University City High School 2023-24
AP United States History
Honors United States History
Mr. Brown
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William Mckinley William Jennings Bryan
Close elections and shifting control of the White House and Congress characterized the politics of the period from 1876 to 1900. Regional, ethno-cultural, and economic factors helped determine party affiliation and elections often turned on consideration of personality. But there were real issues too. Tariff, currency, and civil-service questions arose in almost every election. Discontented farmers in the People's party briefly challenged the Republicans and Democrats, but the two-party system remained intact. The election of 1896, the great battle between the gold standard and the silver standard, firmly established the Republican party as the majority party in the United States. Agrarian and mining interests were unable to convince voters that currency inflation through the free coinage of silver would lead the nation out of the depression of the 1890s. By fusing with the Democrats, the Populists ended any chance they might have had to become a major force in American politics. By the end of the nineteenth century, business forces had triumphed. They had secured a gold-based currency and a rigorously protective tariff. Efforts to regulate railroads and trusts were half-hearted to begin with and were weakened even further by court decisions.
THEMES
Economic Transformation: 
Industrialization and modernization irrevocably altered the life of the American farmer. New technologies such as the mechanical reaper and the iron plow allowed farmers to cultivate more land than ever before, but also imposed high costs, as farmers had to borrow to pay for the new machinery. Urban growth and railroads provided access to new markets, but also forced farmers to confront high costs for shipping and storage. Many farmers advocated currency inflation to help them to reduce their debts, while the federal government remained committed to maintaining the gold standard.
Politics and Citizenship: 
In the immediate post-Civil War period, few Americans believed in the need for an active federal government. Although the government provided aid to businesses through land subsidies, high tariffs, and pro-business intervention in labor disputes, the government had few other roles in American life. Throughout the late nineteenth century, Congress, heavily influenced by big business, dominated a series of weak presidents (a result partly of the pendulum swing against the power that the office had accumulated during the Civil War).
Reform: In response to the challenges posed by industrialization, many farmers sought to organize to defend their interests (going against the notion that farmers were by nature individualists). This movement ultimately took the form of the Populist, or People's Party, the largest third-party movement in American history. The Populists proposed a wide ranging expansion of the power of the federal government in the public interest, laying the groundwork for the later Progressive movement. Although the Populists accomplished little in the form of specific pieces of legislation, their advocacy of a graduated income tax, measures such as the initiative, referendum, and recall, and the direct election of senators, all came to fruition within a few decades after the decline of the movement.
American Identity: The agrarian challenge exposed the degree to which the country was divided across regional, class, and racial lines. The Populists represented in many ways a movement of the economically marginalized in the West and South against the forces of the more prosperous East. At the same time, racial differences between black and white farmers in the South ultimately prevented the developed of a far-reaching challenge to the power of the economic elite in that region. The 1896 election represented a major realignment, whereby the Republican Party came to be the majority party for the next three decades, while the Democrats gradually began to be identified with the interests of the less fortunate elements of American society.
Digital History
Mark Twain called the late 19th century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. In the popular view, the late 19th century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display. It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But it is more useful to think of this as modern America's formative period, when an agrarian society of small producers were transformed into an urban society dominated by industrial corporations. An era of intense partisanship, the Gilded Age was also an era of reform. The Civil Service Act sought to curb government corruption by requiring applicants for certain governmental jobs to take a competitive examination. The Interstate Commerce Act sought to end discrimination by railroads against small shippers and the Sherman Antitrust Act outlawed business monopolies. These were turbulent years that saw labor violence, rising racial tension, militancy among farmers, and discontent among the unemployed. Burdened by heavy debts and falling farm prices, many farmers joined the Populist Party, which called for an increase in the amount of money in circulation, government assistance to help farmers repay loans, tariff reductions, and a graduated income tax.
The Political Crisis of the 1890s
The 1880s and 1890s were years of turbulence. Disputes erupted over labor relations, currency, tariffs, patronage, and railroads. The most momentous political conflict of the late 19th century was the farmers' revolt. Drought, plagues of grasshoppers, boll weevils, rising costs, falling prices, and high interest rates made it increasingly difficult to make a living as a farmer. Many farmers blamed railroad owners, grain elevator operators, land monopolists, commodity futures dealers, mortgage companies, merchants, bankers, and manufacturers of farm equipment for their plight. Farmers responded by organizing Granges, Farmers' Alliances, and the Populist Party. In the election of 1896, the Populists and the Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan for president. Bryan?s decisive defeat inaugurated a period of Republican ascendancy, in which Republicans controlled the presidency for 24 of the next 32 years.
Biography of America
Capital and Labor (series 17)
The making of money pits laborers against the forces of capital as the twentieth century opens. Professor Miller introduces the miner as the quintessential laborer of the period -- working under grinding conditions, organizing into unions, and making a stand against the reigning money man of the day, J. Pierpont Morgan.
Lecture Outlines
Politics of the Gilded Age 1877-1900
Articles