Do Now•Even though innovations were created to help Western farmers, they still had problems. What were these problems, and why did they happen?

I. Gilded Age

A. Big Businesses Dominate•Monopoly: if you own all of one product, you can charge whatever price you want.• How does this concept apply to the railroad

companies?

•Vertical integration – buy all the companies that make the supplies you need and transport your goods.• How could Andrew Carnegie and his steel company do

this?

•Horizontal integration – buy out all of your competitors so you can charge whatever you want.• How could John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil do this?

B. American Dream•“Rags to riches” – term created by Horatio Alger in children’s books.•Means that through hard work and diligence, you can become wealthy, too.•Example: Andrew Carnegie• Poor immigrant’s child, worked as a telegraph

messenger boy and worked his way up in a railroad company.

B. Big Business Two perspectives:

◦ “captains of industry” – help with jobs and new products, donated some wealth back.

◦ “robber barons” – don’t care about the common person, and just trying to make money.

◦ Which people do you think were considered captains of industry and robber barons?

C. Gilded Age•Term created by Mark Twain – the economy was booming, but only a few people gained a lot of money while most people suffered.•Definition of gilded: ______________•90% of the wealth/money was controlled by 10% of the population

Guided Practice "The golden gleam of the gilded surface hides the cheapness of the metal underneath."

What does it mean to have a gilded surface? What time period or group of people do you think this statement refers to? Why?

Guided Practice “The American farmer is steadily losing ground. His burdens are heavier every year and his gains are more meager; he is beginning to fear that he may be sinking into a servile conditions …. The causes of this lamentable state of things are many…protective tariffs, trusts…speculation in farm products, overgreedy middlemen, and exorbitant transportation rates….The enormous tribute [payment] which the farmers of the West are paying to the money-lenders of the East, is one source of their poverty. Scarcely a week passes that does not bring to me circulars from banking firms and investment agencies all over the West begging for money to be loaned on farms at eight or nine per cent….” – Washington Gladden, “The Embattled Farmers,” Forum, November 1890.

According Gladden, what caused the farmers’ plight in the late nineteenth century?

Guided Practice

Analyze the political cartoon using the Who, What, Why strategy.

II. Rise and Fall of Populism

A. Farmers’ Response to Financial Issues

•Created The Grange and Farmer’s Alliances – cooperatives where farmers pooled resources to buy equipment and sell goods.• Everyone pays in and shares equipment.• Use grange stores to sell goods for better

prices.

•The Grange also fought for farmers like trying to set railroad pricing, but was not very successful.

A. Farmers’ Response to Financial Issues

•Farmers’ Alliances merged and formed the Populist Party•Populist Party positions:•Wanted the government to regulate

industries like railroads to keep prices fair.• Why? How would this make a difference for them.• Increase the money supply so people would

have more money.

B. Bimetallism•Problem: Farmers want better prices for their crops.

•Solution: bimetallism – wanted to add silver coins to the money supply.• Gold standard – all of the U.S. money was gold coins or

paper money based on a gold supply.• How does adding silver make a difference for farmers?

•Motto: “Free Silver” – get silver into the money supply and prices will increase.

•Why would this idea be called bimetallism?

Guided Practice Excerpt from the Omaha Platform: “We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people most own the railroads. We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of sixteen to one….Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people.”

What political affiliation do you think the author had? What demands does he have? What problems is he trying to fix?

C. Populist Outcomes•Some success: • Interstate Commerce Act – government regulated railroad rates to

keep them fair• Rebates – money given to farmers whose goods did not sell

because of overproduction

C. Populist Outcomes•Election of 1896:•Populists supported William Jennings Bryan •Bimetallism was the major issue.•Bryan loses, marks the end of the Populist Party

Political CartoonWho and what things do you think is being depicted in the cartoon?

What is happening in the picture?

What does this cartoon mean/why was it written?

Independent Practice -Listen to the “Cross of Gold” speech and take notes:

◦ “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

-Analyze the Judge political cartoon.

•Write a 6-8 sentence paragraph that describes these two separate primary sources and then contrast the depiction of William Jennings Bryan.

Exit Ticket 1) Which statement best describes the “gold standard?” a. All silver coins contained at least twenty percent pure gold. b. For every dollar of paper money in circulation, there had to be a dollar’s worth of gold in the U.S. Treasury. c. Paper money was worthless – all debts had to be settled in gold. d. It is another name for bimetallism.

Exit Ticket 2) Why do some refer to the era of big business as the “Gilded Age?”

a. They believed it was an age in which a thin layer of wealth controlled by the few covered over the poverty and hardship experienced by the masses. b. They believed that it was a time of prosperity in which the US became the world’s foremost industrialized nation.

c. They believed that it was a time in which immigration was enriching US society by providing cultural diversity.

d. They believed it was a time when immigration was hurting US society by stealing jobs from US citizens.

Exit Ticket3) How did big business owners accumulate so much wealth? Your answer should 1) explain what they created and 2) the two different ways they could create it.