Dissent, Depression, and War
Farmers’ Alliance
Black Members excluded from some alliances
Southern Farmers’ Alliance members
Farmers’ advocate in Kansas
Populists
The Populist platform called for
 direct election of senators
 the secret ballot, and other electoral issues
 supported the eight-hour day and an end to
contract labor
More than just a response
to hard times, Populism
presented an alternative
vision of American
economic democracy.
Workers
 American Workers agitate for better working conditions, better pay, shorter
work day
 Two of the most violent disputes between labor and capitalists are the
Homestead lockout and strike 1892 and the Pullman strike of 1894
Homestead Steel Works, Pennsylvania
Homestead Workers
Pinkertons leaving barges after surrender
Cripple Creek mines, Colorado
Mine shaft
Fire at Cripple Creek
Pullman
George Pullman
Company town
 4,300 acres nine miles south of Chicago
 Planned and built by George Pullman after the Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Family could never own their home
Rents were 10-20 percent higher than nearby communities
Wages slashed five times in 1893, but rents stayed high
Stockholders continued to get 8% dividend
Pullman
Pullman strikers
American Railway Union
 90 % of the workers walked off the job
 Pullman shut down the factory
 Workers appealed to the American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene V.
Debs
 Beginning on Jun 29, 1894, the membership refused to handle any train that
carried Pullman cars
 Switchmen across the country would not work with the cars
 By July 2, railways from New York to California were paralyzed by work
stoppage
Crushing the strike
 An injunction against Eugene Debs said he
could not speak in public
 When he did, he was arrested and put in jail
 Later, Debs formed the Socialist Party, and
became a candidate for the U.S. Presidency
Nellie Bly
 Journalist who defied
editor and wrote
about the Pullman
Strike—sympathizing
with strikers
Pullman Strike
Frances Willard and the WCTU
Willard’s contributions
 Willard radically changed the direction of the WCTU. She moved it away
from religiously oriented programs to a campaign that stressed alcoholism
as a disease rather than a sin and poverty as a cause rather than a result of
drink;
 Willard created a broad reform coalition
 Knights of Labor
 People’s Party
 Prohibition Party
 WCTU had over 200,000 members in the 1890s
 This gave women valuable experience in political action.
William Jennings Bryan
Coxey’s Army
Jacob Coxey
Marching to Washington
Democrats and Populists
 The cartoon suggests that the
Populists would take over the
Democratic Party by nominating
Bryan.
 In reality, the Populists lost identity
by nominating a Democrat
William McKinley