| Home |
 |
Student Resources |
|
Chapter 20 |
|
Economic depression dominated the 1890s and reshaped political alignments and attitudes.
Politics of Stalemate
America’s White male voters of the 1870s and 1880s displayed a keen interest in partisan politics. Southern states increasingly disfranchised Black men.
The Party Deadlock
While Democrats emphasized decentralized power located in the states, the Republicans favored a more active national government. Voters generally adhered to their pre-Civil War loyalties, basically stalemating national government. The New England and many Northern states went Republican and Southern states went Democratic, leaving elections dependent upon a few key “swing” states—New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois—and national politics at a cautious standstill.
Experiments in the States
With national politics at a standstill, most governmental action and reform occurred at the state and local level, especially with the establishment of new regulatory commissions and bureaus. Such actions eventually prompted federal action as well.
Reestablishing Presidential Power
Between 1880 and 1900, American presidents succeeded in reasserting the authority of their office, which had been weakened considerably by the Johnson impeachment, the Grant scandals, and the electoral controversy of 1876. By the late 1890s, they had laid the basis for the modern powerful presidency.
Republicans in Power: The Billion-Dollar Congress
In 1888, the Republicans broke the electoral stalemate by winning control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. Despite Democratic efforts to stall Congressional votes, the Republicans enacted the Reed rules and adopted their party’s program.
Tariffs, Trusts and Silver
In the following two years, the Republicans enacted a significant legislative program including the McKinley Tariff, the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Acts.
The 1890 Elections
Americans rejected the Republican’s activism by crushing them in the elections of 1890, allowing the Democrats to gain new power, especially in the Midwest.
The Rise of the Populist Movement
By the summer of 1890, Farmers’ Alliance organizers were recruiting huge numbers of unhappy farmers, sometimes at the rate of 1,000 a week, leading to a political movement known as Populism.
The Farm Problem
Populism surged as a response to an agrarian sense of social and economic loss based on what they perceived as low farm prices, high railroad rates, and burdensome mortgages. Though their complaints were in some ways justified, they were not altogether valid. What is important, however, is that they believed they were oppressed, and that angered them.
The Fast-Growing Farmers' Alliance
Farmers organized the Grange and the Farmers’ Alliance, which sponsored social and economic programs, but also tried to influence politics, adopting the Ocala Demands in 1890. In the South, the Alliance enjoyed considerable success within the Democratic party; in the North and West, it successfully ran many of its own candidates.
The People’s Party
In 1892, the Alliance led in the formation of the Populist party, which collected over one million votes for its 1892 presidential candidate. The party began to lose strength thereafter. In the South, racism played a major role in the decline of Populism. While it existed, Populism was one of the most powerful reform movements in American history.
The Crisis of the Depression
Grover Cleveland and the Democratic party swept the election of 1892, but then faced a severe depression brought on by the too rapid expansion of the American economy.
The Panic of 1893
The depression of the 1890s started with the Panic of 1893. As the economy slumped into a crisis, banks failed at record rates, factories and mines shut down, and millions were put out of work. The next year was worse, and the economic crisis lingered into the latter days of the 1890s.
Coxey’s Army and the Pullman Strike
The depression led to numerous protests demanding relief for workers and farmers. Jacob Coxey led hundreds of unemployed men on a march on Washington, spurring other “armies” to march as well. Disaffected workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike, spurring other railroad workers in the American Railway Union to do the same. The Pullman Strike shut down the railroads of the West and produced the Socialist leader Eugene Debs.
The Miners of the Midwest
The depression also led to a strike in bituminous coal mines by the new United Mine Workers. The violence which followed pitted workers against capital, but also divided the “old,” mostly English and Irish miners and the “new” miners from southern and eastern Europe.
A Beleaguered President
President Cleveland blamed the depression entirely on the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the free coinage of silver. He pushed for its repeal in 1893, splitting, and, in combination with the depression, wrecking the Democratic party.
Breaking the Party Deadlock
The depression led to a new Republican supremacy and made the Democratic party little more than a southern, sectional party.
Changing Attitudes
The depression also changed the country’s traditional social views. Many Americans now saw poverty as a failure of the economy rather than the individual, so they demanded reforms to help the poor and unemployed, an important step toward national authority and activism.
“Everybody Works but Father”
The entrance of women and children in to the labor force accelerated during the depression because employers made jobs available to them because they were paid less than men. Men still dominated in business offices, but more clerks, telegraph and telephone operators, and teachers were women during and after the 1890s. Children’s increasing presence in the workforce led to more calls for protective laws.
Changing Themes in Literature
Rejecting the romanticism that had dominated before, during and immediately after the Civil War, realistic and naturalistic writers portrayed everyday life as it was. They wrote regional stories and emphasized “true” relationships between people. Notable authors include Joel Chandler Harris, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Theodore Dreiser.
The Presidential Election of 1896
The Republican dominance initiated in 1894 was solidified with the victory of William McKinley over the Democrat and Populist William Jennings Bryan. The election, known as the “battle of the standards,” focused primarily on the debate over the gold or silver monetary standard.
| Legal and Privacy Terms |  |