Knighttime 19

Front 1

Cultural Basis of Party Identification

Back 1

From the reconstruction period until the late 1890’s, voters rarely fluctuated between the Democratic and Republican parties, with 16 states being consistently Republican and 14 states mainly Democrat, leaving only 5 states in question.

Front 2

High Turnout

Back 2

·        Presidential elections between 1860 and 1900 averaged 78% of turnout in all eligible voters.

Front 3

Electoral Stability

Back 3

·        Individuals often chose to affiliate themselves with a specific party because their parents had chosen it, because it was the choice of their church, because it was the church of their ethnic group, and many other similar reasons.

Front 4

Civil War Pension System

Back 4

·        The federal government had begun to administer a series of annual pensions for Union Civil War veterans who had retired for work and for their widows.

Front 5

Stalwarts and Half-Breeds

Back 5

The Stalwarts (led by Roscoe Conkling) and the Half-Breeds (led by James G. Blaine) competed for control of the Republican Party by the end of Rutherford B. Hayes’s term in 1881.

Front 6

Garfield Assassinated

Back 6

James A. Garfield was shot twice by Stalwart Charles Guiteau on July 2, 1881 and died months later on September 19th.

Front 7

Pendleton Act

Back 7

Act passed by Chester A. Arthur that required that some federal jobs must be filled by competitive written examinations as opposed to patronage.

Front 8

Election of 1884

Back 8

     Grover Cleveland (Dem) ran against James Blaine (Rep) and eventually won in a tight election.

Front 9

Sherman Antitrust Act

Back 9

·        Passed in July of 1890, it had little impact and eventually was turned around on union workers.

Front 10

McKinley Tariff

Back 10

·        The highest protective measure ever proposed to Congress and passed in October of 1890.

Front 11

Interstate Commerce Act

Back 11

·        Passed in 1887, the act banned discrimination in rates between long and short hauls, required that railroads publish their rate schedules and file them with the government, and declared that all interstate rail rates must be “reasonable and just”.

Front 12

The Grangers

Back 12

The Granges were founded in 1867 by Oliver H. Kelley and they attempted to bring farmers together to learn new scientific agricultural techniques.

Front 13

Economic Grievance

Back 13

Farmers organized to attempt to eliminate the middle man and curb monopolistic practices.

Front 14

Mary Lease

Back 14

·        Many women became full voting members in most local alliances and a few, such as Lease, became Populist orators.

Front 15

Birth of the People’s Party

Back 15

·        Created in July 1892 in Omaha, Nebraska by the populists.

Front 16

“Free Silver”

Back 16

·        Idea that silver, along with gold, should become the standard of currency.

Front 17

“Colored Alliances”

Back 17

·        By 1890, over 1.25 million African Americans became a part of the populist movement.

Front 18

Populism’s Ideological Challenge

Back 18

Progress and growth should continue, but should be more strictly defined by the needs of individuals and communities.

Front 19

Overexpansion of Weak Demand

Back 19

·        Railroads and many other significant industries developed beyond their demand, causing a depression in America.

Front 20

“Coxey’s Army”

Back 20

·        ”: In 1894, Jacob S. Coxey attempted to create a massive public works program to create jobs for the unemployed, but his efforts had no affects on Congress. Coxey organized a march of the unemployed to the capital to present their demands.

Front 21

Crime of ’73”

Back 21

In 1873, Congress passed a law that discontinued the use of silver coinage, but the market value of silver fell well below 16 to 1, opening up silver to coinage once more. The “demonetization” of silver and the laws passed were referred to as the “Crime of ‘73”.

Front 22

End of the People’s Party

Back 22

Many saw silver as the “people’s money” and gold was seen as the symbol of oppression and exploitation.

Front 23

William McKinley

Back 23

·        Within months of Bryan’s loss in the election, the People’s party began to dissolve.

Front 24

“Fusion”

Back 24

·        The Democrats chose William Jennings Bryan to run for them in 1896, and because they had adopted many of the same ideas, the Populists fused with them to support Bryan.

Front 25

Birth of Modern Campaigning

Back 25

Bryan traveled 18,000 miles across the country to try to gain more votes, visiting every section of the country systematically.

Front 26

Symbolic Importance of the Currency Question

Back 26

William McKinley was chosen by the Republican Party in 1890 to run for president under a platform of opposition of the free coinage of silver.