Chapter 26 APUSH essay questions – Flashcards

-Poor farming conditions Grasshoppers consuming nearly half of the Midwestern crops Drought on the great plains especially during 1886-1887 low prices for goods Rest of the economy in depression during the 1880's too Impossible to farm on the Plains without borrowing money -The farmers felt like they were being exploited by greedy middlemen, fueling their discontent. -Attacked railroads for giving discounts to large shippers etc, which culminated in Munn vs. Illinois and Interstate Commerce act -While it could be argued that many Grange and Alliance complaints weren't justified, the important thing is that they thought they were being exploited -Farmers mired in debt when they attempt to settle new areas. "Boom-bust cycle" -Needed a place to store grain and wait for prices to recover from the market flood at harvest time. -The populist movement rose because of previous organizations inability to fix the underlying problems in the economy. -Proof: Most of the previous complaints are reflected in the populist's platform of 1892. The platform was primarily aimed at repairing the economic problems farmers had to face. -Needed something to fill the void after the Grange collapsed and Democrats who promised to aid the farmers ignored the Populist agenda once they were in office. The Democrat part works because Alliance leaders felt they had to create a third party after this happened. -Farmers faith in the government badly shaken Cleveland desperately tried to save the gold standard, which is reflected in the huge spike in voting (40%) for the populist party during the election of 1896.

The railroad forced tribes from their land and nearly wiped out the buffalo herds. The Homestead Act brought thousands of people to the plains; taking over tribal lands. The Indian Removal Act had forced millions of Native-Americans from their homelands and made them live on reservations; thus stunting their way of life.

-Clashes between settlers and Indians caused the government to adopt a reservation policy, then the government passed the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887 (Authorized dissolution of Indian owned land and gave allotments to single Native American families) -Many settlers exploited the water resources in the west through different irrigation systems and government legislation -The settlement of the west and its development was instigated by the government's desire for expansionism and accompanied by aggressive individuals who sought success in the American frontier.

In Economics, Abraham Lincoln (and the Republican Party) saw the rise of the Corporations as identifiable entities. Lincoln was disgusted with the shoddy supplies being sold to the military. He noted that we were giving all the rights of citizenship to corporations without anyone going to jail when the law was broken. Samuel P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, used his connections to start up the Chase Bank. The government in Washington viewed the Civil War as an income opportunity. Whereas the South still outfitted their army much like European militias -- the wealthy outfitted a company of soldiers and sent them off -- the rising dominance of the Federal government used tax dollars to finance the military. The Civil War marks the domination of the powers of the Federal Government over State governments. The Civil War slowed down the Westward expansion of the United States, giving the Indians time to acquire horses and rifles. This phase of the Indians is what is so often portrayed in the Hollywood movies, but it was a blip on the radar screen, it only lasted 80 years. As the Civil War ended, the Americans headed west with advanced weapons and men trained in military tactics. Indeed, the government to get rid of veterans that would not gracefully retire from the army were offered land in the conquered territory of Texas. In race relations, after the war blacks streamed into NYC. For the first time, many Americans saw a black person.

Primarily by broadening the markets for goods. The widespread development of railroads, the development of steamships, and the creation of the infrastructures connecting and supporting them, made it economically feasible to sell your goods to customers located across the continent and even overseas. Thus, as a producer you were no longer dependent solely on local demand. This allowed those who could most efficiently produce goods to do so and supply more of the global demand, improving overall efficiency and thus driving down the relative price of those goods. One dramatic way in which this affected the American lifestyle was that it became possible and even relatively easy to set up systems in which raw materials were extracted in one location, and shipped still in a relatively raw state to a completely different location where the infrastructure or other required elements for processing those materials into finished goods was more readily available. For example, ore could be mined at one location and shipped by rail to a place where there was enough electric power to operate the smelters, and then the ingots of metal loaded onto ships and carried to where factories worked it into finished goods. Prior to mass transportation, this was simply not possible in any large-scale sort of way.

-1862 Homestead Act: increased settlement of the West -Although the land previously known as the "Great American Desert" yielded a relative prosperity to cattle ranchers, it was a land of grievances for farmers, miners, and the indigenous people to the region. -Western lands provided open spaces and plenty of grazing land for cattle. Railroads provided the means of transportation for transporting the steer to the demanding market in the East -Farming dominated the West beginning in the 1870s, but the decline of agriculture economically immediately followed during the mid-1880s. Commercial farming began to dominate the West: cash crops sold to a world market -1860s to 1890s "mining booms." Boom towns: population mostly male, greed, outlaws attracted by minerals. Prospectors panned for minerals by hand, then corporations dug deeper below the surface few people ever became rich, and those that remained in the West worked in the corporate mines. Corporate mine working conditions: horrible -Hispanics and Indians: horrible treatment

What impressed people most about the Populist Party was the zeal with which they addressed the needed reforms of the day, almost like and evangelical fervor. Many of the ideas and goals of the Populists would become laws later on in American history. They called for the election of US senators by popular vote, rather than by state legislatures (17th Amendment). They demanded the universal use of the secret (Australian) ballot, to prevent employers from forcing workers to vote a certain way. They introduced the ideas of the initiative, referendum and recall which were added to many state constitutions. They called for the abolition of national banks and for the government ownership of railroads and the telegraph (socialistic ideas). They advocated a postal savings system so that ordinary people might avoid depositing their money in privately owned banks, and for a graduated income tax. They felt the wealthy should pay a higher percentage in taxes than the middle class or poor. They also called for an increase in the amount of money in circulation through the unlimited coinage of silver.