1. Station 2: Daily Life & Politics

2. Calls for REFORM Go to the table and take a copy of “Calls for Reform” from the correct folder. Read the next few slides to gain background information about “Life in the Country and the City”. Answer the 4 questions Read the slides focused on “Reform and Reaction in NC”. Complete the Populist Activity Read “The Rise of the Populists” on your handout. Watch the “Wilmington Race Riot” video and write poem.

3. Life on the Farm Changes Industrial developments made farm work easier and more productive. Fewer farmers were needed to grow crops and factories needed more workers. As a result, two movements shaped American life in the late 1800s. One was urbanization, the movement of people from rural to urban areas. The other was immigration. Farmer using a steam-powered harvester to harvest wheat in the late 1800s.

4. Life on the farm changes As productivity on farms increased with new methods & technology, farmers found themselves without jobs. They flocked to the cities to find work. Even with this movement, American industries did not have enough workers. Between 1865 and 1890, more than 12 million people came to the US in search of jobs and a better life. At first, most immigrants came from countries in western Europe, but in the 1890s a new wave of migration brought people from eastern and southern Europe. Most immigrants settled in the Northeast and Midwest while few immigrants settled in Southern states.

5. Life Changes in American Cities The flood of new people into the cities also brought problems like overcrowding and poverty. Immigrants, mostly poor and unskilled, crowded into tenements, which were apartment buildings with tiny rooms and few windows. Many families shared a single bathroom, and several families often lived together in the same apartment.

6. Ellis Island Most immigrants into the United States entered through Ellis Island. Go to Ellis Island: Animated History to find out about this island near New York.Ellis Island: Animated History Use your cursor and click on each area.

7. Life Changes in American cities While poor people occupied tenements, people with more money lived very differently. Some like Rockefeller and Carnegie, built mansions. As workers flooded the city centers, many middle-class families moved to the suburbs. There, they enjoyed all the comforts of the industrial era- modern plumbing, electricity, telephones and more. Streetcars, trains, and eventually cars carried them to and from their work in the cities.suburbs.

8. When there is change, we must be ready to adjust. This is much easier said than done! In North Carolina, as in the rest of the U.S., industrialization brought enormous changes to people’s lives. As people struggled to adjust, many pressed for major economic, political and social reforms.

9. Farmer’s Unite! 1873 poster supporting the Grange, which later became the Farmers’ Alliance. As NC cities grew, its farmers struggled. Because of the new technologies, farmers had more crops for sale; prices fell along with farmers’ profits. Farmers fell into debt and began losing their land. Across the nation, farmers began to organize the Farmers’ Alliance. After attempts to pool resources to gain control over supplies and prices, the famers decided the solution to their problems lay in POLITICS!

10. The Rise of the Populists On a national level, Populists campaigned for changes in the nation’s financial system. In NC, they focused on the ruling Democratic Party. Many farmers thought the Democrats favored city dwellers and industrial leaders over rural people. Using the 40 political cartoons on the website of retired professor, W.R. Miller, from Missouri State University, create a list of 5 Populists issues that seem to be most prominent in the cartoons.website You will need to click on “More on Subject” for each cartoon that you do not understand. Draw your own cartoon.

11. Wilmington, North Carolina 1898