1890 to 1900: The End of the Century

Chapter 16 – End of the Century

Chapter 16 – End of the Century – 1890 to 1897

Review

The end of the 19th Century was called the Gilded Age. We learned about how industry grew and how big business owners developed monopolies. Organized labor began to demonstrate its power but suffered greatly after the Haymarket Riot in 1886. There were early efforts at reform with the creation of the Civil Service Commission but we also saw the Supreme Court toss out the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and open the door to segregation policies throughout the country. Perhaps Mark Twain was right in calling these times the Gilded Age since it was indeed a time of great excesses. In this last section we’ll learn how these things continued and how the country made great changes in the way it looked at the rest of the world.

Lesson 1 –

Early Reform Efforts

Main Idea: The U.S. Government moved very slowly when it came to addressing the issue of reforming business. Efforts to introduce the middle class to the needs of the working poor made reform a major issue.

Sherman Antitrust Act

In your last reading you learned how big business leaders like John D. Rockefeller attempted to create monopolies and completely control certain industries. In 1890 the government, under pressure from reformers, finally came up with a law that would make it illegal to create a monopoly.


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Named after its author, the Sherman Antitrust Act stated:

Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal… and Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony…

As you probably can figure out, monopolies can artificially inflate prices because consumers have no alternatives. But at this time, some monopolies had done a good job of keeping prices low for consumers. The idea was that they wanted to maintain their control of the industry and discourage others from competing so they would keep prices low. Unfortunately, the Sherman Antitrust Act was not really used when it needed to be during the 1890s. It wouldn’t be used to stop companies from “restraining trade” until Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901. Also unfortunate was the use of this act against labor unions. Because the act was not specific enough, the government used the act to keep unions from striking – saying that going on strike was restraint of trade. That would finally change in 1914 with the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act. That act was more specific and more effective.

How the Other Half Lives The reform movement of the late 1800s focused on a number of different

1 squalid: foul and repulsive, as from lack of care or

cleanliness; neglected and filthy.

areas. Jacob Riis was an immigrant from Denmark. He started out working as a police reporter in New York in the 1870s. During this time he worked in many of the poor, immigrant neighborhoods in the city. He began taking photographs and was one of the first photographers to use flash photography, allowing him to take images at night. In 1890 he put out a book with plenty of pictures of the squalid1 conditions of New York’s tenement buildings and poor immigrant neighborhoods called How the Other Half Lives. Most of the upper- and middle-class people were unaware of the horrible living conditions for the city’s poor. Riis blamed these conditions on the lack of concern and interest of the upper classes. His goal was to show them what life was like for these poor people and call upon the wealthier people and government to do something. Riis made close friends with then New York City Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt through his work. Roosevelt (who you will learn more about later in this reading) agreed to close the police-run poor houses that did nothing to help the poor.

Jacob Riis

Photo of homeless children in How the Other Half Lives


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How the Other Half Lives was successful in pushing the plight of the immigrant poor into the forefront of the reform movement in New York. As people realized how awful things were, they began to do something about it. Sometimes it just takes waking people up to a problem for something to be done about it.

Sherman Silver Purchase Act Wow, that Sherman guy wrote a lot of bills! (He probably didn’t write any more legislation than other senators, but we need to know of at least two of his bills in this reading). You should recall in your last reading learning about the Bland-Allison Act (1878) which added silver to the U.S. Treasury along with gold, thus increasing the money supply. There were a number of people that wanted that amount greatly increased. As a compromise to those people who wanted “free silver” as it was called then, Senator John Sherman of Ohio wrote up this bill. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act required the government to purchase twice as much silver as it had been required to under the Bland-Allison Act. Again, the goal was to stop deflation (which is the dropping of prices due to a drop in the money supply). But, as you will learn here in a few pages, the whole thing backfired and caused more problems than it solved.

Lesson 1 Review Questions – (write

answers in complete sentences on a piece of loose-leaf paper).

1. How did the government use the

Sherman Antitrust Act against labor unions?

2. What was the goal of Jacob Riis in writing his book How the Other Half Lives?

3. What was “free silver” and why did so many people demand this?

Lesson 2 –

Labor Problems &

New Americans

Main Idea: Big Business, aided by the government, continued to crack down on organized labor. Despite the violence, more people continued to

come to America in pursuit of a better life.

Homestead Strike – Carnegie

Steel In the last reading you learned about the need for workers to organize unions to win better pay,

shorter working hours and better working conditions. You should remember how the Haymarket Riot in Chicago hurt organized labor unions like the Knights of Labor. And finally, you should also remember learning how the American Federation of Labor was organized in the same year as the Haymarket Riot, but it focused on trade unions and staying out of politics. One of


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those trade unions was the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA). In 1892, the AA went up against Andrew Carnegie and Carnegie Steel in a massive strike in the town of Homestead, Pennsylvania – a few miles from Pittsburgh. Henry Clay Frick was chosen by Carnegie to run his steel company and Frick was determined to break the union. By break the union, I mean make it so that the workers of Carnegie Steel would no longer be able to belong to a union. The AA had been successful in strikes at the Homestead Steel Works in 1882 and 1889. With the collective bargaining agreement to expire at the end of June 1892, the AA began negotiations with Frick in April. Frick made an offer that would force the union to reduce the number of union jobs at the factory. He also made it clear that unless the AA accepted his deal, the factory would shut down. You need to understand a few things before we continue. The people living in Homestead were almost all factory workers. Shutting down the factory would mean terrible misfortune for the town’s residents. Frick was hoping to do this, and then hire scab workers to replace the union workers and ultimately destroy the union. On June 29, Frick locked out the workers and the Homestead Steel Works was closed up tight like an armed fort. Frick then attempted to bring in members of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to force striking workers to allow the plant to re-open with scab workers. You should remember that the Pinkertons were hired by

Cyrus McCormick, Jr. just before the Haymarket Riot. The Pinkertons were more like hiring a group of mercenaries than hiring actual detectives. Approximately 300 Pinkertons were to arrive on barges from Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River. The attempt by the Pinkertons to land in Homestead was met by thousands of people. The strikers would not let them come ashore and eventually the two sides

began firing guns at one another. The standoff lasted for over a day and finally, with more than 5,000 Homestead citizens and union sympathizers keeping control over entrance to the town and factory, the Pinkertons surrendered. Several were beaten severely by the strikers. A deal was reached with the AA that finally got the Pinkertons out of town without being charged with any crimes – much to the anger of the Homestead population. Next, the state militia arrived with

4,000 soldiers and took control of the town. The strikers were forced to stand back and allow the militia to re-open the factory. Frick was able to bring in scab workers and the plant was back up and running by July 15. Eventually the support for the strikers dried up. The AA gave up and ultimately lost control at other Carnegie Steel factories around Pennsylvania. The factories remained non-union for the next 40 years. Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie had succeeded in breaking the union and they could determine wages, working

hours and conditions however they pleased. The Homestead Strike was another major blow to organized labor in the United States.

Henry Clay Frick

Armed strikers and Pinkerton detectives battle for control at Carnegie Steel’s Homestead

factory


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Ellis Island – Destination for Immigrants We keep talking about immigrants because that was really important in the late 19th Century. (It’s funny how things never change!) The impact that immigrants have had on our nation and the arguments for limiting their numbers are just as real today in the 21st Century as it was a little over 100 years ago. Unfortunately whenever we, as Americans, get involved in a discussion on this issue, there always is a segment of our population that can’t seem to deal with things intelligently. Xenophobia2, religious intolerance and racism seem to factor into the discussion. People from strange lands bring strange customs. Just because they are different, should we fear them or treat them unfairly? This has always been a question that has been part of the immigration debate and you’ll find it to be as true and as important today as it was back then. In 1882 the government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act that banned people in China from immigrating to the United States. The U.S. government did not do the same for people coming from Europe. Most of those people were coming by boat into America’s biggest cities. And there was no bigger city then (nor is there today) in America than New York City. The huge increase in the numbers of these people

2 Xenophobia: unreasonable fear or hatred of

foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange. (Ch. 10)

proved to the government that they needed a modern processing facility to handle them. In 1892 the U.S. government opened an immigrant processing facility at Ellis Island, located between the states of New York and New Jersey, just outside New York Harbor. Although one of 30 processing facilities, it handled about 70% of all the immigrants coming into the United States. By processing we mean that immigrants had to go through some important steps before they could enter the country. The first step was a physical examination. People with serious diseases were either sent back or held in quarantine at the Ellis Island hospital. Remember that most of these people were arriving in what was called the “steerage” class of ships and illness was not uncommon. People were next asked a series of questions such as name and occupation. Sometimes difficult names to pronounce were shortened or “Americanized” on their papers. Ellis Island continued to function as an immigration processing facility until 1954. It became a museum in the 1990s and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966. It is believed that over 100 million Americans today can trace their ancestry back to Ellis Island.

The Election of 1892 – Déjà vu Did you ever have that feeling that you had been someplace or done something before? Maybe that’s what a lot of people felt like in the presidential election of 1892. The same candidates who ran in 1888 ran again in 1892. President Benjamin Harrison was nominated by the Republicans although there were some in his party who challenged him for the nomination. Former President Grover Cleveland, who had lost to Harrison in 1888, was nominated by the Democrats.


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The campaign issues were similar to the ones just four years earlier. The tariff was front and center with the Democrats still wanting to see it lowered. But also, there was the growing issue of returning to the gold standard when it came to money. Cleveland and the

Democrats won the support of east coast bankers and industrialists by supporting the elimination of silver in the U.S. Treasury. A new political party, the Populist Party, put James Weaver up as their candidate and he won 22 electoral votes. The Populists were supported by southern and western farmers and chief among their goals was “free silver” (see page 3). You’ll learn more about some of their other ideas shortly. The result of this election was also very similar to the one in 1888. Cleveland, who had more popular votes than Harrison in 1888 also had more popular votes in 1892 by a margin of 46% to 43% (The populist candidate Weaver had 8.5%). But Cleveland won his home state of New York this time and defeated Harrison in the Electoral College with 277 votes to his 145. Grover Cleveland became president again. He is the only man to win two, nonconsecutive terms as president. He was our 22nd and our 24th president.


answers in complete sentences on a piece of loose-leaf paper). 1. What did Henry Clay Frick hope to

achieve in June 1892 and how did he plan to do it?

2. Why is Ellis Island such an important part of American History”?

3. What is it about Grover Cleveland’s victory in 1892 that makes him unique among all American Presidents?

Lesson 3 –

Progressives, the

White City & Panic

Main Idea: The goals of the Progressive Movement have become a part of everyday American life. We can see how these goals were needed in the events of the day.

The Progressive Movement You just read something about the Populist Party in the Election of 1892. The Populists were a reform-minded group that wanted the government to take action on problems that were brought about by industrial changes throughout the 19th Century. They were part of a bigger group known as Progressives. The Populists were mostly farmers and western miners (along with labor groups like the Knights of Labor). The Progressives were all Americans who wanted to see major reform by the government in many different areas. Progressives believed that the people needed to have more control and they came up with a number of ideas to reform or change the system. We’ll go over them here:

• Direct Primary: the members of a political party vote for their candidate for office for the general election, rather than have that person picked by the party bosses.

• Initiative: the people propose laws (through petition) to be voted on by their state legislatures or directly by the voters.

Grover Cleveland


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• Referendum: an issue that is voted on directly by the people.

• Recall: the people could remove an elected official by a direct vote.

• Direct Election of Senators: the people would choose who their U.S. Senator is instead of the state legislatures.

• Secret Ballot: in many places, how you voted would be known by others because you did it publicly. Progressives wanted people to be able to cast their vote in secret so they could not be pressured to vote differently than they truly wanted.

• Women’s Suffrage: Progressives believed that women in the entire country should have the right to vote.

• Federal Income Tax: people would fund government social programs and regulation through a tax on the amount of money people earned.

Today, all of these Progressive ideas have become a reality, although they weren’t achieved overnight. Federal Income Tax became a reality with the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913. Direct election of Senators was made possible through the 17th Amendment also passed in 1913. The 19th Amendment passed in 1920 gave women the right to vote. The other Progressive reforms were not amendments to the constitution but have been adopted by the individual states. Other goals of the Progressive Movement would include the breaking up of big business trusts and government regulation of big business. They favored Jane Addams model for the building of settlement houses. Progressives wanted to see child labor laws enacted to protect children from the harsh working conditions in factories. They also favored conservation

when it came to the environment. Many of these issues became goals of President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration in the early 20th Century.

The Columbian Exposition – Chicago

1893 Normally we wouldn’t cover a World’s Fair, but the one held in Chicago in 1893 was out of this world – I mean it was da’ bomb, man! If we had been alive at that time, I’m sure everyone would have wanted to go there. It was a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage to the New World and the dedication ceremony took place in October 1892. It covered over 600 acres of land in the Hyde Park and Woodlawn neighborhoods of Chicago. Famous architects like Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan helped design the buildings and layout. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead took Jackson Park and created what looked like a completely different world – borrowing designs from European cities like Paris and Venice. If you ever get a chance to look at pictures of this event, do so. It will blow your mind. Essentially the buildings, which were some of the most elaborate and gigantic buildings in the world, were all temporary

The White City - Can you believe that something this beautiful was built over 100 years ago in

Chicago?


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structures that were taken down after the Exposition. Very little remains but some structures did survive. The Museum of Science and Industry is located in the old Palace of Fine Arts. And the buildings were all painted white. This is why it is sometimes called “The White City”. Leading up to the White City was the Midway Plaisance. It is a mile-long stretch of park that is now part of the University of Chicago and it had all kinds of amusement park rides, sideshows and places to eat. It also boasted the world’s first Ferris Wheel. The planners wanted to top Paris which had built the Eiffel Tower when they held the World’s Fair in 1889. Although it wasn’t nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower, George Ferris’s Wheel was gigantic. It could carry 2,160 people at a time in what looked like railroad cars up as high as 26 stories. It was the hit of the Midway. The fair drew as many as 26 million visitors. It ended on a bummer, however. Two days before the closing ceremonies, Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison was murdered in his home by a lunatic office seeker and the closing ceremonies were cancelled. Other than that, the Columbian Exposition was a success. It’s such an important part of Chicago’s history that it is commemorated on the city’s flag in the form of one of its four stars. The city of Chicago promised to add a 5th star if it got the 2016 Olympic games but they lost out to Rio de Janeiro.

The Panic of 1893 In previous readings you have learned about several “panics” or periods where the U.S. economy has gotten bad. You learned that these downturns caused people to lose their jobs and yet the government never really responded. Most people in both political parties felt that economic downturns were

just part of the overall economic cycle. Eventually, the thinking goes, everything will correct itself. That may be true to some extent but in 1893 the United States economy began a four year long depression. And true to form, the government didn’t really do much to halt what started as the Panic of 1893. The beginning of this goes back to the introduction of silver into the U.S. Treasury. You’ll remember how there had been a

movement for “bimetallism” and how in the Bland-Allison Act of 1878 and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, the treasury bought up silver reserves to back the U.S. dollar. This devalued our currency and caused inflation. This made foreign investors nervous, especially Great Britain, a country that had invested a lot in the U.S. Many British investors decided to call their loans (which means demand payment) with gold. This triggered other people to panic and redeem their money for gold. Gold supplies in the United States went down drastically. Companies that had borrowed heavily learned that they could not pay off their loans. As a result big businesses, such as the railroads, began declaring bankruptcy. Many of the people who worked for these businesses were laid off and didn’t have a job. Farmers began losing even more money as the demand for their crops overseas dropped. Now they couldn’t pay

off their loans. Banks failed and went out of business. It’s estimated that over 15,000 businesses and 500 banks were shut down. Over 20% of the workforce in the United States was unemployed. This “panic” triggered a depression that lasted four years and what was, up to that time, the worst in our history.

As stated earlier, the government did not do much to try to make things any better.

The World’s First Ferris Wheel


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President Cleveland and Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, putting the country back on a gold standard again. The damage, however, was already done and the economy was not improving. As things worsened, people began asking the government to do something. An example of this would be Jacob Coxey. He led a group of men out of Ohio on a march to Washington, D.C. to demand that the government create public works jobs (such as building roads, schools, hospitals, etc.) to put unemployed men back to work. As his march continued, more and more unemployed people joined. By the time he reached his destination, over 500 people were with him. The very day after arriving, Coxey and some of the other leaders of the march were arrested for walking on the grass of the U.S. Capitol building. The rest of what was being called “Coxey’s Army” fled and the protest was a bust.


answers in complete sentences on a piece of loose-leaf paper). 1. Pick a Progressive Movement idea –

explain why you think it is more important than the others.

2. What triggered the Panic of 1893? 3. What did Jacob Coxey want?

Lesson 4 –

Economics & Civil

Rights

Main Idea: The Depression that resulted from the Panic of 1893 led to more labor violence and the near bankruptcy of the U.S. government.

The Pullman Strike As the depression continued, business leaders either laid off workers or cut wages. In 1894 another labor dispute led to violence in Chicago. George Pullman was the owner of the Pullman Palace Car Company on the south side of the city. His business built railroad passenger cars that were on almost every railroad line across the nation. Pullman believed the best way to avoid a labor dispute was to make sure that his workers were provided with decent pay and good living conditions. Around his factory he built Pullman, a factory town where his workers could live and send their kids to school. He owned the business that rented the houses, ran the stores and even provided a free education up to the eighth grade for the children of his employees. And up until the depression hit, his idea was working very well. There were some problems, of course. It was up to the worker to live within his means (not spend too much money). Since Pullman owned everything, he controlled everything for his workers. If his workers owed the company store money, it was deducted from their paychecks. For some, that meant they might not ever see a penny of what they worked for. But Pullman believed that smart workers would not have

Police disperse Coxey’s Army in Washington, D.C.

George Pullman


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too many problems and for the most part he was right. That is, until the Pullman Palace Car Company cut wages due to the depression. For workers this was a big problem since the rent on their homes (owned by Pullman) and the prices at the store (also owned by Pullman) remained the same. The workers decided to join the American Railway Union. This union was headed by Eugene V. Debs, a man who would later go on to run for president several times. Debs organized a massive boycott of Pullman cars on railroads across the country. All union members refused to work on any train with a Pullman car and Pullman began a lockout (the same thing Frick did when he shut down the Homestead Steel Works in 1892). By June of 1894, over 125,000 railroad workers walked off the job rather than handle a train with a Pullman car. An attorney for a railroad company was appointed by the federal government as a special federal attorney to handle the problem. He obtained a court injunction barring the labor leaders from supporting the boycott, but Debs and other union heads ignored the injunction. Since the problem was not going away, President Cleveland decided to act. He said that since the trains weren’t running, the strike was interfering with the delivery of the U.S. Mail and sent

the U.S. Army in to break up the strike. A brief fight took place and when it was over, 13 strikers had died and over $340,000 worth of damage had been done.

The government prosecuted Debs for his role in the strike and found him guilty of violating the court injunction. He went to prison for six months and while he was there he read the writings of Karl Marx and became a socialist. The role of the

government in the Pullman strike demonstrates that it was siding with big business over labor. As pressure for reforms continued to grow during the turn of the century, this would begin to change.

J.P. Morgan Bails Out the Treasury You already learned about other giants of the industrial world like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. It’s time now that you meet someone who was just as wealthy as and perhaps even more powerful than either of them. The man I’m referring to is J. Pierpont Morgan. He was born into a wealthy New England family in 1837 that was in the banking business. His parents sent him to Europe to become educated and he returned having learned both French and German. Morgan worked for his father’s banking business in New York and learned how to make even more money. He avoided serving in the Civil War, just like Rockefeller, by hiring a substitute. He even made money during the war when he bought 5,000 defective rifles at $3.50 apiece and

Violence erupts between strikers and the U.S. Army sent in to put down the strike by President

Cleveland. J.P. Morgan (portrait)

Eugene V. Debs


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sold them to the government for $22 each. The rifles caused soldiers who fired them to shoot off their own thumbs. This sort of shows you how Morgan was more interested in profits than people. In terms of his personal life, Morgan had suffered from a disease called rhinophyma, a discoloring and deformity of the nose caused from a childhood skin disease. As a result, Morgan hated photographers and had all of his portraits touched up to make him better looking. In the 1880s he helped reorganized the railroads to be even more effective and after the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act he helped make sure they were following the law. Doing so got them to agree on profitable rates and would eventually lead to the railroads coming together in the early 20th Century. Morgan was constantly buying out companies, reorganizing them and making them incredibly profitable. He was, most likely, the wealthiest man in the United States in the 1890s. Because of this enviable position, Morgan set up a loan to the federal government in 1895. You will recall that the Panic of 1893 had left the U.S. Treasury dangerously low on gold. Repealing the Sherman Silver Purchase Act didn’t stop the demand for gold and in order to back up the currency and keep the government afloat

the Treasury needed more gold. Morgan loaned the U.S. Treasury $65 million in gold. It helped bail out the government in a very difficult time. Of course you know that a loan builds up interest. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that J.P. Morgan was acting out of the goodness of his heart. He stood to make millions of dollars by doing this. From a political perspective, it hurt President Cleveland and the Democrats with the farmers who still wanted “free silver”. This would become a major issue in the presidential campaign of 1896.

Plessy v. Ferguson In 1883 the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875, stating the U.S. Congress did not have the power to regulate private acts under the 14th Amendment. In other words, it ruled that private businesses could have “whites only” sections. By 1896, this ruling would be put to the test again. A group of concerned citizens, white and black, in New Orleans, decided that a state law in Louisiana allowing for separate rail cars based on race was unfair and they wanted this law repealed. They came up with a plan to do just that. Homer Plessy was 1/8th African American. This means that one of his great-grandparents was black. To look at him, Homer Plessy looked like a white man. He was part of that group of New Orleans citizens who decided to test the state law on separate rail cars. He sat in a car designated for whites only. Because he looked white, nobody bothered him. But when it was pointed out to one of the conductors that he was part black, he was told to go to the “colored” rail car. When he

An angry J.P. Morgan protests a photographer taking his picture.

Homer Plessy


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refused, he was arrested and jailed. Is this an example of civil disobedience? Plessy’s attorneys argued that his 14th Amendment rights were being violated by the railroad. The presiding judge in the case, John Ferguson ruled that the state of Louisiana had the

right to regulate railroads operating within the state’s boundaries. Plessy took the case now to the Louisiana Supreme Court. They ruled that Ferguson’s ruling was fine and upheld his decision. So Plessy appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Unfortunately they also agreed with the earlier decision. The ruling was 7 to 1 (with one judge not there) against Plessy. The majority opinion stated that Louisiana’s separation of the races was done as a matter of public policy. (In other words, they were doing it for the good of the people). Ultimately the court said that segregation was constitutional. There was nothing wrong with keeping people separate based on their race. The court said that this does not imply that the “colored” race is inferior. But in reality, the facilities were anything but equal. The court was saying “separate but equal” was legal. Then what makes something equal? Again, the dissenting opinion came from Justice John Marshall Harlan (whom you should remember from the last chapter). Harlan wrote,

3 caste: A social class separated from others by

distinctions of hereditary rank, profession, or wealth.

But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste3 here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.

Justice Harlan predicted that this decision would turn out to be as bad as the Dred Scott case had been in the 1850s. And he was right. Segregation would continue in the South for the next six decades.

The Election of 1896 President Cleveland lost a lot of supporters when he helped to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and he accepted the bailout of the U.S. Treasury with J.P. Morgan’s loan. It wound up costing him the Democratic nomination for president in 1896. The Democrats opted for a young, Nebraska man who had served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. But this young man believed that the country was being controlled by big business at the expense of the average working man – a belief of the Populists at that time. This young man’s name was William Jennings Bryan.

At the Democratic Convention in Chicago in July 1896, Bryan gave a speech that electrified the delegates. He argued

Justice John Marshall Harlan

William Jennings Bryan


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against the gold standard and in favor of adding silver to the treasury in what was called his “Cross of Gold” speech. He said,

Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

At the age of 36, Bryan became the youngest man ever nominated for president. The Populist Party was so impressed with Bryan that they nominated him as well. Many Democratic newspapers rejected him and he was forced to do something most presidential candidates had never done at that time. He began to campaign directly to the people. He boarded a train and made over 500 speeches in 27 different states. This was at a time when most candidates gave a speech every now and again from their front porch. Most campaigning was done by a candidate’s supporters. Meanwhile, the Republicans nominated William McKinley, the governor of Ohio. McKinley’s campaign was run by Ohio businessman and U.S. Senator Mark

Hanna. Senator Hanna was able to easily collect campaign contributions from big business because they were so scared of having Bryan elected president. In fact, McKinley outspent Bryan 10 to

1. The main issue was the economy again and obviously the question of whether or not the government should remain on the gold standard. Republicans tried to make Bryan look like a crazed radical and it must have worked. The results gave McKinley a 51% majority of the popular vote compared to Bryan’s 48%. His majority in the

Electoral College of 271 to 176 made William McKinley the next president and guaranteed that the country would remain on the gold standard for at least another four years. Oh, and by the way, when gold was discovered in the Alaska along the Yukon River, gold supplies would not be a problem for much longer.


answers in complete sentences on a piece of loose-leaf paper). 1. What prompted George Pullman’s

workers to want to join the American Railway Union?

2. Why was J.P. Morgan so wealthy and how did he help the government with that wealth? How did helping the government help him?

3. What was the reasoning behind the Supreme Court’s ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson?

4. What did William Jennings Bryan do as a candidate for president that other candidates in the past had never done? Why did he have to do this William McKinley

Mark Hanna


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Extra Credit Question (worth 5 points – answer in complete sentences on a piece of

loose-leaf paper)

• The flag of the City of Chicago has 4 stars. You already know what one of those stars represents. What do the other stars represent?

• Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan is viewed as a champion for civil rights in the late 19th Century. Do some research – what other court cases did Harlan offer opinions on? Did he always come down on the side of minorities in this country? After learning more, what is your opinion of Justice Harlan?

Timeline of Events

1890

• Sherman Antitrust Act & Sherman Silver Purchase Act

• Idaho & Wyoming become states

• Wounded Knee Massacre

• Susan B. Anthony founds the National American Woman Suffrage Association

1892 • Homestead Steel Works Strike

• Opening of Ellis Island

• Grover Cleveland is elected president (again)

1893 • Panic of 1893 – four year depression begins

• Columbian Exposition in Chicago

1894 • Coxey’s Army marches on Washington

• Pullman Strike effects railroads – put down by Cleveland

1896

• Plessy v. Ferguson makes segregation constitutional

• William Jennings Bryan gives “Cross of Gold” speech but loses election to William McKinley

• Utah becomes a state

1897 • Boston builds the first electric subway system

1898 • Spanish-American War

1899 • Open Door Policy proposed regarding trading with China

1900 • Foraker Act sets up government in Puerto Rico

• William McKinley wins re-election for president

• Boxer Rebellion put down in China by international army

1890 to 1900: The End of the Century

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Transcript of 1890 to 1900: The End of the Century