1. The Crisis of the 1890s
Dr. John Holmes
U.S. History After 1877, History 121,
Diablo Valley College San Ramon
Summer 2013
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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
5. The Populist Movement
The Farmers’ Alliance
Alliance with labor
“Producerism” and Knights of
Labor
Alliance of black and white farmers
in South
7. The Mussel Slough Tragedy
Deadliest gunfight in California history
Conflict between farmers and railroad
The checkerboard
Prison photo,
Arrested
farmers,
1880
8. 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
9. 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
10. 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”
12. Coxey’s Army
Army starts marching in Ohio
Few contingents reach Washington
William Hogan contingent
commandeers train, apprehended
in Montana
13. The Pullman Strike
Train wreck in California
Strike leader Eugene Victor Debs
becomes leader of American
Socialism
14. 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…
