Brands, H.W.

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The past is never dead. It's not even pastNOT EVEN PASTSearch the site ...  Like 2 TweetH. W. Brands on the Rise ofAmerican CapitalismDuring the quarter millennium since American independence, two institutions and setsof values have come to characterize American society: democracy and capitalism. Eachhad roots in the eighteenth century, but each blossomed only in the nineteenth century.Democracy emerged  rst, during age of Jackson, as ordinary people began exercisingpolitical power and electing candidates who seemed much like themselves. By 1850,while the practice of democracy left much to be desired (neither women nor AfricanAmericans could vote), the principle had become unassailable in American politics.Capitalism emerged later, during what Mark Twain derisively called the Gilded Age. But itburst forth with an energy and thoroughness that made the  nal third of the nineteenthcentury the era of America’s capitalist revolution. The revolution transformed American nance, turning Wall Street into the hub of investment and speculation and New York thebudding capital of world  nance. The capitalist revolution reshaped the larger economy,converting America from a nation of farmers into a country of urban workers, managersand professionals. It recast American geography, pulling the recently feudal South intothe web of capitalist commerce and exploiting the natural resources of the West. Italtered American politics, injecting money into elections as never before and making thenurturing of American business the principal agenda of the dominant Republican party. H. W. Brands on the Rise of American Capitali…Watch later SharePrivacy  - TermsThe capitalist revolution spun off personal fortunes for John D. Rockefeller, the titan ofoil; Andrew Carnegie, the sultan of steel; J. P. Morgan, the master of money; and ahundred lesser winners in the capitalist struggle for pro t and dominance. It drewmillions of immigrants from Europe and Asia, men and women who dreamed ofachieving not the enormous wealth of Rockefeller and Carnegie but merely a modestpiece of America’s prosperity for themselves and their children. It built cities of brick andsteel and concrete, of skyscrapers and mansions and tenements and slums. It lifted theaverage American to a standard of living never attained anywhere else in previoushistory, even as it intensi ed inequalities between the rich and the poor.John D. RockefellerThe capitalist revolution, like all revolutions, swept along the willing and unwilling alike.The winners outnumbered the losers, but they didn’t always outshout them. Farmersburdened with de ation-aggravated debt attempted to rein in the big capitalists. Theycreated the Populist party and promoted candidates who promised to restore thetraditional values on which the country had been built. Railroad workers, steel workersand other industrial laborers organized unions that waged strikes against theiremployers—and, in effect, against the government, when state and federal o cials sidedwith the employers. Intellectuals challenged the ethos of capitalism, contending that theclamor for pro t coarsened society and commodi ed life.The capitalist revolution surged beyond American shores during the last decade of thenineteenth century. A withering depression caused merchants and manufacturers toseek markets abroad. A modern navy constructed in capitalist shipyards provided themeans to extend American power to the far corners of the earth. The self-con dence thecountry’s bumptious growth had fostered encouraged Americans to emulate theimperial powers of Europe and Asia. In the 1890s the United States defeated Spain inbattle, annexed islands and archipelagoes in the Caribbean and Paci c, and announcedits entrance onto the stage of global power.The capitalist revolution was the big story of era, but it was a big story composed ofmany small stories. Jay Gould was a young  nancier who grew a bushy beard to makehim look older, and who remained calm during the tensest moments of di cultspeculations, except for the telltale habit of tearing pieces of paper into tiny bits. Gouldand his partner Jim Fisk, the P. T. Barnum of Wall Street, tried to corner the gold marketin 1869 and nearly succeeded. They were foiled only at the last moment, when thefederal government intervened. The ensuing turmoil wracked the  nancial world, joltedthe broader economy, added “Black Friday” to America’s calendar of infamy, and nearlysaw Gould and Fisk hanged from lampposts in lower Manhattan. James McParlan wasa Pinkerton spy who in ltrated the “Molly Maguires,” the murderously radical wing of thecoal miners of Pennsylvania. McParlan assumed a false identity, romanced the sister-in-law of one of the Mollies, and provided evidence that led to the execution of several ofthe radicals, some of whom quite likely were innocent of the crimes for which they werehanged.Jacob Riis, Sleeping Homeless ChildrenJourdon Anderson was a former slave from Tennessee. He emigrated to Ohio after thewar, only to receive a letter from his former master inviting him to come back.  Andersondeclined the invitation, saying he preferred his life in the North. He asked his master toconvey his regards to his old friends on the plantation. “Say howdy to George Carter, andthank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.” GertrudeThomas was the wife of a Georgia planter ruined by the Civil War; she tried to make thetransition from the prewar slave economy to the postwar capitalist economy, and fromthe former culture of deference to the new one characterized—for a time, at least—byegalitarianism. But the old habits and thought patterns died hard in her, and her lifegradually disintegrated.Black Elk was an Oglala Sioux who, as teenager, fought in the battle of the Little Bighornand scalped a federal cavalryman while he was still alive. He was an adult when thefederal army had its revenge at Wounded Knee, in the slaughter of women and childrenon a frozen hillside in Dakota. Charles Goodnight was a ranch man who blazed one ofthe long trails from Texas to Kansas by which cattle drovers put beef on Northern platesand Texas on the map of the national economy. Howard Ruede was a Pennsylvania boywho went west to claim a homestead in Kansas. He built a dugout home from the virginsod, but knew he’d never win a wife until he moved upscale to a proper frame house withwindows, door and a roof that didn’t leak mud every time it rained.Mary Fales was a Chicagoan who lost her home and the belongings she couldn’t carrywhen the Chicago  re of 1871 roared through the city and destroyed her neighborhood.She nearly lost her life but managed to reach the shore of Lake Michigan, whererefugees from the  ames waded into the water to avoid being roasted on the beach.Jacob Riis was a young Dane who  ed his homeland for America when the woman heloved married another man. After several rough years he found his calling as aninvestigative journalist and photographer; his exposé How the Other Half Lives alertedthe country to the poverty that existed within a stone’s throw of the great wealth of NewYork City. Chun Ho was a Chinese girl who was lured to California on the promise ofeconomic opportunity on the “Gold Mountain,” as America was called in China, but whowas forced into prostitution. As an illegal immigrant she feared going to the police, whoanyway were in cahoots with the woman who pimped her out. Eventually she made herescape, but knew other girls who were murdered in the attempt.By the end of the nineteenth century, many Americans had concluded that the capitalistrevolution, for all the material bene ts it conferred, had tipped the balance too far awayfrom democracy. The complaints accumulated to the point where an unforeseen event,the assassination of William McKinley, pushed the pendulum back in the oppositedirection. Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley’s successor, led a democratic counterrevolutionthat during the  rst half of the twentieth century reclaimed for democracy the groundthat had been lost to capitalism, and more—preparing the way for another reversal,during the late twentieth and early twenty- rst centuries, in which capitalism was againunleashed, and which culminated in a bust that provoked new demands to rein in thecapitalists.H. W. Brands, American Colossus:The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900Further ReadingRon Chernow, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise ofModern Finance (1991). The best combination of narrative and analysis on the banking house that made J. P.Morgan the towering  nancial  gure of his time.Matthew Josephson,  The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists (1934). The classic muckraking account of the generation of industrialists and  nanciers whobuilt modern American capitalism. More than any other book, this one is responsible forthe shadow the captains of industry still labor under in history.Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1957). Danish-immigrant-turned-investigative-journalist prowls the Lower East Side withnotepad and camera in hand, recording and depicting the lives of the desperately poor.Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: An Autobriography (1901). The subtitle is “The Friendship that Won the Civil War,” a characterization that is not farwrong. Provides further insight into the warrior mentality.William Riordon Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (1905). A delightful primer on big-city machine politics, by a prominent politico. The machineshave largely vanished, but Plunkitt’s philosophy still goes far to explain American politics.Willa Cather, My Antonia (1918). A beautifully crafted evocation of life on the Plains frontier, which was disappearing evenas Cather wrote.Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the OglalaSioux (1932). The last days of the free Sioux, as told by one of their medicine men.Posted January 31, 2011More Features, Monthly Features19th century 20th Century African American History american history Asia Asia & Middle East book review BrazilBritish Empire China Civil War Cold War Colonialism communism cultural history digital history Early Modern Europe Europe  lm gender history History of Science immigration India Islam Latin America Latin American History Mexico Not Even Past Public History race religion Russia slavery Texas Texas History Texas History Day Transnational Twentieth Century History United States US History USSR Womens History world history World War IINOT EVEN PAST is produced by The Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN  We are supported by the College of Liberal Arts And our READERSDONATE  CONTACT  All content © 2010-present NOT EVEN PAST and the authors, unless otherwise notedSign up to receive the monthly Not Even Past newsletterSUBSCRIBEYour email addressFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILMBLOG IHS & PUBLIC HISTORY TEXAS ABOUT

H. W. Brands on the Rise of American Capitalism

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H. W. Brands on the Rise of American Capitalism

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