Dissent, Depression, and War (1890–1900): Comprehensive Study Notes

Farmers’ Alliances and the Agrarian Revolt

• Background ❯ Post–Civil War agriculture faced a cascade of crises.

  • Crop prices fell every decade after the war; e.g.

  • Kansas corn sold for as little as $0.10$ per bushel—farmers sometimes burned corn for fuel.

  • Consumer‐goods prices soared (see Fig. 20.1) ➔ farmers’ purchasing power eroded.

  • Nearly $\tfrac12$ of Kansas farms were foreclosed by $1894$; banks—especially eastern ones committed to the gold standard—held the deeds.

  • Railroads charged higher short-haul than long-haul rates, letting Chicago grain elevators ship wheat to New York (and Europe) for less than Dakota farmers paid to Minneapolis.

  • Tight‐money policy left the entire South with less currency in circulation than Massachusetts alone; drove Southerners into the crop-lien system (pledging future crops for credit).

  • “Absentee” eastern & foreign landlords owned vast western acres; speculation drove land prices beyond family reach.

• Early responses ❯ Grange & Greenback-Labor Party (1870s) failed to solve credit/rail issues.

• Birth of the Farmers’ Alliance(s)

  • First organized in Lampasas County, Texas (1876) to fight “landsharks & horse thieves.”

  • Education central: travelling lecturers offered political economy, cooperative tactics, and moral revivalism (“Alliance gospel”).

  • Consolidation by late $1880\text{s}$:

  • Northwestern Farmers’ Alliance (Kansas, Nebraska, Granger belt).

  • Southern Farmers’ Alliance (more radical; >3 million members by $1890$; welcomed women, reached out to Black farmers via the Colored Farmers’ Alliance, yet still proclaimed a “white man’s country”).

  • Alliances supported industrial labor during 1886 Texas & Pacific RR strike; hoped for farmer-worker solidarity.

• Cooperative experiments (“bulking” cotton; Alliance trade stores) promised independence but collapsed under credit denial by merchants & bankers ➔ momentum shifted toward politics.

• Road to Populism

  • St. Louis convention ($1892$): Farmers’ Alliance + Knights of Labor + reformers ➔ People’s (Populist) Party.

  • Platform highlights:

  • Subtreasury Plan: federal warehouses for non-perishable crops, commodity-backed loans.

  • Land reform: reclaim excess railroad lands & foreign holdings.

  • Public ownership of railroads, telegraph.

  • Free silver to expand money supply.

  • Political democracy: direct election of senators, initiative, referendum, recall.

  • Labor planks: $8$-hour day.

  • Populism = alternative economic democracy; influenced U.S. political agenda for decades.

Labor Wars of the $1890\text{s}$

• Overall context: employers fought collective bargaining; workers linked unionism to manhood & shop-floor control.

Homestead Lockout & Strike (Pennsylvania, $1892$)

• Carnegie Steel vs. Amalgamated Association of Iron & Steel Workers.

  • Carnegie departs to Scotland; Henry C. Frick installs “Fort Frick” (15-ft fence, barbed wire), hires $316$ Pinkertons at $\$5$/day.

  • July 6 dawn: Pinkerton barges met by >1{,}000 armed townspeople; gun battle ➔ $\approx$ $3$ workers & >1 Pinkerton dead, $\sim$ $40$ wounded.

  • Pennsylvania governor (sympathetic) nevertheless sends $8{,}000$ National Guard; plant reopens with strikebreakers.

  • Anarchist Alexander Berkman’s failed assassination of Frick flips public opinion; union defeated by November, wages cut, $12$-hour day restored, $500$ jobs lost.

  • Result: steel unionism crushed for $\approx45$ years; Carnegie profits soar from $\$4$ million (1892) to $\$40$ million (1900).

Cripple Creek Miners’ Strike (Colorado, $1894$)

• Panic of $1893$ depresses silver; mine owners impose $10$-hour day.

• Western Federation of Miners calls strike; broad local support (grocers’ credit, working miners’ $\$15$/month assessments).

• Populist Governor Davis Waite mediates; owners capitulate, eight-hour day saved.

• Significance: rare case where state power sided with labor; reversed in $1904$ when new governor sent troops against WFM.

Pullman Strike & ARU Boycott (Illinois/ nationwide, $1894$)

• Pullman town: model housing but $10\text{–}20\%$ higher rent; no saloons, no land sales.

• Wage cuts (total $28\%$) during depression but rents unchanged; some paychecks net $\$0.47$.

• Workers join Eugene V. Debs’s American Railway Union (industrial, not craft).

• Company fires $3$ union committee members; $90\%$ of $3{,}300$ workers strike.

• ARU votes national boycott of all Pullman cars (June 29).

• General Managers Association fires switchmen, hires scabs; rail traffic freezes coast-to-coast.

• Attorney General Richard Olney & President Cleveland invoke “protect the mails”; federal injunction forbids Debs even to speak. $8{,}000$ troops occupy Chicago (July 5) ⇒ $25$ dead, >60 wounded.

• Injunction + arrest of Debs (contempt) break ARU; Debs emerges a socialist, later founding Socialist Party ($1900$).

• Common threads of $1890\text{s}$ labor wars:

  • Private armies (Pinkertons, deputies), federal/state troops, court injunctions weaponised to defend private property.

  • Violence often triggered by employer action (lockouts, wage cuts) but framed in press as “mob rule.”

Women in Politics: Temperance & Suffrage

• Frances Willard & the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

  • Presidency (from $1879$): shifted from prayer to social action—viewed alcoholism as disease, poverty as cause.

  • “Home protection” rationale ➔ linked temperance to woman suffrage (needed vote to protect families).

  • Partnered with Knights of Labor; investigated mill girls’ conditions (“running like race horses”).

  • By $1890$: $200{,}000$ dues-paying members; nationwide grassroots network; first mass women’s movement.

• Suffrage organizations

  • $1869$ split: NWSA (Stanton & Anthony, radical) vs. AWSA (moderate, GOP loyal). Reunited $1890$ as NAWSA.

  • Wyoming only state with full suffrage by $1890$; gains: Colorado ($1893$), Idaho ($1896$), Utah (on statehood $1896$). Defeat in California referendum ($1896$).

  • Anthony elected NAWSA president ($1892$); last speech $1906$: “Failure is impossible.”

• Linkage: WCTU’s vast network mainstreamed the “home protection ballot,” boosting NAWSA respectability.

Economic Depression & Politics ($1893$–$1897$)

• Stock-market crash $1893$ ➔ depression for $\approx4$ years; $\frac{1}{2}$ of labor force jobless.

• Prevailing ideology: social Darwinism & laissez-faire ➔ federal non-intervention.

Coxey’s Army (spring $1894$)

• Jacob S. Coxey proposes road-building public works financed by non-interest-bearing bonds.

• March from Ohio with $\approx100$ expands en route; Homestead veterans join.

• On May 1 police club & arrest Coxey for “walking on the grass”; total of $\approx5{,}000$ marchers nationwide. Demonstrated unemployment crisis & extra-party activism.

Election of $1896$ – “Battle of the Standards”

• Republicans: William McKinley & Mark Hanna—commit to gold standard.

• Democrats revolt vs. Cleveland; William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech ➔ nomination, embraces free silver.

• Populists fuse: nominate Bryan but replace Dem VP Arthur Sewall with Tom Watson; fusion blurs Populist identity.

• Campaign:

  • Bryan tours $27$ states, >6 million listeners; rides coach, carries bags.

  • McKinley stays in Canton; $750{,}000$ visitors; GOP war chest $\$4–16$ million (record).

  • Gold portrayed as stability/“full dinner pail,” silver as inflation/chaos.

• Result: Turnout $80\%$; McKinley wins $271$-$176$ electoral, popular $7.1$ vs. $6.5$ million. Populists drop to <0.3 million votes. GOP secures North, Midwest, West; Dems left with “solid South.”

• Legacy: Populist vision survives in future Progressive reforms (initiative, referendum, regulation, expanded money supply).

Turning Outward: From Isolation to Expansion

• Dual currents: isolationism (no European entanglements) vs. manifest destiny & markets.

• Depression of $1890$s ➔ businesses seek foreign markets; exports triple $1870–1910$ (Fig. 20.2).

• Missionary impulse couples with commerce; Alfred T. Mahan & others supply strategic/naval rationale.

• Hawai’i: American sugar planters overthrow Queen Lili‘uokalani ($1893$); Cleveland blocks annexation, but McKinley signs annexation July $1898$.

Asia & the Open Door

• Missionaries in China admitted by Tianjin Treaty ($1858$); antiforeign Boxers (“Righteous Harmonious Fist”) massacre $\approx30{,}000$ Chinese converts & $250$ foreigners ($1899–1900$).

• Siege of foreign legations in Beijing; $2{,}500$ U.S. troops join international relief force (Aug $1900$); Boxer Protocol ($1901$): $\$333$ million indemnity + foreign garrisons.

• Secretary John Hay’s Open Door Notes ($1899–1900$): equal trade access + maintenance of Chinese sovereignty; declared policy despite tepid European replies.

Monroe Doctrine Reinforced

• Cleveland (Dem) threatens Britain over Venezuela–British Guiana border ($1895$) ➔ arbitration; signals U.S. hegemony in Western Hemisphere.

• U.S. corporations (United Fruit, banana republics) dominate Central America; economic empire complements diplomatic doctrine.

Spanish–American & Philippine–American Wars

• Moral outrage at “Butcher” Weyler’s Cuban reconcentration camps (>$ $25\%$ island population dead by $1898$) + yellow journalism (Hearst vs. Pulitzer).

• Battleship Maine explodes Havana harbor Feb $15,$ $1898$ (267 dead) ➔ “Remember the Maine!” war cry.

• Congress declares war; war lasts $\approx8$ months.

  • Admiral Dewey destroys Spanish fleet, Manila Bay (May $1$).

  • U.S. troops land Cuba (June 22) ➔ Santiago, San Juan Heights (Rough Riders) ➔ Spanish surrender July 17.

• John Hay: “a splendid little war.”

Treaty of Paris ($1898$) & Imperial Aftermath

• Spain cedes Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines; U.S. pays $\$20$ million indemnity for Philippines.

• Platt Amendment (1901): U.S. right to intervene in Cuba, oversee debt, lease Guantánamo $99$ years.

• Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo turns guns on U.S.; Philippine–American War ($1899–1902$ officially, guerrilla until $1907$): $\approx4{,}000$ U.S. dead vs. $20{,}000$ Filipino combatants; water-cure torture scandals.

Imperial Debate

• Anti-imperialists (Bryan, Bourke Cockran, Twain et al.) see empire as distraction, immoral, unconstitutional.

• Expansionists invoke duty & race: “ministering angels” (Sen. Knute Nelson); Washington Post: “taste of empire is in the mouth of the people.”

• Despite dissent, U.S. keeps colonies; sets precedent for 20th-century interventions.

Key Vocabulary & Concepts

• Farmers’ Alliance – regional cooperative networks aimed at credit & rail reform.

• People’s (Populist) Party – political expression of agrarian/labor alliance.

• Homestead lockout, Cripple Creek strike, Pullman boycott – emblematic labor conflicts.

• WCTU, NAWSA – women’s mass movements for temperance & suffrage.

• Coxey’s Army – unemployed march for public-works relief.

• Open Door policy – equal trade rights in China, American economic diplomacy.

• Boxer Uprising – Chinese antiforeign revolt; joint international suppression.

• Yellow journalism – sensational press fueling war fever.

Chronology Snapshot (selected)

• $1876$ – First Alliance forms (Texas).

• $1879$ – Frances Willard heads WCTU.

• $1890$ – NAWSA organized.

• $1892$ – Populist Party launched; Homestead conflict.

• $1893$ – Depression begins; Hawai‘i annexation blocked.

• $1894$ – Cripple Creek success; Pullman defeat; Coxey’s Army.

• $1896$ – Bryan vs. McKinley election.

• $1898$ – Maine explodes; Spanish–American War; Hawai‘i annexed.

• $1899\text{–}1900$ – Boxer uprising, Open Door affirmed.

• $1901$ – Platt Amendment; Boxer Protocol.

Connections, Implications & Themes

• Domestic dissent (agrarian & labor) pressured elites; yet war & empire created national unity that muted reform—temporarily.

• Populist & labor agendas (currency reform, 8-hr day, direct democracy) resurfaced in Progressive Era reforms (1900s-1910s).

• Imperial ventures drew on frontier precedents: tactics against Native Americans adapted to Philippines & Caribbean, illustrating racialized logic of “civilizing” missions.

• Women’s activism demonstrated private-to-public transition: issues “touching home” (drink, wages) led to suffrage politics, foreshadowing Progressive maternalist reforms.

• The battle over monetary standards symbolized larger conflicts over industrial capitalism’s winners & losers.

• U.S. emergence as a Pacific & Caribbean power set stage for Panama Canal (1904–14) and later interventions (e.g., Roosevelt Corollary).