table. cabin around 1900, with one woman spinning thread or yarn. 3. Write a short story imagining what life was like Questions: for the women in the two pictures.
1. Compare the clothing worn by the women in these pictures. What are some of the differences?
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 22 Timeline Timeline: North Carolina during the Gilded Age
1870 September: Congress, alarmed The United States Lifesaving North Carolina Census Data about recent events in North Caroli- Service begins operating on the Total: 1,071,361 na, investigates the role of the Ku North Carolina coast with seven Free white persons: 678,470 Klux Klan in the lifesaving stations. Black: 391,650 state’s politics. Indian: 1,241 Nearly 1,000 1875 Other races: Not Available men are arrested John A. Hyman becomes the first by United States African American to represent The new Cape Hatteras Lighthouse soldiers for North Carolina in Congress. He is completed, replacing a structure alleged involve- serves until 1877. built in 1802. At 208 feet, it is the ment with the tallest brick lighthouse in the nation. Klan, and 37 are The mining boom town of Ore convicted. This Knob is chartered in Ashe County. North Carolina native Hiram R. investigation Copper is mined extensively in the Revels is the first African American helps limit Klan area throughout the 1870s and to serve in Congress when he activity in the This image, tak- 1880s. becomes a senator for Mississippi. state for a period en around 1870, of time. shows a Ku Voters approve 30 amendments James Lytch of Scotland County Klux Klan mem- revising the 1868 state constitution. receives a patent for his cotton 1872 ber wearing a planter, a popular southern Susan Dimock, a frightening 1875–1876 agricultural implement. native of Wash- mask. Photo A congregation established in 1867 courtesy of the ington, becomes N.C. Museum of builds the Temple of Israel, North June 8: Governor Holden proclaims the first female History. Carolina’s first Jewish house of Alamance and Caswell Counties in member of the worship, in Wilmington. a state of insurrection after the Ku North Carolina Medical Society. Klux Klan perpetrates acts of vio- Dimock had to go abroad to find a 1877 lence, including several murders. medical school that would accept National political Reconstruction Empowered by an 1869 law, Hold- women. She received her medical ends when newly elected Republi- en declares martial law and deploys education in Zurich, Switzerland, can president Rutherford B. Hayes troops to the area. Although the and practiced at a hospital in Boston removes Federal troops from the troops fire no shots, more than 100 as one of the nation’s first licensed South. men are arrested, and some vio- female doctors. lence occurs. The situation becomes The General Assembly authorizes a known as the Kirk-Holden War. 1873 normal school for blacks and choos- The North Carolina Press Associa- es the Howard School, which 1871 tion forms in Goldsboro. opened in 1867 in Fayetteville, as February 2–March 23: Democrats, the most promising site because of newly returned to power in the leg- Thomas Warrick and George its academic record in educating islature, remove Republican gover- Mabson become the first African black children. The school is re- nor W. W. Holden from power. American lawyers admitted to the named the State Colored Normal They impeach Holden on eight North Carolina Bar. School (now Fayetteville State Uni- charges, which include illegally versity) and designated as a teacher raising troops to send to areas not in 1874 training school. It is the first state- actual rebellion, arresting citizens Washington Duke and Sons builds supported institution of higher illegally, and denying the writ of its first tobacco factory in Durham. learning for African Americans in habeas corpus to those arrested. He R. J. Reynolds builds his first North Carolina. is convicted on six charges. tobacco factory in Winston-Salem.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 23 Timeline Timeline: North Carolina during the Gilded Age
Zebulon B. Vance, North Carolina 1879 head the station, becoming the first governor during the Civil War, is North Carolina’s first telephone African American station keeper in reelected to the post as Democrats exchanges open in Raleigh and Wil- the United States Lifesaving Ser- regain control of the state mington. vice. From 1880 to 1947, the Pea government. Island station is the nation’s only all May: S. S. Satchwell becomes the -black lifesaving facility. North Carolina creates the State first president of the State Board of Board of Health. Health. The North Carolina Pharmaceutical Association forms during a meeting The USS Huron sinks off Nags November: Charles N. Hunter and held in the state senate chamber in Head with the loss of around 100 his brother form the North Carolina Raleigh. passengers. The tragedy creates a Industrial Association to try to im- public outcry for increased govern- prove the lives of African Ameri- 1881 ment resources for maritime disas- cans by emphasizing economic pro- White Furniture Company in ters. This wreck, along with the gress rather than political activity. Mebane is founded as North Caroli- sinking of the Metropolis at Cur- Hunter’s Colored Industrial Fair, na begins mass-producing furniture. rituck earlier in the year, convinces held in Raleigh, becomes the most Congress to expand the United popular social event for blacks in 1882 States Lifesaving Service. the state. Hunter also starts the The first registered Guernsey cattle O’Kelly Training School in Wake in the state are imported from Penn- Leonidas L. Polk becomes the first County. In 1917 a Baltimore news- sylvania by H. T. Bahnson to his commissioner of the newly created paper calls the school the “finest farm in Winston-Salem. North Carolina Department of rural training school in the entire Agriculture. South.” 1883 September 11: North Carolina 1878 1880 experiences a violent hurricane that James F. Shober, the first known North Carolina Census Data kills more people than any other African American doctor in the Total: 1,339,750 hurricane in the state’s history. At state to possess an M.D. degree, Free white persons: 867,242 least 53 people lose their lives. begins practicing medicine in Black: 531,277 Wilmington. Indian: 1,230 1884 Japanese: 1 Surfmen from the Cape Hatteras North Carolina author Christian Other races: Not Available and Creeds Hill Lifesaving Stations Reid, whose real name is Frances rescue the nine-member crew of the Fisher Tiernan, publishes her 10th North Carolina has 126 tobacco Ephraim Williams. For their heroic book. The Land of the Sky is a trav- factories that annually manufacture action, seven lifesavers receive the el novel in which young ladies and 6.5 million pounds of plug tobacco Gold Lifesaving Medal of Honor, gentlemen engage in mild flirtations and 4 million pounds of smoking the highest award given by the during a vacation trip to the state’s and other tobacco, valued altogether Lifesaving Service. Mountains. The book’s title be- at $2,300,000. Tobacco manufac- comes a nickname used ever since turing eventually becomes centered A Bonsack machine, which rolls to denote the western part of North in Durham, Winston-Salem, cigarettes, is installed at the W. Duke, Carolina. Reidsville, and Greensboro. Sons and Company factory in Durham. The machine rolls January 8: Tabitha Ann Holton A government inquiry investigates 120,000 cigarettes a day, much passes the North Carolina Bar and possible negligence by the staff of more than the 15,000 that an indi- becomes the first licensed female the Pea Island Lifesaving Station. vidual worker could roll in a 60- lawyer in the South. Richard Etheridge is appointed to hour week.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 24 Timeline Timeline: North Carolina during the Gilded Age
The North Carolina Teacher’s April 20: The Farmer’s Alliance Leonidas Polk is elected leader of Assembly is founded at the White and Cooperative Union, a national the national Farmer’s Alliance. The Sulphur Springs Hotel in Waynes- grassroots organization, spreads organization is powerful enough ville. The organization later becomes into North Carolina. Former that the Democratic Party seeks its the North Carolina Education commissioner of agriculture Le- support by endorsing issues favored Association. onidas Polk becomes its leader in by the Alliance. the state. The Progressive Farmer, 1885 a magazine founded by Polk, The Eastern Band of Cherokee is The current North Carolina state becomes the main publication of incorporated under North Carolina flag is adopted. the national organization. The law. Alliance encourages North Caroli- The state recognizes the Croatoan na farmers to band together to fight Western Carolina University is Indians, now known as the Lumbee, unfair credit practices among the founded as a semipublic school. It as an official American Indian tribe. state’s merchants and to bring farm is chartered as Cullowhee High issues into the political arena. By School in 1891, to serve the 1886 1891 the Alliance has 100,000 Cullowhee community and board- The Crissie Wright breaks up off members in the state, but ultimately ing students from neighboring Shackleford Banks, inspiring the the organization fails to bring about counties and other states. In 1893 construction of additional lifesaving significant political gains for the first state appropriation of stations along the coast down to farmers. $1,500 establishes a normal de- Wilmington. Eventually, 29 stations partment. exist in North Carolina. August: Charles W. Chesnutt, the son of freeborn Sampson County 1890 J. T. Williams earns a medical degree African Americans, becomes the North Carolina Census Data and becomes the first licensed first black writer to publish in the Total: 1,617,949 African American physician in North Atlantic Monthly, a prestigious liter- Free white persons: 1,055,382 Carolina. ary magazine. Chesnutt, principal Black: 561,018 of the State Colored Normal School Indian: 1,516 1887 (now Fayetteville State University), Chinese : 32 A normal school for Indians opens is known as one of the nation’s best Japanese: 1 in Pembroke, Robeson County. This African American writers. Other races: Not Available school evolves into the present-day University of North Carolina at 1888 James B. Duke incorporates the Pembroke. James W. Cannon founds Cannon American Tobacco Company from Mills (now Fieldcrest Cannon) in five smaller firms. W. Duke, Sons Annie Laurie Alexander, born in Concord. and Company manufactures half of Mecklenburg County, returns to the the cigarettes consumed in the Unit- state several years after her gradua- The High Point Furniture Manufac- ed States. tion from Women’s Medical Col- turing Company is founded. High lege in Philadelphia to become the Point begins its rise as a major Because of overproduction, cotton state’s first licensed female doctor. furniture manufacturing center. prices drop to an all-time low of 5¢ per pound, down from 25¢ per The North Carolina College of May 29: William Henry Belk opens pound in 1868. Agricultural depres- Agriculture and Mechanic Arts his first retail store in Monroe. sion ruins many North Carolina (now North Carolina State Univer- farmers, forcing them into bank- sity) is chartered by the legislature 1889 ruptcy. as a land grant college. It opens in The state’s first electric streetcars 1889. begin operating in Asheville. Sergeant William McBryar of the
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 25 Timeline Timeline: North Carolina during the Gilded Age
10th United States Cavalry becomes James Turner Morehead sets up an Waldensians, members of a reli- the first African American from experimental electric ore furnace at gious group founded during the North Carolina to receive the his family’s mill in Spray, Rocking- Middle Ages, immigrate to North Congressional Medal of Honor. ham County, hoping to develop a Carolina from Europe and settle the McBryar receives the award for his process for producing aluminum. town of Valdese in Burke County. “coolness, bravery, and marksman- Instead, Morehead and his associ- ship” during a pursuit of Apache ates discover calcium carbide and 1893–1898 Indians in the Arizona Territory. acetylene gas, providing the foun- An era of Fusion politics ensues dations for Union Carbide Corpora- when Populists and Republicans October: Congress creates the tion. The new company develops join together in a coalition to defeat United States Weather Bureau as outside North Carolina. the ruling Democrats. Most Popu- a part of the Department of lists are white farmers who feel that Agriculture. The first large-scale reforestation the Democratic Party has not ad- on a professional basis starts at the dressed their economic concerns. 1890–1895 Biltmore Estate near Asheville. The Fusionists overcome the racial George W. Vanderbilt’s home near politics that has kept wealthy white Asheville is constructed. Biltmore The State Colored Normal School conservatives in power. House is the largest private residence (now Elizabeth City State Univer- in the nation. sity), chartered in 1891, opens at 1895–1896 Elizabeth City to educate and Caesar and Moses Cone establish 1891 train African American teachers the Proximity Manufacturing Mill The General Assembly charters the for North Carolina’s public in Greensboro. Ten years later, they State Normal and Industrial School schools. open a second plant, the White Oak as the first state-supported institu- Mill, which becomes the largest tion of higher education for women. Slater Industrial Academy (now cotton mill in the South and the It later becomes known as Woman’s Winston-Salem State University) is largest denim-manufacturing plant College (now the University of founded. in the world. The Cones’ denim is a North Carolina at Greensboro). durable, dependable, and lasting September: Frank and Charles fabric for work clothes. The General Assembly charters the Duryea of Massachusetts make the Agricultural and Mechanical Col- first gasoline-powered automobile 1896 lege for the Colored Race (now in the United States. The United States Supreme Court North Carolina A&T State Univer- rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that sity). The school opens in Greens- 1893 “separate but equal” racial accom- boro in 1893 to teach African The Panic of 1893 leads to a major modations are constitutional. Americans practical agriculture and economic depression. mechanical arts and to provide George Henry White benefits from academic and classical instruction. The General Assembly approves Fusion politics when he is elected Thomas Edison patents the kineto- Esse Quam Videri (“To Be Rather to Congress from North Carolina’s scopic camera, which takes moving Than to Seem”) as the state motto. Second Congressional District in pictures on a strip of film. 1896 and 1898. He is the only The present-day Governor’s Man- African American representative in James Naismith invents basketball sion in Raleigh is completed. The Congress, where he seeks to promote in Springfield, Mass. former mansion stood in ruins at the and protect members of his race. He end of Reconstruction, and succeed- appoints African Americans to 1892 ing governors had lived either in federal positions within his district The Caledonia state prison farm is private homes or at the Yarborough and introduces the first antilynching founded in Halifax County. Hotel. bill. White is the last black from
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 26 Timeline Timeline: North Carolina during the Gilded Age any state to serve in Congress for the United States is founded on the legally elected Republican govern- next quarter century. Biltmore Estate near Asheville ment. The riot causes black and under the leadership of Dr. Carl white Republicans to resign, and North Carolina Sorosis, the oldest Schenck. the Democrats install a white Federated Women’s Club in the supremacist government. During state, is chartered in Wilmington. William Cyrus Briggs invents a the riot, whites burn the office and very successful automatic cigarette- press of the Daily Record, an October 23: The first rural free rolling machine in Winston-Salem. African American newspaper. State delivery (RFD) of mail in North newspapers report casualties as 11 Carolina takes place at China Grove Fries Manufacturing and Power blacks killed, 25 blacks wounded, in Rowan County. Company in Forsyth County be- and 3 white men killed. comes the first producer of hydro- November: The Republican- electric power in the state. 1899 Populist coalition elects Daniel L. The Watauga Academy (now Russell as governor. He is the on- Dr. Aaron M. Moore and former Appalachian State University) is ly Republican elected to that of- slave John Merrick form the North founded in Boone. fice in North Carolina between Carolina Mutual Insurance Compa- Reconstruction and 1972. ny in Durham. It is currently the The Baptist Female University largest African American–owned (now Meredith College) opens in 1897 business in the world. Raleigh. Senate Bill 676, “An Act to Provide for Woman Suffrage in North Caro- Pepsi-Cola is first marketed. It July 4: Clarence H. Poe assumes lina,” is introduced in the General evolves from Brad’s Drink, devel- editorship of the popular weekly Assembly, which promptly tables it oped by New Bern pharmacist Progressive Farmer. He advocates by sending it to the Committee on Caleb Bradham. progressive farming techniques and Insane Asylums. stresses the value of education and February 15: The United States modern medicine. Durham opens the first tax- battleship Maine explodes in supported library in North Carolina. Havana harbor. Outrage over this event leads to the Spanish- Warren C. Coleman opens the American War, which lasts nation’s first African American– from April to August. North owned and –operated textile mill in Carolina sends two regiments Concord. of white soldiers and three companies of African July 24: The North Carolina American infantrymen. The Banker’s Association forms in final peace treaty is signed in Morehead City. December. Worth Bagley was the first 1898 May 11: Ensign Worth American Sallie Walker Stockard becomes the Bagley of Raleigh becomes officer killed in first woman to graduate from the the first American officer the Spanish- University of North Carolina. killed in the Spanish- American War. Photo courtesy of Women had been allowed to attend American War. the N.C. Museum summer teacher institutes in Chapel of History. Hill since 1879. November 10: The Wilmington Race Riot occurs when white The first forestry school in the Democrats overthrow Wilmington’s
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 27 Resources and Enrichment Activities Resources offered by the Office of Archives and History
he Office of Archives and History offers many the page to search for items held in a variety of T resources for teachers and students interested in collections. learning more about the past. The North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh offers exhibits, programs, North Carolina’s State Historic Sites feature museums virtual tours, teacher workshops, outreach programs, and historic structures throughout the state that tell the and more; it also has satellite museums in Albemarle, story of North Carolina from pre-history to the present. Beaufort, Fayetteville, and Old Fort. For more infor- For more information, visit www.nchistoricsites.org. mation, visit http://ncmuseumofhistory.org. .
In addition, the museum sponsors the Tar Heel Junior The Office of Archives and History also sponsors Historian Association, open to students in fourth National History Day in North Carolina. This competi- through twelfth grade. The museum produces a history tion, which is open to students in sixth through twelfth magazine for members of this organization. For more grade, invites students to conduct in-depth research on a information, visit http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/thjha/ particular theme and to present their findings through index.html. papers, exhibits, documentaries, performances, and web pages. For more information, visit www.nchistoryday. The N.C. State Archives in Raleigh maintains org. collections of photographs, letters, diaries, manuscripts, government records, and more; for more information, The Historical Publications Section offers numerous visit http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/archives. On this web publications about N.C. history at reasonable prices. page you can use click on the MARS link on the left of For more information, visit www.ncpublications.com.
Enrichment Activities
he following activities offer ways to explore some Industrialization T of the Gilded Age topics in more depth. To show how themes from the Gilded Age are still Aspects of Agriculture relevant today, you can ask your students to explore any of the following issues. Take students to visit Horne Creek Living Historical Farm State Historic Site in Pinnacle, N.C., to learn more North Carolina is known as a right-to-work state. Ask about life on a middle-class farm in 1900. Call (336) students to find out what this means and to compare 325-2298 or visit http://www.nchistoricsites.org/horne/ North Carolina to a state that is not a right-to-work state. horne.htm for more information. Ask students to research and make an argument for and against a state choosing to be a right-to-work state. The W. R. Miller Papers and the John T. Gregory Papers in the State Archives in Raleigh offer a wealth of Congress passed its first federal minimum wage laws in primary documents on sharecropping and tenant farm- the 1930s; in 2007 it voted to raise the minimum wage ing. Examples of these documents include chattel mort- for the first time since 1997. Divide the students into gages, records of workers buying food on credit, payment groups and ask one half of the groups to research the records, and more. As a teacher, you may want to visit pros of raising the minimum wage, and the other side to the State Archives to look through some of these papers research the cons. Have a debate. and decide if you would like to photocopy any papers to use in the classroom. Staff can photocopy loose docu- Because of union and worker demands, Congress and ments for a small fee, currently 10 cents per page. the states began passing laws in the 20th century about
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 28 Enrichment Activities and Further Reading
Enrichment Activities (continued) child labor. Ask students to visit the North Carolina Mansions and Mill Houses Department of Labor’s link regarding youth employment (www.nclabor.com/wh/fact%20sheets/joint_state_fed. Visit the Kennedy Center’s ARTSEDGE web site for htm). Ask them to list some of the restrictions that more information about Gilded Age mansions and for a have been placed on work done by youth under the lesson plan that focuses on three mansions in Newport, age of 18. Rhode Island. The web site for that lesson plan is http:// artsedge.kennedy-center.org/educators/lessons/grade-9- Take students on a visit to Duke Homestead State 12/Three_Newport_Mansions. Historic Site in Durham. At the site, students can take a guided tour and see the Duke family’s 1852 home, Ask students to study more of the pictures taken by see a reconstruction of the First Factory, and tour the Margaret Morley just before and after 1900 in the North Third Factory, where students can see how tobacco Carolina mountains. What can students learn about the was processed by hand. For a more in-depth visit, way people lived? Students can investigate clothing, request that students be given the full site tour, which chores, transportation, and more by studying these includes visits to a tobacco barn and packhouse, pictures. They can access these pictures by going to the where students can learn about tobacco farming. N.C. Museum of History’s artifact search web site Students can also watch an orientation video about (http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/Collections/Searchthe tobacco and the Dukes and can tour the Tobacco Collections.aspx) and typing Margaret Morley into the Museum. To schedule a tour, call (919) 477-5498. search field. A search will yield more than 200 hits; pictures accompany the description of photos at the If you are unable to visit the site, you can ask start of the list and toward the end of the list. students to visit the website at www.nchistoricsites.org/ duke/duke.htm, or you can use information from that website to add more information to your lessons.
Suggestions for Further Reading
There are many resources available Crow, Jeffrey J., Paul D. Escott, and Durden, Robert F. The Dukes of Durham: about the Gilded Age. Below is a Flora J. Hatley. A History of African 1865-1929. Durham: Duke University selection of some books, articles, and Americans in North Carolina. Raleigh: Press, 1975. web sites for further reading. Office of Archives and History, 2002. Dr. Durden’s book is the definitive biography of the Duke family Books Durden, Robert F. Bold Entrepreneur: members, from their start as A Life of James B. Duke. Durham: Car- tobacco farmers to their success in Clayton, Thomas H. Close to the olina Academic Press, 2003. founding a tobacco empire. Land: The Way We Lived in North This scholarly biography of James Carolina, 1820–1870. Chapel Hill: Duke traces his rise from tobacco Foreman, John and Robbe Pierce Stim- University of North Carolina Press, farming with his father and siblings son. The Vanderbilts and the Gilded 1983. to becoming head of the largest Age: Architectural Aspirations, 1879- Clayton offers a detailed account tobacco company in the world by 1901. New York: St. Martin’s Press, of North Carolina life from 1820 the late 1800s. It also explores 1991. to 1870. Topics include life on a Duke’s involvement in hydroelectric plantation and life as a yeoman power and his philanthropy, in Glass, Brent D. The Textile Industry in farmer. particular the establishment of the North Carolina. Raleigh: Division of Duke Endowment, which helps Archives and History, 1992. support Duke University today.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 29 Suggestions for Further Reading
Greenwood, Janette Thomas. The Gild- Roberts, B. W. C. and Snow L. Bull http:/ncmuseumofhistory.org/thjha/ ed Age: A History in Documents. New Durham: Business Bonanza, 1866- magazine.html. York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 1940. Durham: Genuine Durham Press, This book, published for young 2002. Boone, Edgar J. “The College for Rural people, uses primary documents Farm Families.” Tar Heel Junior such as newspaper articles, jour- Rogoff, Leonard. Homelands: Southern Historian (Fall 1987): 21–23. nals, speeches, and photos to exam- Jewish Identity in Durham and Chapel This article focuses on educational ine different aspects of life in the Hill, North Carolina. Tuscaloosa: opportunities in North Carolina in Gilded Age. Topics include the University of Alabama Press, 2001. the late 1800s and early 1900s. The growth of industry, immigration, This book includes a chapter on the North Carolina Agricultural Exten- urban life, the struggles of labor, Jewish Russian immigrants who sion Service and North Carolina life in the New South, and more. moved to Durham in the 1880s to State University are discussed. work in the tobacco factories. It Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, James Leloudis, chronicles their attempts to union- Burton, Vernon. “Landless Farmers: Robert Korstad, Mary Murphy, Lu Ann ize and keep their jobs in the face The Tenant Farm System.” Tar Heel Jones, and Christopher B. Daly. Like a of mechanization. Junior Historian (Fall 1987): 16–18. Family: The Making of a Southern Cot- Burton writes about the plight of ton Mill World. Chapel Hill: The Uni- Tilley, Nannie Mae. The Bright- the typical farmer in the nineteenth versity of North Carolina Press, 1987. Tobacco Industry, 1860-1929. Chapel and twentieth centuries. By 1890 Hill: University of North Carolina three-fourths of North Carolina McLaurin, Melton Alonza. The Knights Press, 1948. farmers rented the land they tended. of Labor in the South. Westport, Conn: This 754-page book is a detailed Greenwood Press, 1978. exploration of the history of bright- Clifton, James M. “Reforming Ante- leaf tobacco, covering its cultiva- bellum Agriculture.” Tar Heel Junior Mobley, Joe A., ed. The Way We Lived tion, marketing, and manufacturing Historian (Fall 1987): 8–10. in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: Uni- from 1860 to 1929. After being hurt by an agricultural versity of North Carolina Press, 2003. depression in the 1800s, farmers Tompkins, D. A. Cotton Mill, Commer- This volume begins with the state’s turned to the Farmers’ Alliance. cial Features. Charlotte: published by early Indian communities and con- This article discusses the Alliance’s the author, 1899. tinues to the present. The transition history, role, and results. from farming to factory life is Twain, Mark and Charles Dudley discussed. Warner. The Gilded Age: A Tale of Crump, Nancy Carter. “Food and Family Today. New York: Penguin USA, Life.” Tar Heel Junior Historian (Fall Morley, Margaret. The Carolina Moun- 2001. 1993): 28–31. tains. Asheville: Historical Images, This satirical novel, first published Complete with a glossary, this arti- 2006. in 1873, offers a look at greed and cle contains information about food In the late 1890s New Englander corruption in post-Civil War Amer- and its preparation among different Margaret Morley moved to North ica. The term Gilded Age later socioeconomic classes in North Carolina and photographed its came to be used by historians to Carolina through the years. New people and its landscape. First pub- refer to the 1870s and the decades kitchen technology and its effects lished in 1913, The Carolina Moun- following. are also discussed. tains includes Morley’s photos and her observations and offers a fasci- Dixon, Sarah. “Alexander J. nating look into life at the turn of Articles McKelway.” Tar Heel Junior Historian twentieth century in the North Car- Tar Heel Junior Historian, a magazine (Fall 1999): 31. olina mountains. for students in grades four through This brief profile of McKelway twelve, is produced twice a year by the centers on his efforts to promote Nathans, Sydney. The Quest for Pro- North Carolina Museum of History. child labor reform in North Caroli- gress: The Way We Lived in North Car- Many school libraries and some public na and throughout the South. olina, 1870–1920. Chapel Hill: Univer- libraries in the state carry it. Some back sity of North Carolina Press, 1983. issues are available for purchase, and Eller, Richard. “Furniture Making in Nathans discusses the Reconstruc- many of these articles are available North Carolina.” Tar Heel Junior tion era, life during the turn of the online at http://nchistoryresources.org/ Historian (Fall 1999): 34–35. twentieth century, and other topics. resource_types.html#articles. For more This selection covers the history of information about the magazine, see the furniture industry in the state.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 30 Suggestions for Further Reading
ans from all walks of life. in North Carolina Mill Villages.” Tar Escott, Paul. “Paternalism: The Control Heel Junior Historian (Fall 1986): 15–19. of a Mill Village.” Tar Heel Junior Glass, Brent. “Architecture and Design Leloudis writes about the close-knit Historian (Fall 1986): 8–11. in Mill Villages.” Tar Heel Junior relationships of neighbors in mill Escott discusses the positive and Historian (Fall 1986): 2–7. villages. negative effects of paternalism, a Glass explains the rationale for the practice in which factory owners location and architecture of mill McMillan, Alex Frew. “What It Was, controlled what went on in mill towns in North Carolina. What It Is: Industry and Technology.” villages. Tar Heel Junior Historian (Spring Howell, Valerie J. “One-Stop Shopping 1996): 4–7. Farley, Jennifer. “Socialism & Trade in 1900.” Tar Heel Junior Historian This article discusses how industry Unions in Durham, North Carolina: (Fall 1999): 8–9. and technology have evolved in 1881 to 1886.” Gold Leaf (Fall/Winter Howell examines the country store North Carolina. 2000-2001): 1, 4-5. (Available from and its importance. Duke Homestead State Historic Site.) Menius, Art. “James and Nancy Bennitt: This article focuses on the Russian Hunt, James. “The Farmers’ Revolt.” Yeoman Farmers of the Old South.” immigrants who moved to Durham Tar Heel Junior Historian (Fall 1987): Tar Heel Junior Historian (Fall 1987): in the 1880s to work in the Duke 14–15. 6–7. tobacco factory. This article discusses the history, Menius tells the story of the Bennitts, role, and results of the Farmers’ whose farm reflected hard work and Felkner, Pete. “From Farm to Factory.” Alliance. perseverance. Tar Heel Junior Historian (Fall 1993): 15–18. Judkins, Bennett M., and Dorothy Neville, John. “Algonquian Agricul- This article provides information Lodge. “The Evolution of Textile Mill ture.” Tar Heel Junior Historian (Fall about North Carolina’s transition Villages.” Tar Heel Junior Historian 1987): 2–3. from a mainly agricultural society (Fall 1986): 35–37. Neville outlines Algonquian to an industrial society. The authors consider the positive agricultural practices, which Euro- and negative aspects of living in a pean settlers observed and copied. Frederickson, Mary. “Women in Mill mill town. Villages.” Tar Heel Junior Historian Phillips, Anne Radford. “Horne Creek (Fall 1986): 12–14. Korstad, Robert. “Child Labor.” Tar Farm in the Year 1900.” Tar Heel Frederickson gives information Heel Junior Historian (Fall 1999): 28– Junior Historian (Fall 1999): 6–7. about the demanding and important 30. Phillips looks at how the Hauser roles of women in mill villages. A look at child workers in southern family lived and worked at Horne cotton mills. Creek Farm, now a North Carolina Freeze, Gary. “Industry at the Turn of Historic Site. the Century.” Tar Heel Junior Larson, John Lauritz. “East against Historian (Fall 1999): 23–25. West: The Fight over Internal Improve- Quinney, Valerie. “Toys and Games: This article describes what was ments.” Tar Heel Junior Historian Good Times in a North Carolina Mill happening in the tobacco, textile, (Fall 1996): 5–9. Village.” Tar Heel Junior Historian and furniture industries at the turn Larson writes about the controversy (Fall 1986): 20–24. of the twentieth century. over improving transportation in This article discusses the pastimes early North Carolina. of children in mill towns. ———. “Introduction to Life at the Turn of the Century.” Tar Heel Junior LeCount, Charles. “The Agricultural Reagan, Alice. “North Carolina State Historian (Fall 1999): 1–3. Economy of Antebellum Life.” Tar University and Tar Heel Agriculture.” Freeze gives an overview of North Heel Junior Historian (Fall 1996): 25– Tar Heel Junior Historian (Fall 1987): Carolina life at the turn of the twen- 29. 27–29. tieth century. This article outlines the differences Reagan examines how the universi- between planters and yeoman farmers ty advanced the agricultural in- ———. “Social Life at the Turn of the and considers how scientific farming dustry in North Carolina. Century” Tar Heel Junior Historian procedures affected North Carolina (Fall 1999): 4–5. agriculture. Sims, Anastatia. “Women in 1900.” This article gives examples of the Tar Heel Junior Historian (Fall 1999): social activities of North Carolini- Leloudis, James. “Like a Family: Life 10–12.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 31 Suggestions for Further Reading
Women’s roles at the turn of the “Like a Family: The Making of a North Carolina Museum of History, twentieth century are examined. Southern Cotton Mill World.” http:// http://nchistoryresources.org/ www.ibiblio.org/sohp/laf/. resource_topics.html Trelease, Allen W. “Railroads in North This site, part of the American The N.C. Museum of History offers Carolina, 1900.” Tar Heel Junior Historical Association's program many resources to teachers, includ- Historian (Fall 1999): 32–33. Teaching and Learning in the Digi- ing this website in which teachers Trelease points out the ways rail- tal Age, makes oral history re- can look up online museum re- roads brought change to North sources available to teachers and sources by topic or time period. The Carolina. suggests ways in which the stories web site offers links to magazine can enrich the classroom experience. articles, information about videos, Watson, Harry L. “Winning the Fight and online teacher workshops. for Progress—North Carolina’s Ante- Lilly, J. Paul. “North Carolina bellum Years Begin: 1830–1850.” Tar Agricultural History.” North Carolina Stuart, Alfred W., ed. “The North Car- Heel Junior Historian (Fall 1996): 1–3. Department of Agriculture and Con- olina Atlas Revisited.” Watson discusses North Carolina’s sumer Services. www.agr.state.nc.us/ http://www.ncatlasrevisited.org/ slow progress in becoming an stats/history/history.htm. homefrm.html. industrialized state. Lilly offers an in-depth history of This extensive site includes histori- North Carolina agriculture. cal and current information on Internet Resources North Carolina’s agriculture, manu- Markets and Management Studies facturing and service industries, Communications Solutions/ISI. “North Program, Duke University. “North Car- transportation, and economy. Carolina Business History.” olina in the Global Economy.” http:// http://www.historync.org. www.soc.duke.edu/ Textile Heritage Initiative. “Welcome This site contains information about NC_GlobalEconomy/index.html. to Cooleemee, N.C.” http:// North Carolina businesses past and This web site presents and analyzes www.textileheritage.org/Cooleemee/ present. current information about how in- welcome.htm. dustrial restructuring in an era of This site looks at a typical mill Digital Durham, http:// globalization is impacting North town in North Carolina. digitaldurham.duke.edu/teachers.php Carolina’s banking and financing, This site offers primary sources biotechnology, information technol- The University Library at the Universi- about Durham from the 1870s to ogy, furniture, tobacco, textiles and ty of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. the 1920s, including letters, maps, apparel, and hog farming industries. "Documenting the American South." photos, and more. It also includes a http://docsouth.unc.edu/index.html. lesson plan for 8th-grade students National Archives and Records Admin- This digital collection of primary to study the topic “Youth and Edu- istration. “Archival Research Catalog resources provides texts, images, cation in Durham, North Carolina (ARC).” http://www.archives.gov/ and audio files related to Southern during Industrialization, 1880-1910.” research/arc. history, literature, and culture. The Archival Research Catalog http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/ (ARC) is the online catalog of NA- Digital History is a web site being RA’s nationwide holdings. ARC developed by the University of allows searches by keyword, digit- Publication credits: Staff members who Houston, the Chicago Historical ized image, location, organization, served on the Education Committee for the Society, the Gilder Lehrman Insti- person, or topic. The site includes N.C. Office of Archives and History and tute of American History, the Na- historical documents, still images, who contributed to this publication include Jo Ann Williford, Education Supervisor, tional Park Service, and other or- maps, charts, and drawings. and Laura Ketcham, Outreach Coordina- ganizations. It includes an online tor, both of the N.C. Office of Archives exhibit on Reconstruction, histori- North Carolina Farm Bureau. “Ag in and History; Debbi Blake, Public Services cal documents, lesson plans, and the Classroom.” http://www.ncfb.com/ Branch Supervisor, N.C. State Archives; more. To find lesson plans about aitc/homeindex.htm. Jann Brown, Curator of Education, N.C. Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, This educational program provides State Historic Sites; Alison Holcomb, Historic and other topics, visit http:// materials to teach, through North Interpreter, Duke Homestead State Historic www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/ Carolina competency-based lessons, Site; and Charlotte Sullivan, Curator of Out- modules/index.cfm. about the sources of food and fiber reach Programs, N.C. Museum of History. Ms. Ketcham also served as the editor and and the importance of agriculture to designer of the publication. Leloudis, James, and Kathryn Walbert. the economy.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 32 Answer Key
ple, in their letters pretending gue this because the writer Aspects of Agriculture to be workers, students may doesn’t seem to condemn the in the Gilded Age mention fears of losing their factory for firing the workers. jobs and being replaced by a The Struggles of Sharecroppers and machine; concern about hav- Part Two Tenants (page 4) ing their pay cut as union 1. Blackwell told the strikers 1. Mr. Butler owes $88.20. members; concern over losing they could either get back to 2. Mr. Butler conveys a horse their job if they join a union, work or quit (“Now let every named Charles, the entire crop frustration or anger that a ma- one of you go back to his of corn, wheat, oats, tobacco, chine is now doing work they work. . . . If not, there is a shuck, fodder, and straw to have trained to do; and more. door big enough for you all to Charles Miller. go out fast enough.”) 3. The debt is due Oct. 15, 1883. Working in a Tobacco Factory (page 8) 2. It sounds like the representa- 4. Mr. Butler signed the contract 1. Answers will vary. It does tive sent to New York is going on March 3, 1883, giving him seem cigarette rolling required to hire new workers. These approximately 7 ½ months to skill—workers had to press workers may replace the ones pay off the debt. the tobacco flat, select the who went on strike. right amount to roll, carefully 3. Answers may vary. Students (page 4) place the tobacco on the paper, may argue that the attitude 1. Mr. Butler paid $30.41 on make sure the paper looked expressed by the writer toward Feb. 26, 1884. smooth and clean, roll and the workers is positive or neg- 2. Because he could not pay off glue the paper, and then care- ative. For example, the writer the debt in full, the property fully cut the cigarettes without says the workers “very coolly that Mr. Butler had conveyed ruining them with a miscut. took their seats and turned (a horse, his crops) would 2. If workers roll 3 cigarettes per their backs on their work.” have been sold. minute, it would take them One could argue the use of the 3. Between Feb. 26, 1884 and roughly 666 minutes—or word “coolly” implies calm- October 26, 1890, Mr. Butler 11.11 hours—to roll 2,000 ness and determination, which was charged $34.51 in interest. cigarettes. (2,000 cigarettes could be admirable traits, or 4. If Mr. Butler were to pay off per day/3 cigarettes per mi- that it implies coldness, an the new principal of $106.04, nute=666 minutes. 666 indifference to the necessity of he would have paid a total of minutes/60 minutes per working and to the hardship $136.45 to pay off the original hour=11.11 hours.) they are imposing on the fac- debt of $88.20. (This means 3. All the workers in the picture tory owner by going on strike. he would have paid an extra are white. The women are Also, one could argue the ref- $48.25 above the original debt rolling the cigarettes, while erence to Mr. Blackwell seek- of $88.20. In other words, in the men appear to be supervis- ing “first-class workmen” in the seven years since the origi- ing or transporting tobacco. New York implies that the nal debt was incurred, the cost 4. Answers will vary. ones in Durham are not first of that debt increased by more class, presumably because than 50 percent.) Other Signs of Labor Unrest in the they went on strike. 5. Answers may vary. In all like- Tobacco Industry (page 9) lihood, Mr. Butler would not The description of Mr. Black- be able to pay off that debt. Part One well seems more positive, Reasons why include the fact 1. The workers who went on with the writer expressing that the debt owed is now even strike lost their jobs. admiration for his effective- larger than his original debt, 2. Seeing other people lose their ness as a speaker. Instead of and he was only able to pay job when they went on strike simply writing, “Mr. Black- $30 on the debt in 1884. would probably make you less well said,” the author wrote, likely to go on strike. “Mr. W. T. Blackwell is not a The Impact of Industrialization 3. Answers may vary. Students bit of an orator, but a most could argue that the writer’s effective speaker, going at The Bonsack Machine and Labor Unrest attitude is unsympathetic, in a once to the point.” Also one (page 7) way blaming the strikers for could argue that by quoting 1. Answers will vary. For exam- their situation. They may ar- Mr. Blackwell’s speech in
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 33 Answer Key
detail and not quoting any of to work for lower pay because were making by hand in 1866. the thoughts of the strikers it would save them money and (10,000 pounds per day/500 after Mr. Blackwell’s speech, increase their profit. pounds per day=20). To figure the writer is expressing sup- 5. One problem with saying an out how many people would port for Mr. Blackwell’s ac- owner should give a raise to be needed to produce 10,000 tions. employees if he can still get a pounds per day, students could reasonable profit is that the use the figure they came up Unionization and Reactions to the owner is the one to determine with for the question on Knights of Labor (page 10) what a reasonable profit is. page12 or they could deter- Given human nature, many mine again how many pounds Part one of the editorial: owners are likely to want to per day a person could make. 1. By “social equality,” the writ- keep as much money as they If the four Dukes averaged er seems to mean blacks and can and to say their profit is 500 pounds per day, then each whites interacting with each reasonable. They may not person produced 125 pounds other in daily life without seg- consider the cost of living for per day. (500 pounds per regation or distinction made their workers and other prob- day/4 people=125 pounds per between them. Thus, the writ- lems workers face. person). Thus, it would take er describes a marriage be- 80 people each producing 125 tween a black man and white Some Effect of Using Machines in Fac- pounds per day to produce woman; white servants wait- tories (page 12) 10,000 pounds per day. ing equally on both blacks and 1. Four people making 500 (10,000 pounds/125 pounds whites; blacks and whites pounds per day would be mak- per person=80 people.) sleeping in rooms next to each ing 125 pounds per person. 4. Student answers may vary, but other; and some blacks and (500 pounds/4 people=125 most will probably say they whites sharing rooms and eat- pounds per person.) would use the machine instead ing together. of people. Machines could do 2. Reading this editorial shows (page 13) more work more quickly than that in North Carolina at the 1. The granulating machine people could; using machines time it was not considered which crushed the leaves might also be cheaper, because acceptable for blacks and could possibly also crush the a factory owner wouldn’t have whites to be married to each hands of a worker who was to pay as many people to do other; for whites to serve feeding the leaves into the the work that machines can do. blacks; for whites and blacks machine. Also, the crushing to eat together in public plac- of the leaves could create dust, The Employment of Women and es; or for blacks and whites to which would be dangerous for Children in Factories (page 13) be close to each other in ho- workers to breathe. 1. 20 young people under the age tels and public accommoda- 2. Answers may vary—students of 16 worked for the Duke tions. may say the machine set the company in 1880. pace or the worker set the 2. Working 10 hours a day for 40 Part two of the editorial (page 11) pace. The machine crushed the cents per day means that a 1. People might be willing to leaves as fast as the workers worker would be earning 4 work for lower pay than what could feed the machine; this cents per hour ($.40/10=$.04). strikers are seeking because could put pressure on the they need the money. They workers to work as fast as Aspects of African American Life might have a family to feed possible so that the machine and could be desperate for a job. could keep working. The dan- Division of Labor by Race (page 14) 2. Answers will vary. ger of working fast is that 3. The writer expresses fear that workers could become tired Part One the strikers might turn to vio- and not pay close attention, 1. The women are white lence, destroying factory prop- which could lead to them be- 2. The African American man erty or attacking workers who coming injured by the ma- appears to be lifting a full bas- are breaking the strike. chine. ket of tobacco, which would 4. Answers will vary. Many may 3. In 1896, the factory was pro- be a physically demanding job. say that as owners they would ducing 20 times more smoking hire the worker who is willing tobacco daily than the Dukes Part Two
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 34 Answer Key
1. Working in a 90 degree room was 90 years old in 1902, he money in Confederate bonds, could pose a variety of dangers would have been 55 years old which were worthless after the to workers—workers could in 1867. ( 1902-1867=35 war. Because of this lack of suffer from heat exhaustion years. 90-35=55 years old.) It money, Mary Myrover decides or heat stroke. Other conse- is unknown whether he was to teach. quences might include becom- black or white. Please note: 3. Answers may vary. Students ing dehydrated or fainting. Though former slaves or de- may mention that the Freed- scendants of slaves who were man’s Bureau once ran these African Americans and Voting Rights illiterate could not vote under schools and that later the state (page 16) the new amendment, illiterate took on this role. Students descendants of free black men may also note that at the time Part One would have been able to vote of the story only whites were 1. African American men who if they could prove they were allowed to teach in black were illiterate and who had descended from a free black schools. been slaves or whose ancestors who had the right to vote before 4. Answers may vary. Students had been slaves would not be 1835. After the state Constitu- may write about the fact that able to vote under the consti- tional Convention of 1835, whites and blacks knew each tutional amendment because free black men lost the right to other and interacted often but they or their ancestors had not vote in North Carolina. whites did not treat blacks as been eligible to vote before social equals. For example, January 1, 1867. Part Three blacks were expected to not 2. This amendment does not 1. This 53-year-old voter was talk to whites on the street (in mention race. Writers avoided also unable to read or write in Miss Myrover’s case, they mentioning race in the amend- 1902 (he signs his name with would only talk to her on the ment to avoid getting in trouble an “X”). He could not claim street if no other whites were with the federal government. that he was eligible to vote in around). Also blacks were The U.S. Congress had January 1867 because he expected to know that they passed, and the states had would have been 18 at the could not be considered as approved, the 15th Amend- time (1902-1867=35 years. 53 friends by whites, no matter ment to the U.S. Constitution -35=18), and voters had to be how long they had known forbidding states from denying 21 or older to vote. However each other (as seen in the re- citizens from voting on the he was allowed to vote be- fusal to let anyone but basis of race. cause he was a lineal de- “friends”—i.e. white people— scendant of a person (William into the house or church after Part Two Moody) who was eligible to Miss Myrover’s death.) Other 1. The fact that this voter could vote in 1867. (According the statements in the story make it not sign his own name shows U.S. Census, James Moody clear that whites did not think that he could not read or write, was white.) of blacks as equals. For exam- as required by the new state ple, Miss Myrover accepts amendment. (You will see that The Stories of Charles Waddell Sophy’s attachment to her in a instead of a signature, this Chesnutt (page 17) condescending way: “It had a voter put an “X” on the signa- 1. The story takes place several sort of flavor of the old ré- ture line. Someone else years after the Civil War, after gime, and she felt, when she spelled out his name and the Freedman’s Bureau bestowed her kindly notice wrote the words “His Mark” stopped running schools for upon her little black attendant, next to the “X,” meaning the African Americans. It is set in some of the feudal condescen- “X” was his signature.) North Carolina. (A line on sion of the mistress toward the 2. This voter was allowed to vote page 270 refers to a branch of slave” (page 277). in 1902 because he states he the family settling in the state.) 5. Some incidents that point to was entitled to vote in the state 2. Mary Myrover’s father and segregation at the time include on January 1, 1867. This brother both died in battle the fact that blacks were means he must have met the during the Civil War. Mary expected to sit in a separate requirements of that time, Myrover’s family has little gallery in church and that a which included being 21 or money, because her father cemetery in town was desig- older in 1867. Since this voter invested most of the family’s nated for whites only—blacks
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 35 Answer Key
could not be buried there and 1. Students may mention a varie- 1. This house is larger, has more in fact could not even enter ty of features that reflect the windows, has a nicer porch, that cemetery for a visit. Also high status of the people who and has a more attractive ap- the story reflects the fact that live in the mansion: the cost pearance (bay windows, a blacks and whites were edu- (more than $58,000); the fact decorative railing around the cated in separate schools. that it has more rooms and so top, etc.) It may also have much more space than most indoor plumbing. Innovations and Inventions homes (50 rooms, 35,000 square feet of usable space); Mountain home The Columbian Exposition: the large grounds (5 acres); 1. Answers will vary. A Celebration of the New (page 18) and even the fact that there are 2. Answers will vary. 1. Answers will vary. separate parlors for men and women to visit after a meal. Comparing Lifestyles (page 22) Lunsford Richardson: Inventor of Students may also comment 1. The dresses worn by the New Vick’s VapoRub (page 19) on the building’s appear- Bern women are more decora- 1. Answers will vary. ance—for example, the fact tive than the ones worn by the that it is three stories tall, is mountain family; for example, Mansions and Mill Homes built of brick, has several these dresses have ruffles, chimneys, and has ornate puffed sleeves, and flounces Comparing Homes (page 20) turned wooden posts on the around the hems of some of porches. the skirts. The New Bern The Biltmore House women also are wearing or- 1. Some features that indicate Benjamin Duke’s House nate hats decorated with feath- this house was built for a very 1. Some features that the stu- ers. In contrast, the members wealthy person include the dents may mention include the of the mountain family are fact that both the building and modern conveniences the wearing very plain and simple the house were originally very house had (heat, hot and cold work clothes which the wom- large, with the building con- water, electric lights), the en probably made themselves. taining four acres of space and elaborate decorations, and the (Note the woman working at the grounds including 125,000 fact that it had specialized the spinning wheel.) Students acres. Other features that re- rooms such as a drawing may even note that the fact flect great wealth include the room, reception room, dining that the New Bern women had dramatic staircase, the 70-foot room, sitting room, and li- the time and leisure to have a -high ceiling in the banquet brary. Students might also say tea party and bridal luncheon hall; the use of indoor plumb- that having a library also sug- is a sign of wealth. Many ing and availability of hot and gests that the family had farming families had to com- cold water; the inclusion of an enough money to buy a good bine social events with work, indoor swimming pool and collection of books. Students such as hosting quilting bees winter garden; and the fact may also comment on the and gatherings to shuck corn. that the house included serv- building’s ornate appearance. 2. The dresses and hats are signs ants rooms, which meant the of wealth, as is the fact that family had servants. Students Mill Worker’s house these dresses follow the may also note that the house 1. Answers will vary. In compar- fashions of the time. (It cost includes 250 rooms, far more ing this home to others, money to continuously update rooms than any other home in students may note how much one’s clothes to follow the the state, and that it cost mil- smaller this building is and fashions.) In addition, though lions of dollars to build. Stu- how much simpler its con- this may be hard to see in the dents may also comment on struction is. They might also printed picture, one woman is the Biltmore’s impressive ap- note the small lot, perhaps a holding a silver teapot and pearance—for example, it is half-acre as Tompkins suggests. there is a silver creamer and built to look like a Renais- 2. This house probably did not sugar bowl on the table. The sance chateau, or castle, from have heat, electric lighting, or parasols and the pretty table France. indoor plumbing. covering could also be seen as a sign of wealth. The Executive Mansion Factory Superintendent’s home 3. Answers will vary.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 36 Appendix Enlarged Copies of Selected Documents and Photographs
Selected documents and images have been enlarged in this Appendix for teachers who would like bigger images to go along with the activities.
From page 5, “The Struggles of Sharecroppers and Tenants”
Copy of document showing how much money Jessy Butler owed C. R. Miller; the document can be found in the W. R. Miller Papers in the State Archives. This more complete copy of the document shows that Jessy Butler was African American.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 37 Appendix Enlarged Copies of Selected Documents and Photographs
From page 8, “Working in a Tobacco Factory”
Illustration from Jan. 15, 1887 issue of Harper’s Weekly, courtesy of Duke Homestead State Historic Site.
From page 14, “Division of Labor by Race”
Copy of image from the Feb. 10, 1883 issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, in the State Library’s collection.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 38 Appendix Enlarged Copies of Selected Documents and Photographs
From page 16, “African Americans and Voting Rights”
Copy of voter registration cards, from a collection entitled “Miscellaneous Records” from Alamance County, in the State Archives.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 39 Appendix Enlarged Copies of Selected Documents and Photographs
From page 22, “Comparing Lifestyles”
Upper photo of 1898 bridal party for Lillian Fowler (seated at far right) in New Bern, courtesy of the State Archives; lower picture by Margaret Morley, courtesy of the N.C. Museum of History.
GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 40 Evaluation Form
Evaluation for “Primary Sources and Activities for Studying the Gilded Age in North Carolina” Jo Ann Williford, Education Supervisor, Office of Archives and History, 4610 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-4610 Phone 919-807-7280 Fax 919-733-8807
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GILDED AGE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS Page 41