by The New Big Book of U S Presidents (2020) (retail) (epub)
The son of a successful leather tanner, Grant entered West Point when he was seventeen. (A clerical error listed him on the West Point rolls as Ulysses Simpson Grant instead of by his real name, which was Hiram Ulysses Grant. Grant liked his new name and decided to keep it.) After graduating from West Point, Grant served in the Mexican War alongside Robert E. Lee, his future Civil War foe. After resigning from the army in 1854, he worked unsuccessfully at farming, selling firewood, and clerking in his father’s leather-goods store.
Soon after the Civil War broke out, Grant enlisted as a colonel in an Illinois regiment. From 1861 to 1863, he commanded volunteer forces and fought several bloody battles that won control of the Mississippi Valley for the Union. In early 1864, Lincoln made Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant then directed his subordinates to drive through the South while his Army of the Potomac slowly defeated Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
As a Civil War hero, Grant benefited from the votes of former slaves and won a close election in 1868. Once president, he looked to Congress for direction on Reconstruction issues and often seemed bewildered by the political process. His administration also suffered from incompetence and corruption. There is no evidence that Grant himself was involved in any of the scandals, but his poor choice of associates stained his reputation.
Despite his administration’s problems, Grant was re-elected by a comfortable margin in 1872. Soon after his inauguration, a financial crisis caused by over-construction of railroads and the collapse of several banks created a terrible depression that lasted for 6 years. Grant retired in 1876 to take a trip around the world and work on his memoirs. He completed them one week before he died of throat cancer in 1885.
Born: April 27, 1822
Died: July 23, 1885
Birthplace: Point Pleasant, OH
V.P.: Schuyler Colfax, Henry Wilson
First Lady: Julia Boggs Dent
• Mark Twain helped him publish his memoirs
• Received a speeding ticket on his horse
Industrialization
In 1860, America was still a nation of farmers. The Civil War changed that as the need to supply the troops with clothing and equipment sent the northern industrial economy into high gear. When the war ended, the factories just kept going, and by 1875, America had become one of the greatest industrial nations in the world. More and more Americans moved to the cities of the Northeast and the Midwest to find work in the factories. This enormous change in the country’s economy had profound effects, both at home and abroad.
The Telephone
Working at night with a mechanic named Thomas Watson, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in March 1876. Although most people considered Bell’s invention a joke, several companies soon saw its commercial possibilities.
1877
May 10, 1869
The first transcontinental railroad is completed.
1870
Hiram K. Revels of Mississippi becomes the first African American elected to the Senate.
October 8–11, 1871
The Great Fire of Chicago destroys nearly four square miles of the city.
June 25, 1876
General George Custer and all of his men are killed when they attack Indians led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
1876
Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
1876
Colorado is admitted to the Union as the “Centennial State.”
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
Republican, 1877–1881
An honorable and decent public servant, Rutherford B. Hayes began his term under difficult circumstances. Forced to make a deal with southern Democrats to win the election, he lost his claim to legitimacy and authority.
Hayes, whose father died before he was born, did well in school, graduating from Kenyon College and then Harvard Law School. Joining the Republican party in the mid-1850s, Hayes devoted much of his time to defending runaway slaves. He fought bravely for the Union during the Civil War and was wounded four times. During two terms in Congress and three as governor of Ohio, he made a name for himself as a trustworthy and honest reformer. This reputation made him an attractive candidate to Republicans, who were still suffering from the disgraces of the Grant administration.
The presidential election of 1876, one of the most controversial ever, was marred by fraud on both sides. The early returns pointed to a victory for Hayes’s Democratic opponent, Samuel Tilden. The Republicans challenged the results, however, and a special electoral commission declared Hayes the winner by one electoral vote. The Democrats then protested, and Hayes made a deal. In exchange for the presidency, Hayes ordered the last remaining troops out of the South. Known as the Compromise of 1877, this deal ended the era of Reconstruction and cemented the reunion of South and North. As part of the deal, Hayes also agreed to let Southerners handle race relations themselves, initiating a pattern of presidential inaction on the issue not broken until the middle of the 20th century.
As the newly won civil and political rights of blacks quickly crumbled under white Democratic rule in the South, the North suffered from violent railroad strikes and the West saw deadly clashes between Irish Americans and recent Chinese immigrants. Hayes did manage some small successes during his term, including the enactment of limited civil service reform measures. Hayes had always planned to serve only one term as president, and 4 years in office did not change his mind. In 1881, he returned to his home in Ohio, where he died in 1893.
Sharecropping
The Civil War had devastated the South. Nearly 4 million slaves were on their own, facing the challenges of freedom. Following the war, most southern farms were worked by freed slaves, who did not own the land. Known as sharecroppers, these men and women tilled the land in return for supplies and a share of the crop, generally about half of the yield. The system was inefficient and kept thousands of freed slaves poor and trapped.
Born: October 4, 1822
Died: January 17, 1893
Birthplace: Delaware, OH
V.P.: William A. Wheeler
First Lady: Lucy Ware Webb
• Won several spelling contests as a child
• His wife was the first First Lady to graduate from college (Wesleyan)
P. T. Barnum
As more people moved to towns and cities following the Civil War, popular culture took on new dimensions. For example, traveling circuses became widely popular. Phineas Taylor Barnum was already America’s greatest showman when he started his first circus during the early 1870s. In 1881, he teamed up with James A. Bailey to produce a circus he called the “Greatest Show on Earth.”
1877
1877
The Great Railroad Strike paralyzes hundreds of cities and towns.
1879
Terence V. Powderly is elected president of the Knights of Labor, a powerful national union.
1880
Joel Chandler Harris publishes Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, a collection of authentic African-American folk tales.
JAMES A. GARFIELD
Republican, 1881
The only preacher to win the presidency, James Garfield always believed that he was destined for greatness. Rising from childhood poverty, Garfield became a successful educator and congressman before becoming the second president to be killed in office.
James Garfield was born into a poor family living in a log cabin. When he was 18-months old, his father died and left Garfield’s mother to raise her children alone. At age 17, Garfield left home to work on a freighter in the Great Lakes and, later, on a canal boat in the Erie Canal. A traveling preacher later inspired Garfield to quit his nautical career and become an ordained minister.
Fearing that he had become “ripe for ruin” during his brief life on the Erie Canal, Garfield sought to improve himself through education. He attended Ohio’s Geauga Seminary for 2 years and completed his formal education at Massachusetts’s Williams College. Garfield later became a professor of c
lassics and eventually served as the principal of Ohio’s Western Reserve Eclectic Institute.
When the Civil War erupted, Garfield joined the Union Army and became the Union’s youngest major general before leaving the army in 1863 to serve in the U.S. Congress, where he served with distinction for 17 years. In Congress, Garfield was a Republican member of the Electoral Commission that allowed Rutherford B. Hayes to become president in 1876. In 1880, the Republican party made Garfield its presidential nominee. A compromise choice, Garfield’s nomination depended on his willingness to make Chester A. Arthur his running mate. Many people believed that such political wheeling and dealing degraded the presidency. Nevertheless he won the presidency by defeating fellow Civil War veteran Winfield Scott Hancock. A powerful orator and outspoken opponent of slavery during his years in Congress, Garfield was well prepared for the presidency.
Garfield had hoped to make the presidency stronger than it had been since Lincoln’s assassination, but a bitter religious zealot, Charles J. Guiteau, shot him in the back at Washington D.C.’s Baltimore and Potomac railroad station before he had the chance to do much. Suffering terribly for the next two months, Garfield finally died at his wife’s side on September 19, 1881. He had been president less than 8 months.
Born: November 19, 1831
Died: September 19, 1881
Birthplace: Orange, OH
V.P.: Chester A. Arthur
First Lady: Lucretia Rudolph
• Last president born in a log cabin
• Wrote in both Latin and Greek
Clara Barton (1821–1912)
Born in Massachusetts, Clara Barton was a schoolteacher early in life but volunteered to help wounded Union soldiers after the Civil War erupted. A skilled and compassionate nurse, Barton’s overwhelming kindness caused soldiers to name her the “angel of the battlefield.” After the war, Barton lectured in Europe about her wartime experiences and worked with the International Red Cross to help wounded soldiers when the Franco-Prussian War began in 1870. When this war ended, Barton returned to the United States and founded the American Red Cross in May 1881. She served as the organization’s president until 1904.
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
On October 26, 1881, Wyatt Earp, his two brothers, and John “Doc” Holliday clashed with the Clanton gang in Tombstone, Arizona. The two parties had been threatening each other for months, and bullets quickly began to fly after the groups began arguing in the street. After 30 seconds of furious shooting, the battle ended. Billy Clanton and his friends Frank and Tom McLaury lay dead in the street; Morgan and Virgil Earp were badly wounded. Only Wyatt escaped uninjured. The battle erupted because both sides hoped to control the political development of Arizona. Nevertheless, the savagery of the gunfight illustrates how brutal life could be in the Old West.
1881
1880
Joseph Pulitzer becomes owner of the St. Louis Dispatch, the first modern newspaper to emphasize scandals.
July 4, 1881
Booker T. Washington founds the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute to teach vocational skills to African Americans.
1881
Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor focuses attention on the plight of Native Americans.
CHESTER A. ARTHUR
Republican, 1881–1885
Few people expected Chester Arthur to be a good president. Overly fond of money and power, Arthur had stained his reputation by tolerating corruption during his stint as New York City’s chief customs officer. Yet Arthur turned over a new leaf after becoming president and worked to reform government.
The son of a traveling minister, Arthur attended a variety of schools during his childhood. He later attended New York’s Union College, graduating at age 18. He then became an idealistic lawyer who defended the civil rights of African Americans before serving in the Union Army as a quartermaster general.
After the war, Arthur pursued a career in New York City politics. In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him collector of customs for the Port of New York, where he allowed corrupt political and business elites to buy and sell favors. When Arthur refused to cooperate with a federal investigation of the customs house, President Rutherford B. Hayes fired him.
Despite his poor reputation, the Republican party made Arthur its vice presidential candidate in 1880 and allowed him to organize James Garfield’s campaign. After Garfield died, Arthur proved his worth by refusing to appoint his corrupt business partners and by helping to reform the U.S. Civil Service. He also attempted to strengthen the U.S. Navy and conserve America’s natural resources. By preventing powerful Republican senators like Roscoe Corkling from controlling his presidential actions, Arthur convinced many doubters that he was a good leader and a decent person. Few people had expected him to act so honestly in office.
As time passed, the presidency’s long hours and heavy strains depressed Arthur, and he began to avoid difficult tasks. Secretly suffering from a kidney disorder known as Bright’s disease, Arthur took long vacations on the presidential yacht and entertained guests with lavish 14-course dinners. Exhausted and in poor health, he decided not to run for re-election in 1884. During the 2 years before his death in 1886, Arthur became so concerned with concealing his many unethical acts that he burned his public and private papers.
The Gilded Age (1865–1900)
The U.S. economy boomed between 1865 and the turn of the century as new industries based on oil, steel, and steam produced massive amounts of new wealth. A great deal of financial and political corruption accompanied the booming economy. Successful industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan rejected the label robber barrons, claiming that America’s financial elite deserved its success. They built massive homes and threw gaudy parties. Because everyday problems seemed to be covered in gold during this era, writer Mark Twain labeled it “the Gilded Age.”
Born: October 5, 1829
Died: November 18, 1886
Birthplace: Fairfield, VT
V.P.: None
First Lady: Ellen Lewis Herndon
• Called “Elegant Arthur” for his fashionable clothes
• Passionately protected his private life from the press
Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931)
Born in Milan, Ohio, Edison moved to New York at age 21 to work in the financial industry. In New York, Edison made $40,000 by improving the stock ticker and decided to become a full-time inventor. A tireless worker, Edison invented the gramophone, the motion picture, and the electric light bulb during the next 20 years. In 1882, he built a steam-powered station that supplied New York City with electricity. Literally turning darkness into light, Edison changed the course of history.
1881
January 2, 1882
John Rockefeller forms Standard Oil Trust, the first modern corporation.
August 18, 1882
Congress allows selective immigration restriction in order to exclude specific groups.
March 24, 1883
Telephone service between New York and Chicago begins.
1884
William Le Baron Jenne builds the first American skyscraper in Chicago.
February 21, 1885
Washington Monument is dedicated.
GROVER CLEVELAND
Democrat, 1885–1889; 1893–1897
The only president elected to two non-consecutive terms, Grover Cleveland was a tough and honest man. His willingness to stand up for his principles, however, often hurt his relationship with Congress and the American people.
The son of a Presbyterian minister, young Grover had a strict upbringing that stressed the importance of hard work. In his youth, he worked as a grocery clerk and improved himself by studying law. In the 1860s, he served as assistant district attorney and sheriff in Erie County, New York, before becoming mayor of Buffalo in 1882 and governor of New York between 1883 and 1884.
In 1885, Cleveland became the first Democrat in 24 years to serve as presiden
t. Once in office, he helped make the presidency stronger than it had been since the Civil War by re-establishing the president’s right to hire and fire government employees without congressional approval. Cleveland also used his veto power liberally, rejecting 2/3 of the bills Congress sent him. His stubborn habits, however, alienated a number of people, and he lost his attempt for re-election in 1888.
Economic depression marked Cleveland’s second term in office, and his popularity suffered again. In 1894, when Jacob Coxey and his “army” of angry workers protested the government’s failure to create more jobs, Cleveland had Coxey arrested. When a strike at Chicago’s Pullman Car Company turned violent that same year, Cleveland became the first president to have the U.S. Army use force against strikers. These actions alienated many American workers, and Cleveland left office an unpopular man.
Cleveland retired to Princeton, New Jersey, where he became a trustee of the local university and occasionally lectured to students. He died in 1908.
Born: March 18, 1837
Died: June 24, 1908
Birthplace: Caldwell, NJ
V.P.: Thomas A Hendricks
First Lady: Frances Folsom
• The Baby Ruth candy bar was named for his daughter Ruth
• Paid someone to fight for him during the Civil War
Haymarket Square Riot
On May 4, 1886, nearly 1,400 people gathered in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to speak out against the excesses of the Gilded Age. Proposing that the United States become a more hospitable place for workers, speakers at this event delivered many passionate speeches that excited the crowd and frightened the police. When close to 200 policemen arrived to break up the gathering, a bomb exploded, killing 7 policemen and wounding many others. This event convinced many Americans that terrorist groups threatened to destroy the U.S. government, and a fearful hysteria swept over the country. Responding to this panic, President Cleveland became less tolerant of labor strikes and other forms of protest.