th
19
Late
century
American Politics
Political Party Coalitions


Democrats
Southern Whites and states rights
Urban immigrants
Catholics
Republicans
Union veterans and the “bloody shirt”
campaigns
The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)
Professional middle classes
Corporate leaders
Liberal reformers (“half-breeds”)
Nativists
Republican Divisions


Conservative/liberal divide
Garfield Assassination and the
Pendleton Act of 1883
African-Americans and the late 19th
century South




Jim Crow Laws
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Convict-lease system
Disenfranchisement
• Poll taxes and literacy tests
• Property requirements and
White primaries
• Terrorism (KKK)

The Booker T. Washington and W.E.B
Dubois debate
The Peoples Party and Rural
Populism (Omaha Platform)







Graduated income taxes
No national banking system
Irrigation research
No alien land ownership
Silver currency
Low cost loans to farmers
Publicly owned railroads, telegraph,
and telephone services
Populist Successes in 1892


Populists elect five U.S. Senators and
three governors
James Weaver wins five states (22
electoral votes)
Agrarian Party Failures


Southern whites fear dividing
Democrats
Democrats absorb Populist agenda
(fusion strategy)
Election of 1896



William McKinley (R) and William
Jennings Bryan (D)
Issues (Immigration, Silver, Tariffs)
Mark Hanna and campaign financing