David Ha Becca Mcgarry Keit

1. Day 5 - Gilded Age/Progressives
Group B: Becca McGarry, David Ha, and Keith
Locket

2. Question
Analyze the ways in which farmers and industrial
workers responded to industrialization in the
Gilded Age (1865-1900).

3. Thesis
As the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era came into play between 1865 and 1900,
farmers and industrial workers sought for betterment. This was notably
accentuated by frontier expansion and unionization movements.
possible signposts:
-populist party increasing farmer's power
-farmers take advantage of homestead act
-improvement in technologies & railroad development
-labor unions(farmers, industrial workers)

4. Populist Party
• Populist party:
o Composed of indignant farmers from the
Farmers' Alliance
o Goals:
 Inflation
• Easier to pay off debts
 Graduated income tax
• Higher salary = higher taxes
 Direct election of US senators
 Initiation and referendum
• People can propose/pass laws

5. Westward Movement
• Increase in agriculture, esp. in plain states
o attract immigrants from Europe
o Homestead Act - grant 160 acres for $30 to farmers willing to develop the
land
 farmers met difficulties as lands were rather arid and barren
o during this period, # of farmers tripled from 2 to 6mil
o development of westward railroads
 helped form agricultural west

6. Farming Technologies
• Improvements in technology
o steam engines, seeder, plow binders
 increase efficiency; require less people & work
 led to enormous farms
• Californian farms made huge profits by hiring ill Mexican
workers

7. Labor Unions(farmers)
• Causes of unionization: Angry farmers
o late 1880~early 1990
 grasshopper plagues & heat waves
 increase in farmers taxes
 railroads, middlemen, fertilizer trusts harass
• The Grange
 founded by Oliver Kelley
 800k members in 1875
o sought to battle against farmer's plight
o Actions
 Grange Laws - railroad & storage
rate adjustment

8. Labor Unions(industrial)
• Angry industrial workers
o low wage, immigrant outsourcing,
monopolies
• National Labor Union
o argued for 8-hr workday
• Knights of Labor
o for economic and social reform
o successful strike against Jay Gould's
Wabash RR
• AF of L (American Federation of
Labor)
o argued for better wage & conditions
o 1894 - Labor Day