Chapter 18-4 Advanced US History

 Background ◦ Small farmers, who felt pressured by large corporations and/or feared losing their land, debt, etc., started to organizing together…kind of like unions ◦ 1890s – the Populist Party became the most famous farmer advocacy group; Populists championed the “farm” cause of land and crops over the powers of banking and credit  Problems Confronting Farmers ◦ Background  Aside from the threat of bad weather and poor crops, “many farmers were now deeply in debt from loans needed to purchase the large-scale machinery required to increase yields”  Large-scale machinery definitely made farming easier, but it caused farmers to go into debt to buy these machines, especially with trying to keep up with shipping costs  Farmers of the South also competed now with all of the crops and goods being shipped from the West  Many farmers were also sharecroppers and didn’t even own their land ◦ Deflation  When the gov’t initiated the gold standard to erase Civil War debt by taking paper money & silver out of circulation  When gold was scarce, this led to deflation (prices fall b/c there’s not enough $ in circulation)  Therefore farmers had to take less for their crops

◦ Emergence of the Grange Movement (1870s)  National movement to express farmer discontent, especially with deflation  Political victories included several states passing laws to regulate the rates of RR companies  Munn v. Illinois – states can regulate businesses within their borders if those businesses operated in the public interest  Internal conflicts caused the dissolution of the Grange Movement  Oliver H. Kelley founded the nation’s first national farm organization known as the Grange realizing the isolation many farmers felt at the time.  By 1874, had nearly 1.5 million members.  They pressured state governments to regulate railroad and warehouse rates, which they believed were too high. ◦ Forming Cooperatives: Some Grangers pooled their resources and tried to create cooperatives- marketing organizations that worked for the benefit of their members. Cooperatives pooled farmers crops and held them off the market in order to force up prices. They could also more easily negotiate better shipping rates with railroads.

◦ The Farmers’ Alliance- Creating Exchanges:  Network of smaller local alliances throughout the South and Midwest  Alliances were cooperatives (basically, farmer unions, in which farmers unanimously agreed not to take lower prices for their goods) ◦ The Turn to Politics  Many bankers and commercial groups refused to do business with the alliances/cooperatives  Plans proposed to help farmers were defeated in gov’t, which lead to farmers organizing politically

◦ Background  Populist Party/Peoples Party formed in 1892 at a convention in Omaha Nebraska  Purpose was to advocate for farmers at the local, state and national levels  Wanted the gov’t to introduce silver back into currency to help with the issue of deflation  Also asked for broad gov’t regulations and take-over of certain private companies in order to better benefit farmers  Frustrated, they also asked for the direct election of senators (which, at this time, were chosen by state legislatures) ◦ A National Movement  Republican and Democrat farmers joined forces for the relief of farmers everywhere  Often united mixed-raced audiences since both black and white farmers shared the same concerns  Some proposed recruiting Industrial working class folks who were also downtrodden  1892 – James B. Weaver ran for President as a Populist, and won several western states; populism started spreading through other Populist gov’t officials elected to office ◦ The Presidential Election of 1896  When Democratic Presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan, took the same position as the Populists on silver  Populists threw support behind Bryan in order to ensure a victory for silver, though Bryan really didn’t champion any other Populist causes  The Republican, William McKinley, still won, though a supporter of the Gold Standard, b/c many of the downtrodden up North benefited from deflation since prices were cheap for them. Also, many Catholic and Jewish immigrants of the North were turned off by Bryan’s Protestantism

 In the South, Populism lost its luster as southern Democrats continued to call for white solidarity, pulling southern folks away from Populism, which had black and white farmers working together  In 1897, deflation started to reverse, so people like Bryan lost support  Eventually, though not through the Populist Movement, many of their demands would soon come to fruition:  Direct election of senators  Low-interest gov’t loans for farmers  Federal regulation of railroad rates  Regulation of the money supply