cially those who avoided legal scrutiny by having big-city political machine protection.These electoral characteristics of the American political scene, although commonly accepted, were not set in concrete. Historians see the era as one of transition, especially in the weakening of the walls separating the domestic sphere of the private household and the public sphere of politics. For some historians, the era witnessed the beginnings of the so-called "feminization" of American politicsa time when women began to press strongly for reform on several levels. Critical issues of the day included women's suffrage and temperance. Equally important were social justice causes related to poverty, child labor abuses, government regulation, and immigration. The cry for civil service reform, aimed at breaking the hold of ethnic politics and party bosses on government, brought on a wave of reform efforts. Reformers were intent on forcing both structural change and policy change. In time, these reform efforts would bring significant political power to progressive women and their male supporters while weakening the grip of traditional ethnic and party loyalties.It was also a time of transition for African American voters, especially in the South. With white Democrats back in power because of the Compromise of 1877 which gave Hayes the presidency, southern whites began to formulate a series of laws known as Jim Crow laws that effectively disfranchised southern blacks for the next seventy years. At that time, Southern newspapers began to demonize African American men as a threat to the safety of white women, thus setting the stage for the lynchings that were to come in the 1890s and early 1900s. In 1895, the Supreme Court reinforced these Jim Crow laws by allowing for segregation by race in public places as well as race-focused registration laws that all but eliminated the black vote by 1895. Historians view the Chester Arthur presidency as an important ...
