The Crisis of the 1890sDr. John Holmes

U.S. History After 1877, History 121,

Diablo Valley College San Ramon

Summer 2013

The Farm Crisis and Populism

America a rural nation--small farmer as backbone of America

Tremendous expansion of farming after Civil War Homestead Act and Indian removal

Populism largest social movement in American history in 19th century

Jeffersonian values vs. values of Gilded Age

Economic roots of Populism Farmers not peasants-landowners Credit basis of agriculture

Dependence on bankers and railroads

Drastic decline in crop prices wheat bushels: 63 to 36 cents cotton: 11 to 4.6 cents a pound

Causes: overproduction; erosion; overseas competition

Farmers’ Alliance in West and South

Populist program Platform, doc. 20-1 Opposition to monopoly

Lloyd and George documents Return to American values before

the Gilded Age Railroads: nationalization or

regulation Bankers: expand currency to

reduce interest rates

The Populist Movement

The Farmers’ Alliance Alliance with labor

“Producerism” and Knights of Labor

Alliance of black and white farmers in South

Populism in California

The Octopus, Frank Norris

The Mussel Slough Tragedy Deadliest gunfight in California history Conflict between farmers and railroad

The checkerboard

Prison photo, Arrested farmers,

1880

California Populism Different, because California different

Alliance between anti-railroad farmers and urban workers

State legislator Marion Cannon, prosperous farmer Calls for nationalizing “the Octopus”

Adolph Sutro, mayor of San Francisco Wants to municipalize streetcars

The South: Populism and the Rise of Jim Crow Black-white economic alliance Breakdown on race lines

Colored Farmers’ Alliance and 1891 cotton picker’s strike

North Carolina: Populist-Republican alliance

Reader document 20-2 Disenfranchisement of blacks Jim Crow

Plessy v. Ferguson

Industrial Crisis in the North

The Great Depression of 1890s Overproduction then and now

Reader 18-3 and 18-5: Lloyd and George on overproduction

dot.com collapse, housing collapse Conditions of urban workers: Reader

Chapter 19 Industrial warfare of 1890s

Document 20-4: “Conflicting Views about Labor Unions”

Homestead: Industrial War Reader document 20-1

Coxey’s Army

Army starts marching in Ohio Few contingents reach Washington

William Hogan contingent commandeers train, apprehended in Montana

The Pullman Strike

Train wreck in California Strike leader Eugene Victor Debs

becomes leader of American Socialism

Political Crisis of 1890s Grover Cleveland and Democratic

Party blamed for Great Depression Labor does not join Populists

Populism and food prices Populism vs. immigration

Populists merge with Democrats William Jennings Bryan

“Critical election” of 1896 Republican Party dominance

And then, the war…