Transcript File - MS Moody`s AMericAn History Class

Warm-Up Questions
1.) How did the Dawes Act attempt to help Native Americans?
a.) Selling land and building a trust of money for them
b.) Returning them to their native lands
c.) Reintroducing the buffalo to reservation lands
d.) Training them to become farmers
2.) Why did the army encourage white hunters to kill buffalo?
a.) To stop buffalo from trampling crops
b.) To starve Native Americans
c.) To force Native Americans on to reservations
d.) To make way for new railroad lines
3.) Why did the Cheyenne come to Camp Lyon before the Sand Creek Massacre?
a.) To negotiate
b.) To surrender
c.) To attack
d.) To defend their land
4.) Why did the confrontation at Wounded Knee occur? The chiefs followers…
a.) Would not stay on the reservation
b.) Were raiding nearby farms
c.) Continued to hunt buffalo
d.) Continued to perform the Ghost Dance
5.) What was the goal of assimilation of the Native Americans?
a.) Moving all Native Americans to reservations
b.) Absorb them into traditional American life
c.) The destruction of the buffalo
d.) Creation of the Dance Ghost Movement
The Rise and Fall of the Populist
Party (1867-1896)
Objectives 4.3 - Describe the causes and effects of the financial problems
faced by the American farmer and trace the rise & fall of Populism
Farmers’ Problems
• Falling prices for crops
• Weather - droughts, dust storms, blizzards
• Most Farmers were in debt (could not pay farm mortgages)
• Needed a cheaper money
• The West tended to favor the issue of greenbacks after the Civil War
because inflation and cheap dollars would favor the in-debt farmers
• Dependence on the railroads
• Midwestern farmers found earning a living was increasingly difficult
during the 1870’s and 1880’s because railroad companies charged high
rates for transporting farm goods
Railroad Abuses
• Railroads had the farmer in a tough position. Areas typically had
only one rail line out and as such farmers were forced to pay the
rates that the lone railroad company charged.
• Unfair pricing
– Long hauls - cheaper
– Short hauls - more expensive
• Construction graft
– Credit Mobilier Scandal
• Bribes
• Use of rebates for large customers
Farmers Response to Problems
• Criticize banks (credit) and railroad (transportation)
• Banded together in cooperatives to sell products
• Organized for political action and policies to ease their
debts, regulate shipping prices, lower interest loans and
inflation of money supply
Farmers’ Demands
• Regulation of the railroad companies by the government
• Make cash more available (back the dollar with silver)
• Political demands:
– Single term for President and Vice-President
– Secret ballot
– Popular election for Senators
• To get industrial workers to support them
– Supported 8-hour workdays
– Wanted to restrict immigration
The Grange
• Also called the “Patrons of Husbandry”
• Started as social group but became a political group who pooled supplies and money
• Established cooperatives
• Supported political candidates sympathetic to the farmers’ needs
• Gave out information abut new scientific farming techniques
• Wanted regulation of the railroads
• Granger Laws - Midwestern state laws that regulated railroad abuse and currency
reform
• Farmers’ Alliances formed because farmers believed too much power was in the
hands of a few corporations and financial institutions
Populism
• Political Ideology that tends to claim that they side with "the people"
against "the elites“
• Took place of the Grange and Farmers’ Alliances
• Midwestern support
• Reform based party
• Omaha Platfrom,1892
– Use Silver to increase money supply
– Fair distribution of money
– Graduated income taxes
– Secret ballots
– 8-hour work days
– Immigration control
– Government owned railroads
Populism
Successes
Failures
• Interstate Commerce Act regulated the railroad against
monopolistic practices
• Divisions:
• Munn vs. Illinois - Supreme
Court upholds the principle
that state governments could
regulate certain businesses
within its borders (specifically
railroad and grain elevator
companies.)
• Wabash vs. Illinois - Limited
states from regulating
interstate commerce and
motivated the creation of the
Interstate Commerce
Commission.
– National Farmers’ Alliance
– Colored Farmers’ Alliance
– Southern Alliance
• Railroad still abused farmers
Gold Bugs vs. Silverities
• Panic of 1893 - Worst economic depression in the
United States up until that point in time
• Greenbacks issued during the Civil War were
discontinued because they were now worthless
• Republicans/Businessmen/Merchants wanted gold
standard to back the U.S. Dollar
• Democrats/Farmers/Poor wanted bimetallism (Gold
and Silver back the dollar)
1896 Election: End of the Populist Party
• Populists decide to improve their chances by supporting a Democratic
candidate (William Jennings Bryan - he agreed to support the Silver-Backed
dollar.)
• William McKinley - Republican
– The Gold Standard
– Warned of radical Populists
• William Jennings Bryan - Democratic/Populist
– Free silver - solution to Economic Depression
– William Jennings Bryan delivers “Cross of Gold Speech” - “We shall answer
their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down
upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon
a cross of gold”
• McKinley wins the election. Becomes the 25th President of the United States.
• Populism dies out
William McKinley
William Jennings Bryan
Overall Successes of the Populist Movement
• Gradual income taxes
• Direct election of Senators
• Secret ballots
• 8-hour working days
• Government subsidies to farmers
Assignment
• “The Rise and Fall of Populism” Worksheet
• Vocabulary Words
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Cross of Gold Speech
Interstate Commerce Act
Munn vs. Illinois
Wabash vs. Illinois
William J. Bryan
The Grange
Populism