TEACHING WITH PRIMARY SOURCES—MTSU
Primary Source Set: Silver or Gold?
Historical Background
The argument over silver- versus gold-backed currency starts in the
mountains of the American West, where large veins of silver and gold
were discovered in the 19th century. The big businesses and financial
establishments transacted their business traditionally through gold.
The farmers, silver miners, and laborers advocated for silver because
it was generally cheaper and more abundant than gold. Many politicians would use the Free Silver platform, such as the People’s Party
and William Jennings Bryan, as a way to gain voters by providing
them with a readily available currency to pay off their debts. However, silver was a less stable currency than gold because of its availability
and wide ranging uses. If one of those uses, such as silverware, were
to experience a sudden demand shift, the price would increase or decrease based on that shift. This economic quality allows for silver to
be used as currency to pay off debts, but not ideal for investment.
In order to allow the farmers and miners to pay off their debts, the
United States government would buy large amounts of silver under
the Bland-Allison Act (1878) and Sherman Silver Purchase Act
(1890). This policy of backing currency with both silver and gold is
called Bimetalism. One of the requirements of these acts was to provide citizens with bank notes that could be exchanged for either gold
or silver. During the Panic of 1893, both farmers and investors would
exchange their money and silver for gold, making the depression
worse by inflating prices. The Great Railroad Strike of 1894 was in
response to the inflating prices as workers went on strike after jobs
were lost, wages were cut, and prices on essentials went up. The
plight of the workers and farmers would cause Bryan to make the Free
Silver movement a campaign platform in his 1896 “Cross of Gold”
speech at the Democratic National Convention. After Bryan won the
nomination for the Democratic party, Free Silver would become a
national topic of discussion. However, after Bryan’s loss in the presidential election, it was dropped by the mainstream Democrats,
though the ideas of Bryan and other progressives would carry on into
the new century.
Additional Links:

TPS-MTSU newsletter: The Gilded Age

Today in History: March 19 (American Memory)

William Jennings Bryan and the Free Silver Movement
(America’s Library)
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Out of the silver flood! / Dalrymple. [1893]
Suggestions for Teachers
The Library of Congress has a wonderful selection
of primary sources to dive into this complex topic.
To help your students understand the context of
the currency debates, have them identify some key
reforms advocated by our nation’s leaders leading
up to this period. Your students might build a
timeline to show how these reforms evolved during the later part of the 19th century. Next, have
your students examine how mining booms in the
West and fluctuations in agricultural prices in the
South and Mid-West played into this debate. Finally, have your students debate the pro and cons
of each side of this issue. Which side would they
have aligned with? Why? How does this related to
currency and financial policy today?

The Real Story Of Dorothy And The Wizard Of Oz
(YouTube)

The Free Silver Movement and Inflation Lesson (Federal
Reserve Bank of St. Louis)

The Fed Explains Good versus Bad Standards (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta)
The Granger Movement & People’s Party
People's Voice (Wellington, Kan.) was a paper for the
People’s Party. [1892]
Letter (talks about isolation in the west and railroads
owning large tracts of land, Granger movement).
[1874] (Transcription)
“I Feed You All!” [1875]
People's Party candidates for president and
vice president. [1892]
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Mining
Rand, McNally & Co.'s map of the northern portion of the Black Hills. This includes an index to
"gold-bearing quartz lodes" and "silver-bearing
lodes." [1877]
Description of silver mining found in The Great Bonanza: Illustrated Narrative of Adventure and Discovery in Gold Mining, Silver Mining,
Among the Raftsmen, in the Oil Regions, Whaling, Hunting, Fishing,
and Fighting. [1876]
Mining on the Comstock / drawn by T.L. Dawes ;
engraved and printed by Le Count Bro's. [1876]
The gold mining town of Rock Creek, British
Columbia [1860]
Gold Hill, Nevada / T. H. O'Sullivan, phot.
[1867]
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Civil Service Reforms/Railroad Strikes
Two political paths / J. Keppler. [1885]
The Two Old Parties Have No Use For Her / Dalrymple. [1894]
The Great Railroad Strikes –
Miles of Burned Freight-Cars
in the Railroad Yards About
Chicago. [1894]
The Great railway strikes--scenes
in and about Chicago / from
sketches by G.A. Coffin. [1894]
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The great railway strikes
- scenes in and about
Chicago / from sketches
by G.A. Coffin. [1894]
Sherman Silver Purchase Act Repeal/“Cross of Gold”
The Tariff Question ... George
Draper. Hopedale, Mass. [1882]
What Both Parties Say on the
Tariff. [1884]
Our good ship "National Credit" in danger from a
silver-spout / Gillam & Zimmerman. [1885]
Harrison Panic. [1893]
The Sacrilegious Candidate. /
Hamilton. [1896]
Speeches of William Jennings Bryan,
rev. and arranged by himself, with a
biographical introduction by Mary Baird
Bryan, his wife. [1913]
The Dawn. (Ellensburg,
Wash.) [1895]
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Citations: Gold v. Silver
Teachers: Providing these primary source replicas without source clues may enhance the inquiry experience for students. This list of citations is supplied for reference purposes to you and your students. We have followed the Chicago Manual of Style format, one of the formats recommended by the
Library of Congress, for each entry below, minus the access date. The access date for each of these entries is 03/21/16.
Dalrymple, Louis. “Out of the silver flood! / Dalrymple.” Illustration. New York, NY, Keppler & Schwarzmann, September 13,
1893. From Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2012648766/.
Oblinger, Mattie V. (Martha Virginia Thomas). “Letter from Mattie V. Oblinger to Thomas Family, April 12, 1874.” Letter. Fillmore County, NE, April 12, 1874. From Library of Congress. Prairie Settlement: Nebraska Photographs and Family Letters, 1862-1912.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/psbib:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28l121%29%29.
“People’s Voice.” Newspaper. Willington, KS; October 7, 1892. From Library of Congress. Chronicling America: Historic American
Newspapers. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85032801/1892-10-07/ed-1/seq-1/.
“People's party candidates for president and vice president 1892.” Print. Goes Lith. Co. September, 29, 1892. From Library of Congress. Popular Graphic Arts. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003688689/.
American Oleograph Co. “I feed you all!” Lithograph. Milwaukee, WI, American Oleograph Co., 1875. From Library of Congress.
Cartoon Prints, American. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003690771/.
Adams, William Taylor and R.M. Ballantyne. “The Great Bonanza.” Book. Boston, MA, Lea & Shepard, 1876. From Library of Congress. https://archive.org/details/greatbonanza00adam.
Henckel, George, Major. “Rand, McNally & Co.'s map of the northern portion of the Black Hills.” Map. Chicago, IL, Rand, McNally
& Co., 1877. From Library of Congress. General Maps. https://www.loc.gov/item/2011589611/.
Dawes, T.L. “Mining on the Comstock / drawn by T.L. Dawes ; engraved and printed by Le Count Bro's., San Francisco.” Lithograph. Gold Hill, NV, J.B. Marshall (San Francisco, CA, engraved and printed by Le Count Bro's.), 1876. From Library of Congress. Popular Graphic Arts. https://www.loc.gov/item/93506798/.
Keppler, Joseph Ferdinand. “Two political paths / J. Keppler.” Illustration. New York, NY, Keppler & Schwarzmann, June 10,
1885. From Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2011661754/.
Dalyrmple, Louis. “The two old parties have no use for her / Dalrymple.” Illustration. New York, NY, Keppler & Schwarzmann,
June 20, 1894. From Library of Congress. Miscellaneous Items in High Demand. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2012648732/
Taylor, J.W. and R.D. Cleveland. “The Great railway strikes--miles of burned freight-cars in the railroad yards about Chicago.” Photograph. Harper’s Weekly, July 28, 1894. From Library of Congress. Miscellaneous Items in High Demand. http://www.loc.gov/
pictures/item/89708516/.
Coffin, G.A. “The great railway strikes - scenes in and about Chicago / from sketches by G.A. Coffin.” Illustration. Harper’s Weekly, July 14, 1984. From Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Divison. https://www.loc.gov/item/96506938/.
Coffin, G.A. “The Great railway strikes--scenes in and about Chicago / from sketches by G.A. Coffin.” Illustration. Harper’s Weekly, July 14, 1984. From Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Divison. https://www.loc.gov/item/89708505/.
Draper, George. “The tariff question ... George Draper. Hopedale. Nov. 27, 1882.” Book. Hopedale, MA, The Milford Journal,
November 27, 1882. From Library of Congress. American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera.
https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.07601400/.
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“What both parties say on the tariff.” Broadside. From Library of Congress. 1884. American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides
and Other Printed Ephemera. https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.23801800/.
Gillam, Bernhard and Eugene Zimmerman. “Our good ship ‘National Credit’ in danger from a silver-spout / G & Z.” Illustration.
New York, NY, Keppler & Schwarzmann, December 16, 1885. From Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division. https://
www.loc.gov/item/2011661365/
“Harrison panic. He makes way with the Cleveland surplus. Changes the form of debt statement to show a balance. Bankrupts the
treasury and brings on the panic. The responsibility fixed. Out of his own mouth he is condemned. [n. p. 1893?].” Leaflet. 1893.
From Library of Congress. An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera. http://memory.loc.gov/
cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/AMALL:@field%28NUMBER+@band%28rbpe+23900700%29%29.
The Dawn. (Ellensburg, Wash.), 09 March 1895. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. http://
chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2012252560/1895-03-09/ed-1/seq-1/.
Bryan, William Jennings. “Speeches of William Jennings Bryan.” Book. New York, NY and London, England, U.K., Funk & Wagnalls Co. November, 1909. From Library of Congress. https://lccn.loc.gov/20005301.
Hamilton, Grant E. “The sacrilegious candidate / Hamilton.” Illustration. New York, NY, Judge Publishing Co., September 14,
1896. From Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002706766/.
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