 Explain the message in this lithograph:

 Overdevelopment & over farming of the West
 Conservationist Movement
 Yellowstone National Park
 1872: Congress set 2 million acres aside for the world’s first national park
 The Northern Pacific Railroad company lobbied Congress for a national park to support railroad tourism
 U.S. Fisheries Commission
 Made recommendations to address the declining commercial fish population

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Late 1800s- improvements in mechanization & specialization of farming
Larger farms ran like factories  small farms could not compete  driven out of business
Falling Prices
 1867: wheat $2.00/bushel  1889:
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$.70/bushel
1867: corn $.78/bushel  1889: $.28/bushel
 Effects:
 Farms with mortgages faced high interest rates, could not pay off old debts
 Foreclosures by banks
 More tenants & sharecroppers

 Rebates- special discounts given to railroad company’s best customers
 If a shipper promised to exclusively use a railroad company  special low freight rate
 Allowed a shipper to undercut competitors
 Smaller railroad & shipping companies would go out of business
 Pools- railroad companies in the same market would agree to divide up business to avoid competition
 This led to price fixing- railroad companies conspired to charge same high shipping rates to customers

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Industries kept prices high with monopolies
Wholesalers got their “cut”
Railroads & warehouses took profits by charging high rates for shipment & storage
Taxes
 Local & state gov’t taxed property &
 land heavily but not income from stocks
& bonds
Tariffs protecting industries were seen as an unfair tax by farmers & consumers for the benefit of industrialists

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Read and analyze excerpts from,
“Proceedings of the
13th Session of the
National Grange”
Complete the
“Reading Questions” with your partner
'The Grange Awakening the Sleepers.” American cartoon, 1873, inspired by the Vanderbilt system of secret rebates, showing a farmer trying to rouse the country to the railroad menace.

 National Grange Movement (1868)
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Leader: Oliver H. Kelley
Cooperative organization for farmers & families
By 1868, Granges existed in almost every state
Active in economics & politics
 Against middlemen, trusts & railroads
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Established cooperatives
Lobbied successfully to pass laws regulating charges by railroads & warehouses
Made it illegal for railroads to fix prices and to give rebates to privileged customers
Munn v. Illinois (1877) S.C. established the right of states to regulate private industry in order to protect the public from unfair business practices

 Interstate Commerce Act (1886)
 Wabash v. Illinois (1886) S.C. ruled individual states could NOT regulate commerce between states (interstate), only local commerce
(intrastate), reversing the Munn v. Illinois decision
 Farmers insisted the Fed. Gov’t help
 the Interstate Commerce Act is passed in 1886
 Required railroads to be “reasonable and just”
 Set up the Interstate Commerce Commission
(ICC) to investigate & prosecute disputed business practices
 Lost most cases in the 1890s

 Landmark Supreme Court Case:
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific
Railway Co v. Illinois, 1886
 Read the outline of the case, and complete the “Case
Analysis Questions” with your partner

 Farmers’ Alliances
 State & regional groups like the
Grange Movement
 Taught scientific farming methods
 Goals: Economic & political action
 Grassroots to Populist Movement & the
People’s Party
 Called for stronger government role in regulating American economic system
 1890: 1 million members
 South: Poor white & black farmers joined

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