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Gilded Age
Politics and
Agrarian Revolt
Chapter 21 Lecture Outline
© 2013 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
19th Century Political Life
Paradoxical Politics
• Politics during the Gilded Age
– Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner coined the term
“Gilded Age” to depict the corruption and greed
– New York City’s William “Boss” Tweed of Tammany Hall
– Politics during this time period were deeply personal
Paradoxical Politics
• National Politics
– At the national level, politics still concentrated on post–Civil
War battle lines, with many viewing battles for supremacy
between the two parties a stalemate.
Paradoxical Politics
• Partisan Politics
– The power of patronage to appoint supporters to
governmental positions often resulted in incompetent and
corrupt individuals being named to important offices
• Political Stalemate
– Republicans: mainly Protestants of British descent (North)
– Democrats: often Southern whites, recent immigrants, and
Catholics.
– For sixty years from the start of the Civil War, Republicans
dominated the presidency, Dems winning only twice: Grover
Cleveland.
– Chief Executives were rarely considered strong, with one
exception: Theodore Roosevelt.
Paradoxical Politics
• State and Local
Initiatives – the federal government
was not considered the
agency to look to for direct
support.
– State and local
governments were
considered more important
to daily life (taxing and
spending).
– These were first to curb
abuses of corporate
interests
Corruption and Reform: Hayes to Harrison
• Hayes and Civil Service Reform
– courts overturned most regulations that states tried to enact
on corporations
– When Rutherford B. Hayes became president, he tried to
reform Civil Service programs (government jobs) to abolish
the “spoils system” of patronage.
Corruption and Reform:
Hayes to Harrison
Corruption and Reform:
Hayes to Harrison
• The 1880 election
– James Garfield was Rep candidate and won the presidency.
– Garfield was assassinated only four months into office
– Chester A. Arthur, a Stalwart, now became president
– Pendleton Act - promoted merit over partisanship in
awarding government jobs.
Corruption and Reform:
Hayes to Harrison
• The Campaign of 1884
– James Blaine (R) vs Grover Cleveland (D)
• Cleveland and the Special Interests
– Believed the relationship between the federal government
and its people was one-way:
• the people supported the government, and the government did
not support the people
Corruption and Reform:
Hayes to Harrison
• Tensions over the Tariff
– Before 16th amendment,
chief revenue source was
the tariff
– Many began to fear the tariff
had led to the creation of
trusts by taxing imports to
allow more profits
– Cleveland believed that
tariffs were too high and
argued that they must be
lowered.
Corruption and Reform:
Hayes to Harrison
• The Election of 1888
– Democrats re-nominated Cleveland, and the Republicans
nominated Benjamin Harrison.
– Cleveland and the Democrats favored lowering the tariff.
– The Republicans and Harrison, favoring industry, raised an
enormous war chest
Corruption and Reform:
Hayes to Harrison
• Republican Reform Under
Harrison
– Harrison was president in
name only. His Secretary of
State was James Blaine, the
1884 Republican candidate.
– Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which
forbade contracts,
combinations, or conspiracies
in restraint of trade to create
monopolies.
“King of the World” Reformers targeted the growing power of monopolies, such as that of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.
Corruption and Reform:
Hayes to Harrison
• What Form of Currency Should Be Accepted?
– Specie, or money made out of a precious metal, was rare in
the West and the South.
– Many of the new states that had recently joined the nation
had silver mines, and many of the silver interests bankrolled
an attempt to allow more coining of silver as legal tender.
The Farm Problem
and Agrarian Protest Movements
• Economic Conditions
– After Civil War, farmers faced a downward spiral in the
prices of their crops as domestic overproduction and
increasing international competition cut into their market.
– The farmers first blamed the railroads, which charged
whatever the market would bear to haul produce to market,
with little room to bargain.
– The tariff, always a source of frustration for farmers,
continued to pay double taxes on domestic produce shipped
overseas.
The Farm Problem
and Agrarian Protest Movements
• Formation of Protest Movements
– When Congress would not take action to help them, farmers
began to organize, similar to the labor unions, to make their
voices heard.
“I Feed You All!” This 1875 poster shows the farmer at the center of
society.
The Farm Problem
and Agrarian Protest Movements
• The Granger Movement
– The National Grange of
the Patrons of Husbandry
(The Grange), an early
farm union, was first
established in 1866.
– Their first attempts at
legislation were not
entirely successful, but
established the
foundation for future
work.
– Granger movement
eventually declined, but
did not disappear entirely.
The Farm Problem
and Agrarian Protest Movements
• Farmers’ Alliances
– As the power of the Grange waned, farmers’ alliances grew.
– By forming collectives, they worked to overcome hardships
such as indebtedness, falling prices, and droughts.
– formed cooperatives, with shared ownership of community
stores and warehouses, thus bypassing middlemen.
The Farm Problem
and Agrarian Protest Movements
• Farm Politics
– Never fully organized at a
national level, farmers
worked within the
established parties in their
states or created small
third parties to reflect their
views.
– More successful in the
South, where farmers
refused to leave the
Democratic party, they won
several political positions at
the state and federal level.
Mary Elizabeth Lease, 1890 A charismatic leader in the farm protest movement.
The Farm Problem
and Agrarian Protest Movements
• The Populist Party and the Election of 1892
– In 1892, an association of farmers, labor, and reform groups
organized the People’s Party, also known as the Populist
Party.
– In the election of 1892, President Harrison vs Grover
Cleveland vs the Populist candidate James B. Weaver.
The Economy and the Silver Solution
• The Depression of 1893
– Just before Cleveland
was sworn in for his
second term, the
Philadelphia and Reading
Railroad declared
bankruptcy, and took with
it several banks and other
overextended railroad
companies.
– This sparked an
economic panic that
lasted four years, with an
unemployment rate of 20
percent.
National panic The New York Stock Exchange
on the morning of Friday, May 5, 1893.
The Economy and the Silver Solution
• Silverites versus Goldbugs
– Great Britain remained the financial center of the world.
– The failure of a large British bank forced many British
investors to sell their holdings in America for gold.
– This in turn drained the United States of much of its gold
supply, making the already inadequate monetary supply
even thinner.
– This promoted the silver interests and their desire to
increase the coinage of silver to end the panic.
The Economy and the Silver Solution
• The Remarkable Election of
1896
– Once again the stage was set
for a presidential election.
– pro-gold William McKinley (R)
vs the fiery young orator
William Jennings Bryan(D),
who delivered his famous
“Cross of Gold” acceptance
speech.
– In this campaign, the
Populists chose to side with
Bryan and not divide their
votes, but McKinley won.
William Jennings Bryan His “cross of
gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic
Convention roused the delegates and
secured him the party’s presidential
nomination.
The Economy and the Silver Solution
Race Relations during the 1890s
• Disenfranchising African Americans
– A wave of violent anti–African American sentiment ran
rampant in the 1890s South. Many viewed the education of
African Americans as a danger to the social order, and felt it
must be stopped to keep them “in their place.”
Race Relations during the 1890s
• The Spread of Racial Segregation
– “Jim Crow” laws, the separation of races in public places
– 1883, the SC ruled the 14th Amendment applied only when
the state infringed on the rights of African Americans
– 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that
segregation was legal if “separate but equal”
“Separate but equal” Students
exercising during the school day
at an all-black elementary
school in Washington, D.C.
Race Relations during the 1890s
• Mob Rule in North Carolina
– Wilmington, NC: 20k African Americans residents.
– 1894 &1896, they joined with Republicans & Populists to
choose own slate of elected officials, minority white
Democrats found unacceptable
– On November 10, 1898, more than 2,000 white men and
boys rampaged through the town destroying African
American–owned businesses and killing as many as one
hundred African Americans.
– They then forced the elected officials out of office and
appointed their own slate of officers.
• The Black Response
Race Relations during the 1890s
• The Black Response
– African Americans responded in different ways; some left the
South, but others remained and adopted a solitary lifestyle to
keep from being noticed
The Wilmington
Insurrection
A mob of armed white
supremacists destroyed
the printing press of The
Daily Record, a black-
owned newspaper in
Wilmington, North
Carolina.
Booker T. Washington
was the foremost black educator in
the 1890s. Believed his race should
first achieve economic stability that
would ultimately provide for the
advancement of their social status.
W. E. B. Du Bois
• who worked for immediate
acceptance of an equal
status of Africans with their
Anglo neighbors
W.E.B. Du Bois A fierce advocate for
black education.
Booker T. Washington Founder of
the Tuskegee Institute.
The Economy and the Silver Solution
• A New Era
– The 1896 election was a high point for American voter
participation, with 79 percent of the eligible voters
participating.
– By 1897, economic prosperity was returning, and
discoveries of gold across the globe crushed the silver
movement.