| | Segregation by race was also common in the North, and it is incorrect to pretend that racism occurred only in the South. The photo above shows a restaurant in Ohio which posted a sign in 1938 saying it wanted only white customers. For roughly a century after the Civil War no federal law prohibited discrimination by private businesses, and it was unclear whether Congress even had authority under the Constitution to ban private discrimination. It was not until 1964 that Congress passed a Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination by restaurants, hotels, transportation, employers, and other businesses which affect interstate commerce in any way. Private clubs which are not businesses, such as country clubs, sometimes continued to discriminate in the North and the South, and are generally beyond the authority of Congress under the Constitution. | | Segregation by race was also common in the North, and it is incorrect to pretend that racism occurred only in the South. The photo above shows a restaurant in Ohio which posted a sign in 1938 saying it wanted only white customers. For roughly a century after the Civil War no federal law prohibited discrimination by private businesses, and it was unclear whether Congress even had authority under the Constitution to ban private discrimination. It was not until 1964 that Congress passed a Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination by restaurants, hotels, transportation, employers, and other businesses which affect interstate commerce in any way. Private clubs which are not businesses, such as country clubs, sometimes continued to discriminate in the North and the South, and are generally beyond the authority of Congress under the Constitution. |
| | + | Once the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, the Eads bridge was completed in 1874, and the prosperity of the United States skyrocketed in this post-Civil War era, enormous wealth was created by the railroads in transporting goods and people nationwide. |
| | + | Cornelius Vanderbilt became the richest man in the world in the 1870s, from the railroads and shipping. Decades earlier beginning at the age of only 11, Vanderbilt quit school in order to work with his father to transport cargo and people by ferry boat between Staten Island and Manhattan. Through tremendous hard work and shrewd business practices he amassed a fortune which culminated in his acquisition and management of several railroad lines. He built Grand Central Station in Manhattan, which is a railroad terminal for millions of travelers today. |
| | + | He also built the largest private home in the United States, which continues to hold that record to this day. It is located in Western North Carolina and is called the Biltmore Estate. Nearly a hundred times bigger than the homes of average Americans, this home symbolizes the excesses of the "Gilded Age" criticized by Mark Twain. The intent was to replicate the design of European mansions and estates. |
| | + | Vanderbilt himself was a crude man who was never accepted by higher society, and may have built his mansion in the remote area both to make a statement and to get away from all his critics. He donated relatively little to charity and instead left almost his entire fortune to his eldest son, giving little to rest of his many children. |