DBQ: Reform Movements
Please continue to work on your evaluation of the reform movements
DBQ sample.
Tuesday
January 17, 2017
Quiz - Chapter 26
• You know the drill!
Wednesday
January 18, 2017
Socratic Seminar: Great West and the
Agricultural Revolution
• Which idea(s) in this chapter do you think is most significant when
studying the path to the Progressive Era?
• Which parts of the chapter . . .
• did you not understand?
• made you think, “WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW THIS???”
• How do ideas found in the chapters manifest themselves today?
• Who were the major stakeholders in these chapters?
• What might be an alternate title for this chapter?
Unit 4: Forging an Industrial Society
1865-1909
• Chapter 23: Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age, 1869-1896
• Chapter 24: Industry Comes of Age, 1865-1900
• Chapter 25: America Moves to the City, 1865-1900
• Exam: Chapters 23-25 – Thursday, January 12th
• Chapter 26: The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 18651896
• Chapter 27: Empire and Expansion, 1890-1909
• Exam: Chapters 26-27 – Friday, January 27th
• Unit Exam: Path to Progressives
Chapter 26
The Great West and the
Agricultural Revolution,
1865–1896
“Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West.
The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward,
explain American development.”
-Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893
“The White Man, who possesses this whole vast country from sea to sea, who roams over it at pleasure, and lives
where he likes, cannot know the cramp we feel in this little spot, with the undying remembrance of the fact, which
you know as well as we, that every foot of what you proudly call America, not very long ago belonged to the red
man.”
-Washakie (Shoshone Indian), 1878
VIII. The Far West Comes of Age
IX. The Fading Frontier
• HOW WAS THE WEST CHANGING DURING THE GILDED AGE?
• Population of western territories skyrocketed in the 1870s1890s.
• Several new states joined the union (1876-1896): CO, ND, SD, MT,
WA, ID, WY
• OK was supposed to be native territory, but the “sooners” took the
land.
Sooners racing for land.
• By 1889, Oklahoma was legally opened to white settlers.
• In 1890, the government announced that the frontier was
closed.
• The secretary of war had prophesied in 1827 that five hundred
years would be needed to fill the West. He was wrong.
• Realization: land/resources are NOT inexhaustible.
• As resources withered, farmers moved in to plant crops.
• Government set aside land for national parks—first Yellowstone in
1872, followed by Yosemite and Sequoia in 1890.
Yellowstone
Myth and Reality in
the West: Percentage
of Federal Lands
Within Each State,
2004
I. The Clash of Cultures on the Plains III. Bellowing Herds of Bison
IV. The End of the Trail
II. Receding Native Population
• Manifest Destiny did not end with Polk.
• White settlers put great pressure on native lifestyle: bison
herds, disease, culture was destroyed, forced migration
occurred, continuous warfare (Sand Creek & Fetterman
Massacre)
• U.S. government signed treaties with “chiefs” to create the
reservation system.
• WHICH EXAMPLES BEST EXPLAIN THE TREATMENT OF
NATIVES DURING THIS TIME PERIOD?
• General Custer vs. Sitting Bull (Sioux) at Little Big Horn (1876)
• Nez Perce resistance was led by Chief Joseph, but ended on a
reservation in Kansas.
• Apache resistance in the Southwest as led by Geronimo, but
they also eventually gave in.
• Military crushed “ghost dance” rebellion at Battle of Wounded
Knee.
• Dawes Severalty Act (1887)dissolved tribes, took away
ownership of land, goal of citizenship in 25 years.
The faces of the “Indian Wars” (clockwise):
Chief Joseph, Custer, Geronimo
Indian Wars, 1860–1890
VII. The Farmers’ Frontier
X. The Farm Becomes a Factory
• Homestead Act (1862) allowed a settler to
acquire as much as 160 acres of land by living on
it for five years, improving it, and paying a fee of
about $30.
• Frontier used to be sold for government profit; now it
was given away to encourage settlement and farming.
• Many pushed past the 100th meridian (a major climate
shift).
• Over time, the west was conquered: barbed-wire,
dams, irrigation, etc.
• Mechanization helped make the U.S. a global
breadbasket.
• Farmers became consumers and adopted “big
business” model.
Average Annual Precipitation, with Major Agricultural
Products, 1900
XI. Deflation Dooms the
Debtor
XII. Unhappy Farmers
XIII. The Farmers Take
Their Stand
XIV. Prelude to Populism
• Famers still had to worry about debt & pricing – back to the gold
vs. silver argument.
• Less currency & mechanization lowered prices, which lowered
agricultural profits.
• Farm tenancy overtook farm ownership.
• Farmers were too individualistic to organize for change . . . at first.
HOW DID THIS CHANGE?
• Greenback Movement had been an early attempt at organization
(1868).
• The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the
Grange, was a later attempt (1876) – “co-ops”
• Greenback Labor Party was another attempt (1880s).
• The Farmer’s Alliance cooperative buying and selling (1870s in TX)
• The Colored Farmers’ National Alliance sprang up in the 1880s.
• Populists (the People’s party) were the ultimate expression of farmer’s
frustration.
• Called for nationalizing the railroads, telephone, and telegraph, graduated
income tax, unlimited coinage of sliver.
V. Mining: From Dishpan to Ore Breaker
VI. Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive
• Mining benefitted greatly from destruction of natives and
growth of railroads/industry.
• Gold & silver in CA, CO, NV (Comstock Lode).
• Restarted gold vs. silver currency debate.
• Boomtowns popped up everywhere and were just as often
replaced by ghost towns.
• Mining helped the nation continue to grow.
• Highly industrialized meatpacking industry became a major
part of the economy.
• Long drive cowboys moved cattle north from Texas.
• Stockyards in Kansas City and Chicago supplied fresh meat to the
East using refrigerated railcars.
• Settlers and overgrazing ended the life of the cowboy.
• Farming took over as free-grazing came to an end.
• HOW DID THESE INDUSTRIES MIRROR OTHER ASPECTS OF
THE ECONOMY?
Hydraulic Mining, Nevada, 1866
XV. Coxey’s Army and the Pullman Strike
• Big Question: Could the Populist Movement come to
represent the masses (not just farmers)?
• Coxey’s Army
• Demanded issuance of currency to aid the
unemployed/debtors
• Marched on D.C. in 1894 and was arrested.
• Pullman Strike (1894)
• Eugene V. Debs organized the American Railway Union of
150,000 members.
• The Pullman Palace Car Company, hit hard by the depression
of 1893, cut wages by about 1/3.
• AF of L did not support laborers, but they went on strike
anyway.
• Federal troops were sent in because the strikers were
“disrupting the mail.”
• Federal Court issued an injunction to end the strike, which
Debs ignored.
• Debs was jailed for 6 months.
Eugene V. Debs
Left: Coxey’s Army on the March, 1894
Below: The Pullman Strike, 1894
XVI. Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan
XVII. Class Conflict: Plowholders Versus Bondholders
XVIII. Republican Stand-pattism Enthroned
• The Election of 1896 – McKinley victory
• Republicans chose William McKinley
• Believed in gov. support of business, gold standard, high
tariffs
• Democrats deserted Cleveland for William Jennings
Bryan
• Main focus: free coinage of silver - The Cross of Gold Speech
• Populist Dilemma: to exist alone or be consumed by the
Democrats?
• Under McKinley: silver was dead, no reform,
laissez-faire ruled, trusts developed, tariffs went
higher
• Republicans used popularity to pass Gold Standard Act of
1900.
• Emerging middle class did not need silver.
William Jennings
Bryan (top) &
William
McKinley
Presidential Election
of 1896 (with
electoral vote by
state)