Breeders learned to fence their ranches and to organize i. The legends of the cowboys were made here at this time, but lived on in American lore. Before, the U. This act led half a million families to buy land and settle out West, but it often turned out to be a cruel hoax because in the dry Great Plains, acres was rarely enough for a family to earn a living and survive.
And often, families were forced to give up their homesteads before the five years were up, since droughts, bad land, and lack of necessities forced them out. However, fraud was spawned by the Homestead Act, since almost ten times as much land ended up in the hands of land-grabbing promoters than in the hands of real farmers. Taming Western Deserts Railroads such as the Northern Pacific helped develop the agricultural West, a place where, after the tough, horse-trodden lands had been plowed and watered, proved to be surprisingly fertile.
Due to higher wheat prices resulting from crop failures around the world, more people rashly pushed further westward, past the th meridian which is also the magic inch per year rainfall line , where it was difficult to grow crops. Here, as warned by geologist John Wesley Powell, so little rain fell that successful farming could only be attained by massive irrigation.
A Russian species of wheat—tough and resistant to drought—was brought in and grew all over the Great Plains, while other plants were chosen in favor of corn.
Not until was Utah allowed into the Union, and by the 20th century, only Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona remained as territories. In Oklahoma, the U. The Fading Frontier The frontier was a state of mind and a symbol of opportunity. It seems that the cities, not the West, were the safety valves, as busted farmers and fortune seekers made Chicago and San Francisco into large cities. Of hundreds of years, Americans had expanded west, and it was in the trans-Mississippi west that the Indians made their last stand, where Anglo culture collided with Hispanic culture, and where America faced Asia.
The life that we live today is one that those pioneers dreamed of, and the life that they lived is one of which we can only dream. Large-scale farmers tried banking, railroading, and manufacturing, but new inventions in farming, such as a steam engine that could pull a plow, seeder, or harrow, the new twine binder, and the combined reaper-thresher sped up harvesting and lowered the number of people needed to farm.
Farmers, though, were inclined to blame banks and railroads for their losses rather than their own shortcomings. The mechanization of agriculture led to enormous farms, such as those in the Minnesota-North Dakota area and the Central Valley of California. Henry George described the state as a country of plantations and estates. California vegetables and fruits, raised by ill-paid Mexican workers, made handsome profits when sold to the East.
Deflation Dooms the Debtor In the s, when world markets rebounded, produced more crops, and forced prices down, the farmers in America were the ones that found ruin. Paying back debts was especially difficult in this deflation-filled time during which there was simply not enough money to go around for everyone. Unhappy Farmers In the late s and early s, droughts, grasshopper plagues, and searing heat waves made the toiling farmers miserable and poor.
City, state, and federal governments added to this by gouging the farmers, ripping them off by making them pay painful taxes when they could least afford to do so. The railroads by fixing freight prices , the middlemen by taking huge cuts in profits , and the various harvester, barbed wire, and fertilizer trusts all harassed farmers.
In , one half of the U. Kelley to improve the lives of isolated farmers through social, educational, and fraternal activities. Eventually, it spread to claim over , members in , and the Grange changed its goals to include the improvement of the collective plight of the farmer.
The Grangers found most success in the upper Mississippi Valley, and eventually, they managed to get Congress to pass a set of regulations known as the Granger Laws, but afterwards, their influence faded. The Greenback Labor Party also attracted farmers, and in , the Greenback Laborites polled over a million votes and elected 14 members of Congress. In , the Greenbackers ran General James B. However, its programs only aimed at those who owned their own land, thereby ignoring the tenant farmers, and it purposely excluded Blacks.
The Alliance members agreed on the 1 nationalization of railroads, 2 the abolition of national banks, 3 a graduated income tax, and 4 a new federal sub-treasury for farmers. Populists were led by Ignatius Donnelly from Minnesota and Mary Elizabeth Lease, both of whom spoke eloquently and attacked those that hurt farmers banks, railroads, etc.
Many disgruntled unemployed fled to D. They called for: relieving unemployment by an inflationary government public works program. The march fizzled out when they were arrested for walking on the grass. Debs helped organize the workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company. Workers struck, sometimes violently. Attorney General Richard Olney called in federal troops to break up the strike. His rationale: the strike was interfering with the transit of U.
Debs went to prison for 6 months and turned into the leading Socialist in America. McKinley was the making of another Ohioan, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, who financially and politically supported the candidate through his political years. McKinley was a conservative in business, preferring to leaves things alone, and his platform was for the gold standard, even though he personally was not.
His platform also called for a gold-silver bimetallism—provided that all the other nations in the world did the same, which was not bound to happen. At the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Bryan delivered a movingly passionate speech in favor of free silver.
The Democratic ticket called for unlimited coinage of silver with the ratio of 16 silver ounces worth as much as one ounce of gold. Democrats who would not stand for this left the party. This election was perhaps the most important since the elections involving Abraham Lincoln, for it was the first to seemingly pit the privileged against the underprivileged, and it resulted in a victory for big business and big cities.
And, put to the vote, it was clear then that Americans were going with gold. Also in the election, the Middle Class preserved their comfortable way of life while the Republicans seized control of the White House of 16 more years. Republican Standpattism Enthroned When McKinley took office in , he was calm and conservative, working well with his party and avoiding major confrontations.
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