Title

The reckless decade : America in the 1890s

Description

A period every bit as turbulent as our own age, the 1890s saw vast changes in the economy, politics, and society of the United States, while giving birth to a technological revolution that would profoundly alter the lives of all Americans. Those who knew how to exploit this new world - Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller - prospered handsomely; those who did not became icons of how the other half lives. The chilling violence of the Homestead steelworkers' strike and other labor conflicts underscored the tension that such disparity produced. The economic elite ensured that the currency of capital would remain gold and not free silver, yet technology transformed everyday life as alternating current began to light the nation. That new frontier came just when the Western one on which America prided itself closed. No longer could America expand internally; imperialism was the way of the future. But even as the United States became a colonial power, Jim Crow laws ensured that only whites could reap the harvest of empire. In The Reckless Decade, Brands captures the essence - whimsical, tragic, and intrinsically contradictory - of the 1890s, when for the first time America turned its face outward to the world and geared up for the "American Century." Evocative and fascinating, this remarkable book looks back over that amazing time and, in the telling, teaches us much about ourselves and our own reckless decade.

Identifier

590759

312135947

Creator

Brands, H W

Format

1st ed.

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

1995

Program air date: February 25, 1996

Publisher

St. Martin's Press

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes on front endpaper: Populism 1890-Many Lease, Tom Watson; Panic of 1893--1990 Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson. Dirty secret of both race of each hand of populism. Booker T. Washington v. W.E.B. Dubois. Plessy v. Affirmative Action. How was U.S. Steel created. Cleveland's malignancy. Lamb has circled/underlined some information on the verso of the title page, as well as underlined portions on chapter titles on the Contents page. Underlinings/Notes: Underlinings: Frontier interpretation of American history--Frederick Jackson Turner, populism, characteristics of times, Dawes Act and Five Civilized Tribes, details on Turner and his thesis and Henry Adams. Lamb notes new inventions, impact of financial panics, and the transformation of the American economy. Notes: "John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Richard Croker." "Fin-de siècle," "the triumphalists," "the declinists," "cities," "diversity," "no hope on bottom," "1890s, 1900s," "Richard Crocker," "Marion Barry," "liberals," "optimists/pessimists," class, race, equality, fair play, cynicism," "The Fire," "1907," "the buffalo," "Dawes Act, Indians," "the Ghost Dance," "troops are sent," "Sitting Bull killed," "Wounded Knee," "150 Indians dead," "July '93 Frederick Jackson Turner," "Turner and the Frontier Experience," "Free land," "Turner challenged primacy of New England," " Woodrow Wilson," "1897 only 2 books," "American greatness," "Henry and Brooks Adams," "adversarial approach to history," "Adams lost in the Colorado mountains," "1870's ethics vanished," "a beggar," "Greed," "T.R.," "the depression of 1890," "Chicago," "Edison," "electricity," "Westinghouse, train brakes," "Tesla," "J.D.D.," "oil," "special rates," "violence," "the trust," "1882," "holding company," "US Steel," "controlled cost," "J.P. Morgan," "photo of Morgan," "Aetna," "railroads," "1888 ICC," "Gold v. paper," "Cleveland," "Morgan bails out gov.," "a deal Morgan v. Cleveland," "Cleveland's cancer," "the yacht," "malignancy," "Dr. leaked story," "lies," "baby girl," "US Steel 1901," "McKinley tariff," "1891 forum," "Darrow on Debs," "Pullman's big break," "Great unknown," "agriculture," "alliance gospel," "Mary E. Lease," "money and power in the East," "private Jim Crow laws," "Plessy," "right to vote," "William Jennings Bryan," "House 1890," "1892 Silver Purchase Act," "1894," "Bryan," "McKinley shot," "immigration," "populism," "1912 TR assassin," "Coxey," "marching on DC before 1890?" "1990s," "marches," "Gibbon," "Perot."

Subject

"Spanish-American War, 1898."

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Rights

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