Reconstruction, Expansion, and the Triumph of Industrial Capitalism 55$10-15 million—nearly 5 percent of the entire GDP [the next highest was the
1968 election at barely 1 percent]. Meanwhile, Bryan’s campaigned raised
only $300,000. Banking and corporate interests, alarmed by Bryan’s support
of silver, made sure their man won and that populist activists [the party
merged with and Bryan ran for president as a Democrat] did not expand their
influence further. Although Bryan and the populist Democrats got millions
of votes 1896, McKinley won the presidential election. As with the move-
ments of industrial workers, the Populists, despite their challenges to capital-
ism and some successes, met failure ultimately too. Capitalism would remain
the dominant economic form, despite the inequalities it created.
The Second American Revolution
Two of America’s best-known scholars, Charles and Mary Beard, have
referred to the period after the Civil War as the “Second American
Revolution.” They created this phrase to describe the major and significant
changes that occurred after 1865, especially the transformation of the US
economy from agricultural and artisanal to the triumph of industrial capital-
ism. With the sectional differences that had dominated American life for
over two centuries resolved, and slavery abolished, a truly “united” country
could now make the full transition to industry, Capitalism, and empire. The
changes from the previous generation and previous system were, in fact,
revolutionary. The period from the 1860s to 1900 was as important as any
other in the evolution of America toward world power. Using the Civil War
to establish the United States as a capitalist country with expansive borders
and control over racial minorities, the ruling elite built great wealth and
prosperity with their factories, banks, and free market system. Wealth and
power were now based on “capital,” rather than just commerce and trade or
land and slave ownership. Bankers and corporations would now have the
most important place in American economic and political life, and the coun-
try would become an industrial power, with serious labor and farmer protests
as a result, and, despite these conflicts over class power, the capitalist ruling
class would emerge fully in control. That did not mean the struggles for
economic equality, basic rights for workers and racial and gender groups, or
political battles would not continue—they would—but the capitalist class was
never in any danger of not having the power to control American society. So