U.S. History (1890–1916): Populism, Labor Wars, Overseas Expansion & the Progressive Era

Farmers’ Distress, Alliances, and Populism

• Post–Civil War setbacks for agriculture
  • $1865!{-}!1910$: farm prices ⬇ while consumer prices ⬆ (Fig. 20.1)
  • Examples: Kansas corn at $\$0.10$ per bushel; half of Kansas farms in foreclosure by $1894$
• Structural causes
  • Gold-standard banking starved West/South of credit; crop-lien system trapped Southern tenants
  • Railroads: rebates for big shippers, high short-haul rates; Dakotan wheat to Minneapolis cost > Chicago–NY–Liverpool route
  • Land speculation by absentee owners, rising land prices
• Grass-roots response: Farmers’ Alliances
  • Originated $1876$, Lampasas County (TX); Northwestern & Southern Alliances by $1890$ (~$3{\,}000{\,}000$ members)
  • Women & African Americans (Colored Farmers’ Alliance) recruited; limited biracial solidarity (Tom Watson quote)
  • Co-ops: bulk cotton sales, Alliance stores; credit blockade by banks & merchants doomed effort
• Political turn → People’s (Populist) Party $1892$, St Louis
  • Platform (“sub-treasury,” land reform, gov’t ownership of RR/telegraph, free silver, direct election of senators, initiative/recall/referendum, $8\text{-hr}$ day)
  • Religious revival tone; demanded economic democracy

Labor Wars of the 1890s

Homestead Lockout ($1892$)

• Carnegie (owner) & Frick vs. Amalgamated Assoc.
• "Fort Frick" fence, $316$ Pinkertons hired; July 6 river battle ⇒ $\ge 3$ strikers + $\ge 1$ Pinkerton dead; National Guard ( $8{\,}000$ troops) occupies town; union smashed, wages ⬇, $12\text{-hr}$ day restored

Cripple Creek Miners’ Strike ($1894$)

• Panic $1893$ → mine owners push $10\text{-hr}$ day; Western Federation of Miners strikes; Populist Gov. Davis H. Waite mediates & wins $8\text{-hr}$ day; unique victory due to state support

Pullman Strike/Boycott ($1894$)

• Wage cuts (−$28\%$) + high rents; ARU led by Eugene V. Debs; nation-wide boycott of Pullman cars June 29
• Gen. Managers Association, A-G Richard Olney, Pres. Cleveland secure federal injunction & troops ( $8{\,}000$ ); 25 workers killed July 5; Debs jailed ⇒ becomes socialist; ARU collapses

Women in Politics

• Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
  • Frances Willard presidency $1879$; “Do Everything” agenda: temperance, labor reform, woman suffrage (“home protection ballot”); $\approx 200{\,}000$ dues-payers by $1890s$
• Suffrage movement
  • $1869$: NWSA (Stanton & Anthony) vs. AWSA; merge $1890$ → NAWSA
  • State successes: WY ($1869$), CO 1893, ID 1896, UT 1896; defeat in CA $1896$
  • Alice Paul & militant National Woman’s Party $1916$; picketing Wilson era

Depression Politics & Election of $1896$

• Panic $1893$: $\approx 50\%$ labor force jobless; Coxey’s Army (100→$5{\,}000$) marches, demands road-building bonds; crushed but publicized plight
• Gold vs. Free Silver battleground
  • Republicans: McKinley + gold, $\$4{\,}–16$ million war chest (Hanna)
  • Democrats/Populists: William Jennings Bryan (“Cross of Gold”), fusion problems over VP Sewall vs. Populist Tom Watson
• Result: McKinley $271$ EV vs. Bryan $176$ (map 20.2); GOP realignment, Populist Party collapses but reforms live on

U.S. Turns Outward (1890s)

• Business + missionary motives; exports > $\times3$ 1870$–$1910 (Fig. 20.2)
• Monroe Doctrine enforcement
  • $1895$ Venezuela–British Guiana crisis → U.S. arbitration
  • U.Fruit Co. & “banana republics” dominate Central America
• Open Door Policy $1899$–$1900$ (John Hay) to keep Chinese markets open; Boxer Uprising crushed by int’l force incl. $2{\,}500$ U.S. troops; $\$333$ million indemnity
• Hawaii coup $1893$; annexed $1898$
• Spanish-American War $1898$ (“splendid little war”)
  • Causes: Cuban revolt, yellow journalism, USS Maine explosion ( $267$ dead)
  • Quick victories: Dewey at Manila Bay (May 1); San Juan/Kettle Hill (Roosevelt’s Rough Riders)
  • Treaty of Paris: U.S. gets Cuba (Platt Amendment controls), Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines ($\$20$ million). Filipino revolt (Aguinaldo) costs $4{\,}000$ U.S. & $20{\,}000$ Filipino deaths
  • Roosevelt Corollary $1904$: U.S. = “international police” in W. Hemisphere

Progressive Roots & Ideas (1890–1917)

• Settlement Houses: Jane Addams’ Hull House $1889$; Lillian Wald’s Henry St.
• Social Gospel: Washington Gladden; ⬆ labor sympathy
• Social Purity & Temperance: Anti-Saloon League 1895; nativist tinge
• Women’s Trade Union League $1903$; Uprising of the $20{\,}000$ $1909$; Triangle Fire $1911$ ($146$ dead) → $38$ NY labor laws
• Reform Darwinism (Lester Frank Ward), efficiency (scientific management), technocratic faith

Municipal & State Progressivism

• Tom L. Johnson (Cleveland) “3\cent streetcar” & municipal ownership
• Robert M. La Follette (WI) “laboratory of democracy”: direct primary, RR taxes, workers’ comp, state income tax
• Hiram Johnson (CA) vs. Southern Pacific RR; initiative, referendum, recall

Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal (1901$–$1909)

• Trust-busting: Northern Securities $1902$, $43$ suits; Elkins 1903 & Hepburn 1906 Acts strengthen ICC
• Coal Strike $1902$: 1st presidential mediation; threatens seizure → $10\%$ wage ⬆, $9\text{-hr}$ day (no union recognition)
• Consumer protection: Pure Food & Drug and Meat Inspection Acts $1906$ (Sinclair’s The Jungle)
• Conservation: Forest reserves $43 \to 194$ million acres; $234$ million total lands safeguarded; Gifford Pinchot vs. John Muir (Hetch Hetchy)
• Big-Stick diplomacy: Panama Canal ($\$10$ m + $\$250{,}000/yr$, opened $1914$); Roosevelt Corollary; Russo-Japanese mediation (Nobel $1906$); Great White Fleet

Taft Interlude (1909$–$1913)

• Payne-Aldrich Tariff raises rates; splits GOP
• Conservation crisis: Pinchot-Ballinger affair; Pinchot fired
• Trust suits (Standard Oil, $1911$; U.S. Steel angering TR)
• Dollar Diplomacy: interventions in Nicaragua, DR; limited success in Asia/Mexico
• Progressive amendments passed during term: $16^{th}$ (income tax) & $17^{th}$ (direct election of senators)

Election of $1912$ & Wilson’s New Freedom

• Four “progressive” candidates
  • Taft (GOP conservative), Roosevelt (Progressive/Bull Moose – New Nationalism), Wilson (Democrat – New Freedom), Debs (Socialist $6\%$ vote)
• GOP split → Wilson wins $42\%$ popular, map 21.3

Wilsonian Reform (1913$–$1916)

• Tariff: Underwood-Simmons (−$15\%$) + graduated income tax (authorized by $16^{th}$ Amd.)
• Banking: Federal Reserve Act $1913$ → $12$ regional banks + Fed Board; elastic currency
• Antitrust: Clayton Act $1914$ (outlaws price discrimination, interlocking directorates) + Federal Trade Commission (cease-and-desist power)
• Initially resists social reform; political pressure $1916$ → supports Keating-Owen Child Labor Law, Adamson $8\text{-hr}$ RR day, workers’ comp, Brandeis to Supreme Court

Radical Currents & Exclusions

• Socialist Party (Debs) peaks $1912$ ($\approx 900{\,}000$ votes)
• Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) founded $1905$ by Bill Haywood; direct action, general strike vision
• Birth Control: Margaret Sanger coins term $1915$; Brownsville Clinic $1916$; battles Comstock laws
• Race & Progressivism
  • Jim Crow expanded; Plessy v. Ferguson $1896$ (“separate but equal”)
  • Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise $1895$ vs. W. E. B. Du Bois’ Niagara Movement $1905$ & NAACP $1909$
  • Wilson segregates federal offices; ATL race massacre $1906$
• Anti-Asian measures: Chinese Exclusion renewed $1902$; CA Alien Land Law $1913$ targets Japanese
• Women: still largely disenfranchised; suffrage parade $1913$ met with violence; Paul’s National Woman’s Party $1916$ escalates tactics

Key Numbers & Facts (to remember)

• $146$ deaths – Triangle Fire
• $8{\,}000$ National Guard – Homestead
• $2.5{\,}65$ power sites withdrawn by TR (as “ranger stations”)
• Federal Reserve: $12$ banks, opened $1914$
• Forest reserves: $194{\,}000{\,}000$ acres by $1909$
• Philippine-American War: $4{\,}000$ U.S. & $20{\,}000$ Filipino deaths

Concept Connections & Significance

• Agrarian radicalism (Populism) lays groundwork for Progressive reforms (direct democracy, regulation)
• Labor conflicts expose state bias toward property → motivates regulatory state & progressive labor laws
• Depression of $1893$ shifts opinion from laissez-faire → acceptance of federal action
• Overseas expansion both distracts from and is justified by domestic tensions; Spanish-American War unites factions temporarily
• Progressive Era redefines liberalism: uses government to balance corporate power & pursue social justice, yet limited by racism, sexism, nativism

Mini-Chronology (selected)

\begin{array}{ll}
1876 & 1^{st}\; Farmers\'\; Alliance\
1889 & Hull\ House\ founded\
1890 & NAWSA\ created; Sherman\ Antitrust\
1892 & Populist\ Party; Homestead\
1893 & Depression\ begins; Coxey\
1894 & Pullman; Cripple\ Creek\
1896 & McKinley\ elected; Plessy\
1898 & Spanish\–American\ War; Hawaii\
1901 & TR\ president; US\ Steel formed\
1903 & Elkins\ Act; Panama\ revolt\
1906 & Hepburn; Meat\ Inspection; Pure\ Food; SF\ earthquake\
1907 & Panic; TR\ acquiesces\ to\ US\ Steel\
1909 & NAACP; Taft\
1912 & TR\ vs.\ Taft\ split; Wilson\
1913 & Fed\ Reserve; Underwood\ tariff\
1914 & Clayton; FTC\
1916 & Child\ labor\ ban; Wilson\ re-elected\
\end{array}