Period 6 (1865-1898) (ch. 16, 17, 18)

Lost Cause myth/perspective

• victims of Northern aggression

• demonize abolitionists

• glorify Confederate leaders for bravery

  • ex) Jefferson Davis

• Civil war for states’ rights + stop Republicans

• African Americans prefer slavery over freedom

‘New South’

• democratic society of small farms

• more industry

• good race relations

• relied too much on cotton/slavery previously, must follow North’s example

(Henry W. Grady supports!)

!!! cotton low demand, lower prices, little $, can’t buy/own land, barter

South = least urban/educated/prosperous

racism + White supremacy, don’t want civil/voting rights for Black people

Mississippi Plan: 1890 series of state constitutional amendments that sought to disenfranchise Black voters, quickly adopted by 9 other southern states

_{^{*disenfranchise = deprive someone of the right to vote}}

• no gun ownership

• restrict voting

  • residence requirement (know African Americans tend to move for better economic opportunities)

  • must pay all taxes on time

  • disqualified if committed certain crimes

  • literacy tests (designed so Afr Amer fail)

  • can read/understand the Constitution

  • grandfather clause (could your grandfather vote in 1/1/1867?)

widespread segregation in public facilities, political disenfranchisement, and vigilante violence

Black community - businesses, clubs/organizations, religion (comfort from daily hardships)

diverse migrators, exploit nature/Natives

profitable west: mines ⛏ (discover gold, go mine, Comstock Lode - ~$1B worth of gold/silver, surface to panning to hydraulic, need larger operations/investments/power equipment, large-scale mining corps!, dirt/debris cover farmland + clog rivers + kill fish), railroads 🚂, cattle 🐮, buffalo hides 🦬, farms 👨🏻‍🌾

cattle boom, beef

cowboys (open to men of color, favor Anglos > Afr Amer/Mex), vaqueros (riders/ropers, lasso cattle)

Anglos learn cattle ranching from mestizos (mixed Nat Amer/Span), adopt food/clothing/techniques/terminology

machinery (seed planters, threshing machines) increase productivity + value of farmland/farm products

reservation lands violated by buffalo hunters/miners/ranchers

-U.S. army ensure Natives stay on reservation + no trespassers on Indian land

-Natives attack ranches (revenge), soldiers to handle (Confed military prisoners + Afr Amer - buffalo soldiers (mapped SW, built/maintained forts, subdued hostile Indians + captured outlaws)

Mex Amer receive racism/segregation/lynching

factors to end of buffalo population - drought, competition, hunted for hides/meat by Whites/Plain Indians

American Tobacco Company:

-business founded in 1890 by North Carolina’s James Buchanan Duke

-combined the major tobacco manufacturers of the time to have a monopoly controlling 90% of the U.S.’s booming cigarette production

Redeemers =

• conservative/business/Democratic politicians

• ‘saved’ South from Yankee/Black dominance during Reconstruction

• industrial progress grounded in White supremacy

• _{^{want diversified economy + cuts in state taxes (ex: less funding for schools (for Black children))}}

crop-lien system:

credit system used by sharecroppers/share tenants who pledged a portion (“share”) of their future crop to local merchants/landowners in exchange for farming supplies, food, and clothing

cons:

• cotton/tobacco strips soil of its fertility

• soil erodes into riverbanks

• croppers can’t grow their own food (landowners decide what to grow)

• croppers not motivated to maintain soil/equipment (they don’t own it!)

• poor/uneducated croppers

• cycle of debt from credit

Sharecroppers vs. share tenants

Sharecroppers

• labor + portion of crop yield (~50%) for food, shelter, supplies (seed, fertilizer), and portion of crop

• many former slaves under previous owners (“free slaves”)

Tenants

• usually better off + have own mule/supplies

• rent land to farm, pay w/ portion of crop yield (~40%)

Plessy v. Ferguson =

no segregation (goes against rights/13/14 amendment, inferior)

vs.

segregation ok (victimizing, can’t control social equality)

-separate but equal: underlying principle behind segregation that was legitimized by the Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Jim Crow segregation

• Whites only and colored only churches/water fountains/etc.

• sidewalks: Blacks must step aside and let Whites pass

• + Lynching (accused of crimes like rape, tortured & killed, crowds watch)

Wilmington Insurrection:

1898 led by Alfred Waddell in Wilmington NC, White supremacists rampaged through the Black community, overthrew the local govt, and forced over 2000 African Americans into exile

• Black voters vote African American + White Republicans

• angry armed mob of ex-Confederates/Democrats stop Blacks from voting

• stormed neighborhoods + city hall

Ida B. Wells

• journalist for justice

• cofound NAACP _{^{(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)}}

• vs. lynching, segregation

• promoted racial equality + voting for Black ppl/women

Booker T. Washington

• president of Tuskegee Institute (Black school)

• self-improvement > social change

  • encouraged students to have ‘practical knowledge’

  • don’t focus on fighting racial segregation, but work hard and avoid trouble

  • he was careful about his actions to keep support of Whites

• offensive strategy is dangerous, will get more Black ppl lynched

  • acted privately to secretly challenge segregation + fund public schools & legal efforts to oppose Jim Crow laws

  • quiet efforts = more successful

• Atlanta Compromise: 1895 speech by Booker T. Washington that called for the Black community to strive for economic prosperity before demanding political and social equality

*more open to racial segregation, don’t fight social norms

W.E.B. Du Bois

• rival of Washington (coward)

• promoted civil rights 🗳

• Blacks have 2 sides - 1 with familiar, 1 with Whites

Exodusters:

African Americans who migrated west from the South in search of a haven from racism and poverty after the collapse of Radical Republican rule

Govt encourage Western settlement

• govt finance transcontinental railroads

• fed troops relocate Indians to reservations

• sell land for low prices

Fencing

• make own code of laws to enforce, cattle wander outside of property + get mixed up with others (sort with branded symbols)

• 1873 Joseph Glidden - barbed-wire fencing

• opposed

  • small ranchers want open range

  • Natives can’t access ancestral lands

Meat-packing

• Americans become regular meat eaters

• ⭐hogs (reproduce faster than cattle, can be preserved for longer with salt/smoking)

• ice from Lake Michigan to ship to East Coast

  • summer no ice

  • Swift + Armour: refrigerated railcars

  • can now pack beef

→ local butchers put out of business, dump waste (carcasses, blood, manure) into Chicago River 🤢

Women in the West

• high value

• domestic: cook, clean, wash clothes 🍲🧼🧺

• became more independent

• wife’s legal rights belong to husband, can’t sell property w/o husband’s permission

• lonely, big land → west 1st to allow women to vote/hold office (attract women settlers)

Las Gorras Blancas

• rebelled to evict White “land grabbers”

• night riders cut barbed wire fencing, destroyed barns/train tracks, and threatened trespassers

• vigilante tactics not working, political action, not enough support :(

Indian wars:

bloody conflicts between U.S. soldiers and Native Americans that raged in the West from the early 1860s to the late 1870s, sparked by American settlers moving into ancestral Indian lands

-Indians give up ancestral lands for peace + Whites to move in; resist, lose, suffer

Sand Creek Massacre:

1864 Colonel Chivington’s unprovoked slaughter of the Cheyenne & Arapaho in CO, initially reported as a justified battle but soon exposed by Captain Soule for the despicable massacre it was

Great Sioux War:

conflict between Sioux/Cheyenne Indians and federal troops over lands in the Dakotas in the mid-1870s

-Custer loves war, going to force Indians to reservations, refuse means killed

-won vs. Custer _{^{[Battle of Little Big Horn, Lakota Sioux + N Cheyenne + Arapaho defeated Custer (killed him)]}}, Grant + troops on offensive & won, Indians surrender + later die of starvation/disease

Ghost Dance Movement:

• spiritual/political

• ceremonial “ghost dance” to connect the living with the dead and make Natives bulletproof in battles so they can restore their homelands

• massacre at Battle of Wounded Knee (shot bcuz someone did the dance when soldiers were looking for weapons in tipis)

Dawes Severalty Act:

federal legislation that divided ancestral Native American lands among the heads of each Indian family in an attempt to “Americanize” Indians by forcing them to become farmers working individual plots of land

-Indians want to roam/be free/share

frontier thesis =

• Frederick Jackson Turner

• ⭐American settlement of the West/manifest destiny explains American development/national character

(only considered Christian White men, ignored women/ethnic groups, downplayed greed/exploitation)

!!! ❕tech + expand transportation (railroad, canal, steamboat) + communication (telegraph) → [expand market] + immigrants + exploit natural resources + tycoons

scientists (kerosene/gasoline from crude oil) + inventors (telephones, typewriters, cameras, etc.)

❕mass production/distribution

❕productive; cheaper means ppl buy more

⬆patents and productivity

Chinese railroad workers: came with credit-tickets (companies pay for fares, they work # yrs), ‘coolies’ (derogatory, manual laborer who accepts low wage), work together, will strike!!!

electricity - power, speed, efficiency⚡

-Thomas Edison, lightbulb, alternating-current system to cover great distances, Nikola Tesla (alternating-current motor, dynamo)

❕bonanza farms - huge size/profit, mechanized equipment, Mex/Scandinavian workers _{^{(like factory: large scale, specialized machinery, max efficiency!)}}

❕prominent inventions

• ☎Telephone - Alexander Graham Bell, electric speaking telephone to communicate

• typewriters - cleric positions for women (better finger dexterity)

• sewing machines - mass produce clothing/linens, sweatshops (long hrs, cramped)

❕large/powerful/influential corporations (captains of industry aka robber barons)

❕⬆production, eliminate competition/waste, cut costs/lower prices, took customers

❕businesses influence politics (lobbying), can be corrupt

dpt stores, mail to farm families

❕growing gap between rich and poor

❕gilded = gold surface, appear to be greater value, underneath are crooked dealings

rich compete to be most extravagant/fancy 🥂💵

rise of a middle class, “white collar” accountants, managers, office clerks; ⬆ more women have full-time jobs

National Labor Union

• 8 hr workday

• greenbackism

  • print $, inflate, relieve debtors

• = voting for women/Afr. Amer (can’t be members tho)

Knights of Labor: a national labor organization with a broad reform platform; peak membership in 1880s

-men/women have = pay for = work

-include all workers (but lawyers, doctors, bankers, liquor sellers, and Chinese)

❕corporate empires made fortunes for the few + improve quality of living for many 🤑

American Federation of Labor: 1886 national federation of trade unions made up of skilled workers _{^{(trade unions can still do their own thing)}}

❕Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

• include anyone (as long as they renounce capitalism)

  • many members unskilled/migrant workers/immigrants (least power)

• Haywood, Debs (led ARU), Mother Jones, + other prominent union leaders/socialists

• “Wobblies” want to destroy capitalist system, replace w/ workers’ unions to elect workplace managers

• class struggle!

• Haywood hates AFL, wants an all-inclusive union

Second Industrial Revolution:

late 1800s, wave of technological innovations, especially in iron/steel production, steam/electrical power, and telegraphic communications, all spurred industrial development/urban growth 🔋🗨

Impact of railroads

• faster, farther, cheaper

• more connection

  • open West to economic development

• moved goods (raw materials, goods)/ppl

• transformed commercial agriculture/mining/forestry into major intnatl industries

• -

• accidents

• poorly managed → bankrupt

• displaced Natives

_{^{(+time zones, use wristwatch - trains ran on time)}}

Building the first transcontinental railroad

• Union Pacific Railroad (Nebraska) built W, Central Pacific Railroad (Cali) built E

  • compete to build the most in the shortest time (get awarded more $ by Congress)

  • cut corners, cheapest road

• use dynamite🧨

• disrupted by weather, accidents/violence, late deliveries

corporation

separates ownership from the management

sell stocks to raise capital (ownership)

shareholders elect executives (management)

limited legal liability (shared profits, not liable for debts, can lose all investment if fails)

John D. Rockefeller

• [organization, precision, efficiency]

• monopoly yes (produce/refine/deliver oil), competition no

• Standard Oil Company: corporation led by John D. Rockefeller that attempted to dominate the entire oil industry through horizontal and vertical integration

• [1870s almost complete monopoly, state outlaw 1 corp owning stock in competing ones]

  • Hid with Standard Oil Trust

  • holding company idea

horizontal vs. vertical integration

buy/force out competitors _{(Rock. kept “big ones” as executives)}

vs.

own all parts of production, no middlemen

monopoly:

corporation so large that it effectively controls the entire market for its products/services

trust:

business arrangement that gives a person or corporation (the “trustee”) the legal power to manage another person’s money or another company w/o owning those entities outright

• stockholders give shares “in trust” to Rock. + 8 other trustees, control them, stockholders get trust certificate (so can get annual dividends from earnings)

_{^{dividends = a sum of $ paid regularly by a company to its shareholders out of its profits}}

-vs. trusts

• Congress - Sherman Anti-Trust Act (monopolize industries/restrain competition = illegal)

  • no monopolies/restraining trade in one’s industry → too vague in defining trust/monopoly, rarely enforced, not much difference

• state laws more effective

  • Ohio Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil Trust to be dissolved → other way with holding company

holding company:

corporation established to own and manage other companies’ stock instead of producing its own goods/services

• “hold” stock certificates

Andrew Carnegie

• buy/drive out competitors (horizontal)

• control every phase of steel business (coal mines, iron ore deposits, ship/rail transport) (vertical)

• up-to-date machinery to expand production

• Carnegie Steel Company: corporation led by Andrew Carnegie that came to dominate the American steel industry

J. Pierpont Morgan

• merge competitors (mergers + purchases)

  • consolidated steel industry (bought Carnegie’s steel & iron holdings, used mergers → U.S. Steel Corporation = 1st billion-dollar corp)

  • consolidated 4200 corps into 250 giants

• bought massive amts of stock to sell for profit

• J. Pierpont Morgan and Company: an investment bank led by J.P. Morgan that bought or merged unrelated American companies, often using capital acquired from European investors

  _{^{[invested Euro $ into Amer businesses]}}

Sears, Roebuck and Company

• extensive catalog (groceries, furniture, shoes/clothes, more!)

• buy a lot of goods from wholesalers → sell cheaper than rural general stores

• small towns/villages can buy stuff (before was $$ or only available to city folk)

Gospel of Wealth =

• responsibility to help others/society (Rock., Carnegie)

• philanthropy

• supported libraries, schools, churches, hospitals, parks

  • [NYC Carnegie Hall!]

• HOWEVER…some believe in social Darwinism, the most talented at producing wealth should be rich 💰

Republicans and Big Business

• closer relations

• high tariffs to restrict imports

  • S/Midwest farmers hate, buy $$ goods

laissez faire:

an economic doctrine holding that businesses/individuals should be able to pursue their economic interests w/o govt interference

-no investigations of business practices, safety/regulatory laws, protective laws for workers/consumers ❌

Improvements for women

• more access to college/higher education

• want to escape limits of home/social roles

• Jane Addams

  • Hull House settlement house

  • help immigrants adapt to Amer life

  • mentor young women

Working class conditions

• dirty

• tough/dangerous jobs

• skilled > unskilled

• women

  • willing to work lower wages, maid/sew/cook/nanny 🧵🍳

• children

  • coal mines/textile mills

  • long hours → little to no education

labor unions

formed to improve pay/conditions

opposition:

• blacklisted

• fired

• nonunion workers (“scabs”) favored

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

• cause: recession, wages slashed, walk out, strike spreads

• blame Asians for taking White jobs → burn Chinese neighborhoods 🔥

• burn buildings, destroyed railcars/locomotives, assault ppl who don’t join

• state militia mobilized (no bargaining power, back to work)

Mother Jones

• champion of the working poor

• rallied crowds, led marches, confronted police/business titans, served in jail

• promoted higher wages, shorter hours, safer workplaces, restrictions on child labor

Increasing anarchism

⬆hostility from middle class vs. unionized workers (violent radicals/anarchists)

• ⬆labor-related violence, German/Irish endorse violence

• believe powerful capitalists bribed elected officials to oppress the working poor

• want govt eliminated altogether + workers rule (labor union replace govt)

Haymarket Riot:

violent uprising in Haymarket Square, Chicago, where police clashed with labor demonstrators in the aftermath of a bombing

!!!

• want 8 hr workday

• police, bomb, shots fired, hundreds wounded, some killed 💣

• result: mayor banned all labor meetings/anarchist newspapers, 7 anarchist leaders sentenced to death → martyrs!!!

Homestead Steel Strike:

1892 labor conflict at the Homestead Steel mill near Pittsburgh, PA, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents hired by the factory’s management _{^{(Carnegie owned)}}

-Fort Frick, fence/watchtowers/searchlights/private army

-National Guard

-union dead

Pullman Strike:

1894 a national strike by the American Railway Union, members shut down major railways in sympathy with striking workers in Pullman, IL, ended w/ fed troops intervening

-George Pullman laid off workers/slashed wages/fired complainers

-stopped handling trains w/ Pullman railcars [milk, produce, meat supplies run short 🥛🥬🥩]

-stopped by strikebreakers + fed troops + injunction (official court decree)

Western Federation of Miners

• _{[leader = William “Big Bill” Haywood]}

• smelter workers + miners (lead, copper, gold, silver)

• recruit all (men, women, races, skilled or not)

• radical (most militant _{^{(aggressive, violent)}} labor organization, strikes > negotiations)

• want abolition of the wage system

!!! ❕problems: poverty, unsanitary, lack resources, political corruption, division (racial/ethnic, social class)

🚠🚂🚋travel: cable cars, steam trains, electric trolleys (commute, ⬆middle class)

immigrants to US for Amer prosperity, pol/rel freedom, better life for kids/grandkids

❕Ellis Island processes ppl w/ inspectors, translators, railroad conductors, doctors, etc. 🧑‍⚕

new leisure/entertainment (cards, movie theaters, circuses, symphonic orchestras) 🃏🎬🎪🎼

tech (motion pictures, bikes, automobiles) 🎞🚲🚗

Reform Darwinism = ppl can shape/direct social change 🧠

• cooperate to promote social progress

• goals for govt

  • alleviate poverty (impedes development of the mind)

  • promote education 📕

_{^{[pillar of progressive movement in late 1900s+]}}

art/literature realism - Civil War, more sober, power of science, facts of daily life as is, urban, observe strangers’ lives

❕corrupt owners of huge corporations, wealth to “buy” elections/favors from pol. parties (illegal!)

local/state govt more relevant than fed govt

❕3rd parties focus on specific interests/issues (Greenbackers currency inflation, Populists, Prohibitionists restrict alcohol)

cities w/ new immigrant voters had rings (like political gang!) (small groups who shaped policy + managed nomination/election of candidates), had party boss

-dishonest; brought structure, stability, services

-party boss: a powerful pol. leader who controlled a “machine” of neighborhood activists/officials to promote individual/party interests, often using informal tactics (intimidation, patronage system)

more silver, want silver coins for inflation

Farmers’ Alliances: emphasized political action and called for the creation of a new 3rd party to advocate for their concerns

_{^{-addressed issues of small farming communities like the Granger Movement}}

_{^{-(majority are landowners who sell crop in marketplace since they struggle from low crop prices + inadequate $ supply)}}

Dem William Jennings Bryan

• free silver advocate

• good public speaker

  • ‘Cross of Gold’ speech = help the masses, prosperity travels up, E financiers “enslaved” suffering ppl by manipulating $ supply

• help the poor/oppressed/working & middle classes _{^{(Whites only tho)}}

• fractured Dem party (pro-gold, wanted Cleveland as candidate not Bryan)

Gilded Age:

1860-1896 era of dramatic industrial and urban growth characterized by widespread political corruption and loose govt oversight of corporations

-unique politics

• very powerful political parties

• division Repub vs. Dem _{^{[avoided controversial issues/bold]}}

• intense party loyalty

• higher voter involvement 🗳

tenements:

shabby, low-cost inner-city apt buildings that housed the urban poor in cramped, unventilated apartments

-dirty, disease, fires 💩🤢🔥

*packed tight, many families

sanitary reformers (public health officials/engineers)

• regulations in tenements (space per resident, windows, plumbing) 🪟🪠

• water/sewage systems

• trash collection 🗑

• electric-powered trolleys (❌🐴)

new immigrants:

wave of newcomers from S/E Europe, including many Jews ✡, who became a majority among immigrants in America after 1890

-old immigrants - N/W Euro, Prot/Rom Cath, before 1880

-exploited

-tight-knit ethnic communities (Chinatown, Little Italy) (practice native customs/religion/language)

Views of immigrants

• illiterate, know little

• criminals

• threat to America’s future

• Nativists:

  • racial superiority

  • immigrants threaten jobs/ways of life

  • prejudice + discrimination

Chinese treatment

• not White/Christian, many can’t read/write

• “took jobs” _{^{(even tho did menial work White ppl won’t do)}}

• Chinese Exclusion Act: 1882 federal law that barred Chinese laborers from immigrating to America

  -no citizenship for Chinese immigrants

  -can’t marry Whites/Afr Amer

Immigration Restriction League =

• nativists

• “save” Anglo-Saxon race from “contamination” from alien immigrants (esp. Jews/Rom Cath)

• want immigrants to take literacy tests (targeted!)

Social Darwinism:

applied Darwin’s theory of evolutionary natural selection to human society; social Darwinists used the concept of “survival of the fittest” to justify class distinctions, explain poverty, and oppose govt intervention in the economy

-based off Darwinism (natural selection, struggle, best traits live/reproduce, adapt & evolve) (Darwin against Social Darwinism (only applies to biology))

-compete for dominance, best will “win”

-Herbert Spencer

-govt intervention = help unfit survive, hinders social progress

-rich justify social/economic inequality

Political party membership

• loyal

• attend pol. speeches/gatherings/rallies to socialize

• read newspaper 🗞📰

• paid dues to join

• Repub vs. Dem beliefs

  • R:

    • saved Union

    • abolished slavery

    • high tariffs

  • D:

    • limited govt

    • states’ rights

    • White supremacy

patronage system:

informal system used by politicians to reward loyal supporters with contracts and jobs

-aka spoils system -(held banquets/parades)

Republican party factions

Stalwarts

• led by Senator Roscoe Conkling (NY)

• loyal to Grant

• mastered spoils system

Half-Breeds:

• led by Senator James Blaine (Maine)

  • secretly sold votes to support railroad corps

  • shady deals

• half loyal to Grant; half to reforming spoils system

Pendleton Act =

• min. 15% fed jobs filled based on competitive tests

• fed employees running for office prohibited from receiving pol contributions from govt workers

Mugwumps:

Republican reformers who supported Dem Grover Cleveland in the 1884 election instead of Repub James Blaine _{^{(whose secret dealings supporting railroad companies brought charges of corruption)}}

• purity

• reform

• morals

• honest govt

• all jobs from merit

McKinley Tariff Act =

rewarded large corporations’ support, ⬆tariffs _{^{(highest lvl in history!)}} + include agricultural products _{^{(to please farmers)}} → backfired, decr. Repub in House/Senate

Interstate Commerce Commission:

1887 an independent fed agency that oversaw business engaged in interstate trade, especially railroads, but whose regulating power was limited when tested in courts

-goal to make freight rates reasonable/just

-challenged by railroads, ignored ICC

tariff reform:

1887 Dem party effort to reduce taxes on imported goods (burdening the poor!)

-decr tariffs and # of imported goods subject to tariffs → Euro comp → decr prices for consumers

-Repub. argue tariffs needed to protect Amer industries from foreign competition

Growing US money problem

• growing econ/pop, $ supply is same/decr

• bankers/creditors/loaners hike interest on loans to get more $, they like limited currency supply (sound money policy)

• farmers/miners borrow to make ends meet

  • vs. policy (low crop prices, debt)

  • want inflation (incr prices + income)

Struggles of farmers in South/Great Plains

• deflation → low prices

• loan from banks for seed/fertilizer/tools → prices/income drop → can’t pay back on time → debt → sell even more crop REPEAT

• high tariffs means pay more for manu. goods

• sell crops in open world markets w/o tariff protection → comp lowers prices

Granger movement:

began by offering social/educational activities for isolated farmers and their families, later started to promote “cooperations” where farmers could join together to buy/store/sell their crops to avoid the high fees charged by brokers/middlemen

People’s Party (Populist):

pol party formed in 1892 after the success of Farmers’ Alliances candidates; Populists advocated for various reforms (free coinage of silver, progressive income tax (rise w/ income levels), regulation of railroads)

-rise of Populists (farmers, miners, laborers)

-restrict undesirable immigration (takes jobs)

-⬆govt intervention in econ

-efficient natl transportation for agric econ

_{^{[+postal savings, banks, and direct election of US senators, only Congress can expand $ supply]}}

Panic of 1893:

major collapse in the natl economy after several major railroad companies declared bankruptcy, leading to a severe depression and violent clashes between workers and management

• ~600 banks close

• thousands of businesses fail

• jobs lost

• wages cut

• strikes

• Cleveland return to gold standard (no more sherman silver purchase act) → worsened (weak econ need more $ not less)

  • Cleveland + Dem blamed for econ crisis

money question:

late 1800s national debate over U.S. currency

-support fixed gold standard (moneylenders, keep high $ value) (Repub McKinley)

vs.

-support silver _{^{(& gold)}} coinage (debtors, keep low $ value w/ inflation _{^{(increasing currency supply)}}) (Dem Bryan)