1 Agrarian Distress and the Rise of Populism
- Heavy supply (overproduction)
- Excessive railroad freight rates to move their goods to market; protective tariff drove up the price of farm equipment; heavy debt loads; droughts caused by hostile weather
- Tenant farmers who give up to half of their crop to a landowner for rent, seed, and essential supplies
- Overproduction by tenant farmers who hoped that increased planting would get them out of debt
- Patrons of Husbandry, the first organized effort to address general agricultural problems; launched in 1867 by employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
- Farmers' Alliances
- Colored Farmers National Alliance
- Nationalization of the railroads, a low tariff, loans secured by non-perishable crops stored in government-owned warehouses, and currency inflation through Treasury purchase and the unlimited coinage of silver at the "traditional" rate of 16 ounces of silver to one ounce of gold
- The 16:1 price ratio was nearly twice the market price for silver; a policy of unlimited purchase would denude the U.S. Treasury of all its gold holdings, sharply devalue the dollar, and destroy the purchasing power of the working and middle class
- Bank failures abounded in the South and Midwest; unemployment soared and crop prices fell badly
- William Jennings Bryan
- William McKinley
2 The Struggles of Labor
- Low wages, long hours, hazardous working conditions, and high levels of unemployment during periodic economic crises
- B - false
- A - true
- Many social thinkers believed that both the growth of large business at the expense of small enterprise and the wealth of a few alongside the poverty of many was "survival of the fittest," and an unavoidable by-product of progress
- A - true
- Noble Order of the Knights of Labor
- Samuel Gompers
- Increasing wages, reducing hours, and improving working conditions
- Rail workers across the nation went out in response to a 10-percent pay cut; attempts to break the strike led to rioting and wide-scale destruction in several cities; federal troops had to be sent to several locations before the strike was ended
- Someone threw a bomb at police about to brek up an anarchist rally in support of an ongoing strike at the McCormick Harvester company; in the ensuing melee, seven policemen and at least four workers were reported killed, and some 60 police officers were injured
- Strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers; group of 300 Pinkerton detectives working for Andrew Carnegie's steel works fought a fierce and losing gun battle with strikers; National Guard called in to protect non-union workers and break the strike; unions not let back into the plant until 1937
- Reaction to wage cuts at the Pullman company; supported by the American Railway Union; tied up much of the country's rail system; U.S. Attorney General Richard Olney deputized over 3,000 men in an attempt to keep the rails open; federal court injunction against union interference with the trains; President Grover Cleveland sent in federal troops to break the strike
- Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
- Answers will vary
3 The Reform Impulse
- C - Buffalo
- Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt
- The excesses of 19th-century capitalism and political corruption
- Greater democracy and social justice, honest government, more effective regulation of business, and a revived commitment to public service
- Journalists who crusaded for Progressive causes by writing trenchant articles dealing with trusts, high finance, impure foods, and abusive railroad practices
- Upton Sinclair
- Theodore Dreiser
- Frank Norris
- Lincoln Steffens
- A prominent social critic
4 Roosevelt's Reforms
- Made employers legally responsible for injuries sustained by employees at work
- Roosevelt's determination to deal with problems on a national scale
- Greatly restricted the railroad practice of giving rebates to favored shippers
- His striking personality; his trust-busting activities captured the popular imagination; bounding prosperity of the country at this time
- Gave the Interstate commerce commission (ICC) real authority in regulating rates, extended the ICC's jurisdiction, and forced the railroads to surrender their interlocking interests in steamship lines and coal companies
- Prohibited the use of any "deleterious drug, chemical, or preservative" in prepared medicines and foods
- Mandated federal inspection of all meat-packing establishments engaged in interstate commerce
- Increased the area of timberland for preservation and parks to 59,200,000 hectares systematic efforts to prevent forest fires and to re-timber denuded tracts
5 Taft and Wilson
- C - William Howard Taft
- Authorized a federal income tax
- Mandated the direct election of senators by the people instead of by state legislatures
- Because of its liberal constitution
- D - Woodrow Wilson
- Provided substantial rate reductions on imported raw materials and foodstuffs, cotton and woolen goods, iron and steel; it removed the duties from more than a hundred other items
- Divided the country into 12 districts, with a Federal Reserve Bank in each, all supervised by a national Federal Reserve Board with limited authority to set interest rates; assured greater flexibility in the money supply and made provision for issuing federal-reserve notes to meet business demands
- Interlocking directorates, price discrimination among purchasers, use of the injunction in labor disputes, and ownership by one corporation of stock in similar enterprises
- B - farmers
- A - true
- A - authorized allowances to civil service employees for disabilities incurred at work
- A - Adamson Act
- Answers will vary
6 A Nation of Nations
- Ellis Island
- From early on, Americans viewed immigrants as a necessary resource for an expanding country
- Potato blight in Ireland
- Curtailed the influx of newcomers with quotas calculated on nation of origin
- A - 270,000
- To find work, higher wages, and improved education and health care for their families
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