1. 1870s-1890s: Three “U.S.s” become one
1. Post-Reconstruction South
2. N.E. Urban Industrialization
3. Western Frontiers

2. Failures of Reconstruction
Election of 1876
Impact of scandals during Pres. Grant’s two terms
Republican Candidate – Rutherford B. Hays
Democratic Candidate – Samuel Tilden (Gov. of NY)
Massive voter fraud in South, election results disputed
Congressional Committee to decide election: Representatives, 5 Senators, 5 Supreme Court Justices
Supposed to be split evenly, 7 Republicans, 7 Democrats and 1 impartial Supreme Court Justice
Republican Justice appointed instead
Hays wins the Presidency

3. The Compromise of 1876
Southerners (Dems) agree to stop contesting Hays’ election.
Once in Office, Hays (Reps) agreed to end Reconstruction, pulling all federal troops out of the South. Also agreed to give federal $ for southern RRs.
Emergence of the idea the Federal government “Sold Out” Reconstruction

4. Impact of Ending Reconstruction
Disappearance of the Southern Black Middle Class
50,000 Southern Blacks moved North
Beginnings of Northern Black communities, like Harlem in N.Y. City

5. Disfranchisement Southern Dems used terror tactics and legal loopholes
White Primaries
Property Requirements
Poll Tax
Literacy Tests
Grandfather Clause
Worked to stop blacks and poor whites (who would have voted R) from voting
Ex: Louisiana in 1896 – 130,000 black voters
By 1904 – 1,342 black voters

6. Disfranchisement Terror Tactics Lynching
Re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan
“Divide and Conquer” - Racial hierarchies used to separate black and poor white populations
Lynching

7. Labor in the South – Crop Lien System
Tenant Farming – you rent land, and pay the rent when the crop comes in
Sharecropping – you farm someone’s land and are paid for your labor with a share of the crop
Debt Peonage

8. Solidifying the Segregated South
1896 – Plessy v. Ferguson
“separate but equal” as constitutional
“Jim Crow” system in the South
Legal until 1954