SWBAT: Explain ways in which farmers fought back against unfair business practices

 Explain the message in this lithograph:

 Overdevelopment & over farming of the West  Conservationist Movement  Yellowstone National Park  1872: Congress set 2 million acres aside for the world’s first national park  The Northern Pacific Railroad company lobbied Congress for a national park to support railroad tourism  U.S. Fisheries Commission  Made recommendations to address the declining commercial fish population

 Late 1800s- improvements in mechanization & specialization of farming  Larger farms ran like factories  small farms could not compete  driven out of business  Falling Prices  1867: wheat $2.00/bushel  1889: $.70/bushel  1867: corn $.78/bushel  1889: $.28/bushel  Effects:  Farms with mortgages faced high interest rates, could not pay off old debts  Foreclosures by banks  More tenants & sharecroppers

 Rebates- special discounts given to railroad company’s best customers  If a shipper promised to exclusively use a railroad company  special low freight rate  Allowed a shipper to undercut competitors  Smaller railroad & shipping companies would go out of business  Pools- railroad companies in the same market would agree to divide up business to avoid competition  This led to price fixing- railroad companies conspired to charge same high shipping rates to customers

 Industries kept prices high with monopolies  Wholesalers got their “cut”  Railroads & warehouses took profits by charging high rates for shipment & storage  Taxes  Local & state gov’t taxed property & land heavily but not income from stocks & bonds  Tariffs protecting industries were seen as an unfair tax by farmers & consumers for the benefit of industrialists

 Read and analyze excerpts from, “Proceedings of the 13th Session of the National Grange”  Complete the “Reading Questions” with your partner 'The Grange Awakening the Sleepers.” American cartoon, 1873, inspired by the Vanderbilt system of secret rebates, showing a farmer trying to rouse the country to the railroad menace.

 National Grange Movement (1868)  Leader: Oliver H. Kelley  Cooperative organization for farmers & families  By 1868, Granges existed in almost every state  Active in economics & politics  Against middlemen, trusts & railroads  Established cooperatives  Lobbied successfully to pass laws regulating charges by railroads & warehouses  Made it illegal for railroads to fix prices and to give rebates to privileged customers  Munn v. Illinois (1877) S.C. established the right of states to regulate private industry in order to protect the public from unfair business practices

 Interstate Commerce Act (1886)  Wabash v. Illinois (1886) S.C. ruled individual states could NOT regulate commerce between states (interstate), only local commerce (intrastate), reversing the Munn v. Illinois decision  Farmers insisted the Fed. Gov’t help  the Interstate Commerce Act is passed in 1886  Required railroads to be “reasonable and just”  Set up the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to investigate & prosecute disputed business practices  Lost most cases in the 1890s

 Landmark Supreme Court Case: Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co v. Illinois, 1886  Read the outline of the case, and complete the “Case Analysis Questions” with your partner

 Farmers’ Alliances  State & regional groups like the Grange Movement  Taught scientific farming methods  Goals: Economic & political action  Grassroots to Populist Movement & the People’s Party  Called for stronger government role in regulating American economic system  1890: 1 million members  South: Poor white & black farmers joined

 Use evidence to support the following statement:  New production systems and transportation consolidation spurred a variety of responses from farmers.