Politics in the Gilded Age, c. 1870–1900

This is Unit Five, part two, on the farmers' revolt and the election of eighteen ninety-six. Part one closed with the two Sherman Acts, one of them an answer to the farmers' demand for more money. This part turns to why the farmers were angry, and what they built. Carry one question through it: was Gilded Age politics a democratic failure? The last entry answers it both ways. Collect the evidence for each side as you go: minority presidents and coerced elections on one side, and on the other, farmers organising by the million and writing a platform that outlived their party. By the end you will be able to list the farmers' grievances. To trace farm organisation from the Grange to the Populist Party. To state what Plessy versus Ferguson held. To explain why eighteen ninety-six was a realignment. And to weigh whether the era failed democracy.

Two entries on why farmers were angry, and on the first organisation they built.

Why farmers were angry.

USH2 0616 The Farmers' Grievances

Farmers faced falling crop prices, tariffs on what they bought, high railroad rates, a tight currency, and above all overproduction, which drove prices lower. Digital History's comparison makes the point: farmers earned less from twenty-four million acres of cotton in eighteen ninety-four than from nine million in eighteen seventy-three. Unit two's railroad rates are paid off here.

Their first organisation.

USH2 0617 The Grange

The Patrons of Husbandry, known as the Grange, was founded in eighteen sixty-seven and grew to one and a half million members within a decade, with cooperatives buying and selling for farmers. Granger Laws regulated railroad rates in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa, and they fell after the Wabash decision of eighteen eighty-six, which part one covered.

Three entries on the alliances that followed the Grange, and the party they created.

The larger alliance that followed.

USH2 0618 The Farmers' Alliance

In the mid-eighteen eighties regional farmers' alliances joined forces, and Charles Macune's Southern Alliance alone had more than one hundred thousand members by eighteen eighty-six. Nearly two hundred fifty thousand women joined, among them Mary Elizabeth Lease, whom the Yawp quotes telling farmers that Wall Street owns the country. The alliance built cooperatives and then turned to politics.

The Black farmers' alliance.

USH2 0619 The Colored Alliance

The Colored Farmers' Alliance organised Black farmers across the South, and the anchor calls it the largest African American organisation in the country, with alliance membership, White and Black, passing two and a half million. The anchor and Digital History put the Colored Alliance near a million members; the Yawp says as many as two hundred fifty thousand.

The party the alliances created.

USH2 0620 The Omaha Platform

The alliances founded the Populist Party in eighteen ninety-one, and at its convention in Omaha in July eighteen ninety-two it adopted a platform written by Ignatius Donnelly. The Omaha Platform called for a subtreasury plan for farm credit, government control of the railroads, a federal income tax, direct election of senators, and monetary reform. The Populists nominated James B. Weaver, who won more than a million votes and, Digital History adds, twenty-two electoral votes. Grover Cleveland won. The Populists lost the election and won much of the argument: the income tax and the direct election of senators became the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments in nineteen thirteen, as unit six shows.

Three entries: the depression of eighteen ninety-three, the unemployed who marched on Washington, and a Supreme Court ruling of eighteen ninety-six.

The depression that deepened their appeal.

USH2 0621 The Depression of 1893

The closing of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in eighteen ninety-three set off a depression the Yawp calls the worst the nation had yet seen. National unemployment rose from three percent to nearly nineteen percent in a single year, reaching thirty-five percent in New York and forty-three in Michigan, and more than three million were jobless at the trough.

The unemployed who marched on Washington.

USH2 0622 Coxey's Army

In the spring of eighteen ninety-four the businessman Jacob Coxey led unemployed Ohioans on a march to Washington to demand federal public works, a column that grew from one hundred to five hundred marchers. Congress ignored them, and Coxey was arrested for trespassing on the Capitol grounds. Digital History calls it the first mass march on Washington.

A Supreme Court ruling of eighteen ninety-six.

USH2 0623 Plessy v. Ferguson

In Plessy versus Ferguson, decided May eighteenth, eighteen ninety-six, the Supreme Court upheld Louisiana's law requiring separate railway carriages for Black and White passengers, and the law's own phrase, equal but separate accommodations, became the doctrine of separate but equal. Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented. The ruling gave legal sanction to segregation until the Brown decision of unit thirteen.

Four entries on the election of eighteen ninety-six, the speech that shaped it, and why it changed American politics.

The election.

USH2 0624 The Election of 1896

In eighteen ninety-six the Republican William McKinley, governor of Ohio, faced the Democrat William Jennings Bryan, a congressman from Nebraska, and the Populists endorsed Bryan but named the Georgia Populist Tom Watson for vice president. McKinley won seven point one million votes to Bryan's six point five million, the first popular-vote majority in twenty-four years.

The speech that made Bryan the nominee.

USH2 0625 The Cross of Gold

At the eighteen ninety-six Democratic convention Bryan defended silver coinage and working Americans in the speech that won him the nomination: you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. The Yawp says the convention went wild after a few seconds of stunned silence. Bryan's popular vote exceeded any earlier candidate's, winner or loser.

Why this election changed American politics.

USH2 0626 A Realignment

For twenty years every president had won with less than half the popular vote. In eighteen ninety-six McKinley won a majority, the first in twenty-four years, in an election with historically high turnout. His victory for business and the gold standard ended two decades of minority presidents, and the Populists, having fused with the Democrats, never regained their separate strength. A realigning election reshapes who votes for which party, not only who wins. The trap is treating eighteen ninety-six as one more close contest. The course marks three realignments: eighteen ninety-six here, nineteen thirty-two in unit eleven, and nineteen sixty-eight in unit fifteen.

How Bryan campaigned.

USH2 0627 Bryan's Campaign

Bryan crisscrossed the country spreading what the Yawp calls the silver gospel, speaking to one crowd after another, while McKinley championed business interests and the gold standard. The Yawp says the election drew enormous attention. Bryan lost, but his campaign made silver the central question of the year.

Three entries on why the Populists faded, the racial divide that broke them, and whether the whole era failed democracy.

Why the Populists faded.

USH2 0628 Why the Populists Faded

Fusion with the Democrats cost the Populists their separate identity, and events then removed their central issue: the Klondike Gold Rush of eighteen ninety-six to ninety-nine eased the money supply. The silver question was not won in argument; new gold made it moot. The Spanish-American War of eighteen ninety-eight also raised demand for farm goods.

The racial divide that also broke the movement.

USH2 0629 Race and Populism

Populism briefly crossed the colour line; one leader said the problem was poverty, not race. But the Yawp says Democrats race-baited the Populists, and they capitulated, and the Colored Farmers' Alliance fell to what the Yawp calls racial and class-based hostility. After the crusade failed, Digital History says, Georgia's Tom Watson turned his rhetoric on Jews, Catholics and African Americans.

Whether the Gilded Age failed democracy.

USH2 0630 Whether the Gilded Age Failed Democracy

The evidence answers this both ways. The case for failure is strong: every president from eighteen seventy-six to eighteen ninety-two won with less than half of the vote, the spoils system traded offices for loyalty, paramilitary groups kept Black southerners from the polls, and the Supreme Court struck down the regulation farmers had won. Digital History records Richard Hofstadter's judgment that the parties divided over spoils, not issues. The case against is also strong: turnout in eighteen ninety-six was historically high, more than two million farmers organised in alliances that for a time crossed the colour line, a merit civil service began in eighteen eighty-three, and a third party wrote a platform whose income tax and direct election of senators became law within a generation. Two misreadings sit on either side. One dismisses the era as corruption and showmanship, which cannot account for the alliances, the turnout, or the Omaha planks. The other celebrates it as democratic vitality, which cannot account for minority presidents, coerced elections, and the Populists' retreat from their Black allies. Digital History suggests seeing it as the formative period of modern politics and business. The course holds both halves, and lets you weigh them.

Look at what you can now do. You can list the farmers' grievances: falling prices, tariffs, railroad rates, a tight currency, and overproduction, which paid less for twenty-four million acres of cotton than for nine million. You can trace farm organisation from the Grange and its Granger Laws, through the Farmers' Alliance and the Colored Farmers' Alliance, to the Populist Party and its Omaha Platform. You can state what Plessy versus Ferguson held: that separate railway carriages were lawful, which became the doctrine of separate but equal. You can explain why eighteen ninety-six was a realignment. McKinley's majority ended twenty years of minority presidents, and the Populists never regained their separate strength. And you can weigh whether the era failed democracy, with the evidence for both halves.