1. Quick Write
Would you want to be a farmer?

2. The Western Frontier: Populism
United States History
The Western Frontier:
Populism

3. Suffering Farmers
Falling prices & high interest rates squeezed farmers. Many moved from owning farms to renting.

4. Challenges to Farming
The 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s saw a series of terrible droughts, floods, and look to the right.

5. The Grangers
National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry (founded 1867) sets up stores & warehouses for farmers.

6. The Walrus of Washington Street

7. I plead for all.
I rule for all.
I carry for all.
I bull & bear for all.
I fleece you all.
I fight for all.
I preach for all.
I sail for all.
I buy & sell for all.
I physic you all.

8. “Cross of Gold” Speech (1896)
“Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.”

9. The Populists
To cope with the high prices charged by railroads & manufacturers, the Populists (mostly farmers) demanded:
nationalized railroads & telegraphs
graduated income tax
federal loans & grain storage for farmers

10. Mary E. Lease
The Kansas Pythoness
“Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master!” (1890)