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The article discusses the post-Civil War expansion of capitalism in the U.S., particularly industrial enclosures in the South and West, by using the example of New York City businessman William E. Dodge and his company Phelps, Dodge, & Co. The company bought three hundred thousand acres of Georgia's pine barrens in 1868, land which had previously been used as commons by yeoman farmers. The company also was responsible for the dispossession of Apache Indians in Arizona to make way for its industrial mining endeavors, while being part of the beginning of focus of wage laborers efforts to regain power over repressive and unfair labor practices. The relationship between businessmen and the majority Republican Party are explored.