1. 8-5.5: Ben Tillman and the Populist Party

2. Farmer’s Alliance poster
Populists
A political movement started in the South & the Midwest as a result of the worsening economic conditions.
- The Populist movement started as an organization known as the Grange.
Originally a social organization designed to ease the isolation of farm life
The Grange was later replaced by the Farmers’ Alliances.
The Farmers’ Alliance later becomes the Populist Party.
They formed to oppose the Conservative Democrats.
Farmer’s Alliance poster

3. Populists
The farmers attempted to ally with industrial workers by encouraging an eight-hour day, and restrictions on immigration.
The Populist Party was successful in electing senators, governors and state legislators in the South & West.
In South Carolina, farmers did not form a separate party but worked to control the Democratic Party.
One of whom was Ben Tillman.

4. Ben Tillman
Benjamin Tillman supported the Populists’ because he agreed with their values and wanted to meet the needs of the common people by protecting them against the Conservative elite.
However, Tillman was not a true Populist.
He did not support the Populist Party because they wanted to help black farmers.
He worked to gain control of the Democratic Party in SC
Benjamin Ryan Tillman

5. Top: Clemson’s Tillman Hall
Ben Tillman
Tillman and his followers blamed the Conservatives for the small farmers economic problems.
He pushed to create colleges to educate farmers in the techniques of farming
Opposed the elitism of the University of South Carolina
This push led to the establishment of Clemson as an agricultural college.
Top: Clemson’s Tillman Hall
Bottom: USC Horseshoe

6. Top: John C Calhoun Mansion Bottom: Barracks at Clemson A&M College
Ben Tillman
Tillman wanted schools for farmers to teach them better crop management and to develop new crops to increase their economic prosperity.
Thomas G Clemson
(Was the son-in-law of John C.
Calhoun)
3. Upon his death he left the land to help create such a school
This land grant school Later became Clemson Agricultural and Mechanical School in 1893.
Top: John C Calhoun Mansion
Bottom: Barracks at Clemson A&M College

7. Ben Tillman was blind in one eye
Whites united against any chance of African-Americans regaining political power
Tillman won the governorship in 1890 & again in His main supporters were poor white farmers.
As governor, Tillman did little to enact the platform of the Populist Party.
His government did…
Establish a railroad commission to regulate rates
Limited the hours for textile workers to 66 hours and 6 days a week
Ben Tillman was blind in one eye

8. National Populist Party
On a National level, the Populist Party had slightly different goals than Tillman.
They wanted:
Federal farm loans that would help all small farmers
To allow free coinage of silver

9. Ben Tillman
Although the Populist Party was no longer effective in South Carolina after Tillman’s election in 1892, farmers still had an impact in state government.
In the 1890s, many socially conservative farmers supported prohibition
making the production and sale of alcohol illegal
Voters approved a referendum in favor of prohibition
Officials disposing of alcohol

10. Alcohol bottles from the state dispensary
Ben Tillman
The state legislature passed a prohibition bill, but Governor Tillman amended it
Substituted the State Dispensary system
The state would control the distribution of alcohol
This worked for awhile, but eventually became corrupt.
Alcohol bottles from the state dispensary

11. A segregated schoolhouse in the mid 1900s
Ben Tillman
Wrote new 1895 state constitution
Required that there be separate schools for black and white children.
Effectively kept blacks from voting by making voters pay a poll tax six months before the election
Established a literacy test for voting
Requiring that voters be able to read & interpret the US Constitution
A segregated schoolhouse in the mid 1900s