10/02/2009 US History Class Notes

10/02/2009 US History Class Notes

• 1. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, excessive competition
• 2. most important social movement: on small farmers
• 3. farmers depended on railroads/remote banking institutions
• 4. land grants went to corporations over farmers
• 5. Homestead Act of 1862, free 160 acres of land
• 6. farmers want regulation of railroads, state laws are created, Supreme Court strikes them down.
• 7. farmer’s: 1st cooperative movement, want a “level playing field.”
• 8. “raise less corn & more hell.”
• 9. farmers wanted more dollar bills in circulation, debtor’s interest.
• 10. silver should be 1/16 of gold: bi-metalism, 16:1 ratio.
• 11. nonperishable crops were kept in government warehouses
• 12. redistribute resources away from big banking to independent farmers
• 13. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, regulate commerce among the states, federal government could regulate commerce among the states
• 14. Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890: outlawed restraints of trade against the public interest
• 15. common law precedent: reasonable/unreasonable restraints of trade & commerce
• 16. Knight Case: further restrictions on the Sherman Anti-trust Act: federal government did not have jurisdiction over manufacturing, labor unions were held liable.
• 17. Ignatius Donally, a Roman Catholic novelist, wanted settlers to get railroad land-grants
• 18. Omaha Platform,
• 19. call for graduated/progressive federal income tax on the wealthy
• 20. call for government ownership
• 21. Populist: 1st major 3rd party, scared of concentration of power
• 22. Populist: want some government nervous about government power
• 23. Ran Weaver for President, 10 members to US house, 5 US Senators, 3 governors.
• 24. Grover Cleveland won in 1892 (won 2 terms, not consecutive)
• 25. Cleveland supports the gold standard & high tariff
• 26. Gold standard, less credit, less money, helps the bankers
• 27. Pennsylvania Reading Railroad goes bankrupt, stock-market crash
• 28. Depression of 1893-1897, 15,000 businesses go bankrupt, 20% unemployment
• 29. The American Federation Of Labor survives the D. of 1893
• 30. Coxey’s army, march to Washington, demand $500 million spent on road-building
• 31. William Jennings Bryan, made his name in Nebraska, elected to Congress in 1892
• 32. Bryan: leading exponent on Populist views, speech over “free silver,” criticizes the arrogant, imperial government. Farmers are real producers, bankers are parasites.
• 33. American manufacturing workers wanted protective tariffs
• 34. Bryan, evangelical moral reformer. 36 years old, wins Democratic nomination.
• 35. Jim Crow Laws,
• 36. Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate but “Equal”