CONFLICT & CONQUEST

Learning Target: I will be able to describe the changes that took place as Americans moved west from 1860 to 1900.

Essential Question

Were the national government’s policies concerning the development of the West positive or negative for the nation?

Farmers

Homestead Act – 1862 160 acres for $30 (must live on it for 5 years and

improve the land) Great Plains lacked significant rainfall

New idea – land had always been sold for revenue, now it was to encourage settlement)

Wrought with corruption Promoters bought up best land (timber, minerals, oil) 12x14 “dwelling” – inches

Improvement came with a new discovery Many believed soil to be sterile Once tough prairie sod had been cut through, the land

was fertile

End of the Frontier

1890 – Census announces that all unsettled areas had been broken into and sparsely settled

Frontier is Closed! Inspired Frederick Jackson Turner’s essay, “The

Significance of the Frontier in American History” “American history has been in a large degree the history

of colonization of the Great West.” – FJT

Farming Transformed

Farmers no longer grew their own food, made their own clothing, and bartered for goods

Began growing “cash” crops – wheat, corn Bought foodstuffs at general store and purchased

manufactured goods in town or by mail order (Montgomery Ward)

Crops moved by railwayTied to banking, railroading, and

manufacturingMechanized agriculture!

Movement to cities, massive farms (grain factories)

Deflation

Cash crop agriculture was dangerous Hard times = bankruptcy Prices determined by world output (competing with

growers all over the world)Deflation was a key worry (1880s – 1890s)

Pay back more in value than what was borrowedVicious Cycle

New technology = higher output = lower price = increased debt.

High Interest rates (8-40%) on mortgages

Dismayed Farmers

Mother Nature destroyed crops Grasshoppers (1890s) Floods = need for

fertilizers Droughts (1887)

Government wrongdoing Property over-assessed

= higher taxes High protective tariff

Corporate wrongdoing Harvesters, barbed

wire, fertilizer (companies could raise prices

Storage ratesRailroad wrongdoing

Shipping ratesFarmers lacked

organization Independent-minded

Coxey’s Army & the Pullman Strike

Panic of 1893 – depression – Populists argue that farmers and laborers are being oppressed by the economy and politics Farmers Protest -- Coxey’s “Army” – relieve unemployment w/

public works programs – March on Washington, 1894Pullman Palace Car Co. – Company Town – depression –

cut wages by 1/3 (Didn’t Cut Rent) Eugene V. Debs – American Railway Union leader Cleveland sent troops on the grounds that strike interfered with

U.S. mailResult

Calls of “government by injunction” (What’s this?) Business working to crush labor through courts

Gold v. Silver

Election 1896 Republican: William McKinley (Gold Standard) Democrat: William Jennings Bryan (Silver Stand)

Cross of Gold Speech – Dem. National Convention “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this

crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”• Wins him the Democratic Nomination

Unlimited coinage of Silver at 16:1 (market was 32:1) Silver dollar worth about .50¢ Demo-Pop party

Possible Results?

Election of 1896

McKinley winsSignificance

Shift from agrarian dominance to the cities. Fixed waged laborers had no reason to support inflation Population of farms was dwindling (technology)

Republican dominance in the White House (16 yrs) (all but 8 of the next 36 yrs)

Victory for big business = increased tariffGold Standard Act 1900

Natural inflation occurred with the discovery of new gold