American Transformation: Civil War, Reconstruction, and Industrialization

Posted on Oct 5, 2025 in Geography

The Civil War: Causes, Conflicts, and Consequences

Union vs. Confederacy

  • Union (North): Strong central government; sought to abolish slavery. Possessed many more factories, people, and railroads.
  • Confederacy (South): Sought limited central government; wanted to maintain the institution of slavery.

Causes of the Civil War

  • Slavery
  • Balance of power conflicts (state vs. federal rights)
  • Economic differences (Industrial North vs. Agrarian South)

Key Pre-War and War Legislation

  • Fugitive Slave Act: Law requiring the return of a runaway slave to their owners. This was seen as a violation of freedom in the North.
  • Emancipation Proclamation (1863): Treaty signed by Lincoln that freed all slaves in Confederate states currently in rebellion.

Military Strategies and Generals

Union Strategy: The Anaconda Plan

A strategy to slowly squeeze the Confederacy into submission:

  1. Block the ports (naval blockade).
  2. Control the Mississippi River (splitting the Confederacy).
  3. Shorten Confederate supplies.
  • Union General: Ulysses S. Grant: Gained control of the Mississippi River, allowing the Union to gain control of the war. Used his leadership to command effectively.

Confederate Strategy

  • Goal: Stay independent; did not want to conquer the North.
  • Note: The South depended heavily on “King Cotton.”
  • Confederate General: Robert E. Lee: Highly respected military leader.

Strengths and Weaknesses

North (Union)

  • Strengths: Manpower/resources, Abraham Lincoln’s leadership, industry workers, manufacturing capacity, control of the navy.
  • Weaknesses: Inexperienced with the Southern terrain/land.

South (Confederacy)

  • Strengths: Experienced generals (e.g., Robert E. Lee), experience fighting on home ground, short supply lines.
  • Weaknesses: Small population, no industry, weak economy.

Secession

Secession: The action of formally withdrawing from a nation.

Why? Southern states believed they held the right to leave the Union (states’ rights argument).

Effects of the Civil War

  • America is reunited.
  • The Era of Reconstruction begins in the South.
  • Life as a soldier was dangerous, unsanitary, and traumatizing.

Reconstruction Era (1865-1877)

Reintegrating the South

  • Causes of Reconstruction: Ending of the Civil War, freedom of slaves.
  • Lincoln’s Plan: Post-Civil War initiative with the goal of reintegrating the South into the Union.
  • Ten Percent Plan: Required 10% of a state’s voting population to favor the abolition of slavery and establish a state government to rejoin the Union.

Key Legislation and Amendments

  • Civil Rights Act: Called for complete equality of African Americans, which would abolish Black Codes.
  • 13th Amendment: Prohibits slavery.
  • 14th Amendment: Protects natural rights; grants citizenship to all US-born citizens.
  • 15th Amendment: Gives all men the right to vote.

Political and Social Dynamics

  • Radical Republicans: Political faction that sought to protect freed slaves; believed government involvement was necessary for abolition and supported military rule in the South.
  • Black Codes: Laws that served to limit rights afforded to African Americans.
  • Freedman’s Bureau: Federal agency that provided assistance to newly freed Black people and poor whites.
  • Sharecropping: Agricultural system where landowners provided supplies to tenant farmers in exchange for a share of the crops.

End of Reconstruction

  • Compromise of 1877: Determined the 1876 election by withdrawing federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction and reestablishing white supremacy with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes.
  • Political corruption from the Grant administration led to a financial crisis.

Industrialization, Immigration, and Progressivism

Effects of Industrialization on America

  • Economy: America dominating world markets; economic growth increased production.
  • People: Increased job opportunities; formation of labor unions.
  • Environment: Pollution, deforestation.

Captains of Industry and Capitalism

  • Andrew Carnegie: Philanthropist (someone who does good deeds, raises money); owned Carnegie Steel.
  • John D. Rockefeller: Business magnate; owned Standard Oil Company.
  • Capitalism: Economic system based on private ownership and the investment of money to make a profit.

Labor Unions

Labor Unions: Organized associations of workers that aimed to protect the rights and interests of employees.

Why? In response to harsh working conditions and lack of workers’ rights.

Requirements for Industrialization

What does a country need to be industrialized?

  • Business Conditions: Inventiveness, capitalists, entrepreneurs.
  • Transportation: Rivers, paved roads, railroads. Transportation is important because otherwise raw materials cannot reach factories, goods cannot reach markets, and workers cannot get to factories.
  • Natural Resources: Coal, timber, iron.
  • Labor: A large pool of workers.
  • Conditions in the Country: Improved agriculture, stable government, market for industrial goods.

Immigration and Nativism

Industrial Revolution: Began in the UK and US. Impacted American life by revolutionizing manufactured goods and how work was done.

Industrialization: When a country develops factories and more of its population lives in cities than rural areas.

Immigration

People were immigrating for better economic opportunities, religious freedom, and to escape political unrest.

The immigration process was crowded, discriminatory, and biased; immigrants had to pass inspections.

  • “Birds of Passage”: Immigrants who came to work in the US then returned to their home country to live.
  • Nativism: The political idea that people who were born in a country are superior to immigrants.

Immigration Restrictions

  • Chinese Exclusion Act (1882): Prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers to the US and denied citizenship to those already living in the US.
  • Immigration Act of 1917: Created the “Asiatic Barred Zone,” banning Asian and non-white immigration.
  • Emergency Quota Act (1921): Imposed annual quotas based on country population, set at 3%.
  • Immigration Act of 1924: Provided immigration visas to 2% of all people that received a quota.

Challenges in the Late 1800s

  • Graft: The illegal use of political power for personal gain.
  • Boss Tweed: Head of Tammany Hall, NYC’s Democratic political machine.

Indigenous Challenges: Shifting Lands

The government forced people to move west of the Mississippi, enforced assimilation (to be alike) to weaken tribes, and committed atrocities like the Sand Creek Massacre.

Farm Issues

  • Low crop prices
  • Debt
  • High transportation costs
  • Higher production costs
  • Drought/bad weather

Minorities

  • Las Gorras Blancas: A group fighting for the rights of Mexican Americans.
  • Chinese were segregated in the West.
  • Mexican Americans lost their land to Anglo-Americans.

Progressivism

Progressivism: A political attitude favoring changes or reforms through governmental actions.

What Caused It? Political, economic, and social changes in the 19th-century US.

Four Goals of Progressivism

  1. Social Reform: Protecting the health of people in society.
  2. Labor Reform: Changing the way that the US produces, distributes, and consumes goods.
  3. Big Business Reform: Changing the way businesses operate for the people’s betterment.
  4. Political Reform: (Addressing corruption and increasing democracy).