20016012080401801401006020
0
1865 1869 1873 1877Index: 1913 = 1001881 1885 1889 1893Wheat pricesConsumer prices
Cotton pricesWheat and Cotton Prices and Consumer Price Indexes,
1865–1896Farm prices fell by about 50 percent after the Civil War;
the Consumer Price Index declined, too, though less precipitously.550
MAPPING THE PAST
Agrarian Discontent and
the Populist Challenge
ARKANSASKANSASNEBRASKAMISSOURIIOWAWISCONSINMINNESOTATEXASSOUTH
DAKOTANORTH
DAKOTANEW
MEXICO
TERRITORYINDIAN
TERR.OKLAHOMA
TERR.MONTANAWYOMINGCOLORADOARIZONA
TERRITORYUTAHNEVADAOREGONWASHINGTONCALIFORNIAIDAHOCANADALOUISIANAMICHIGANINDIANA
ILLINOISOHIOALABAMA
MISS. GEORGIASOUTH
CAROLINANORTH
CAROLINAVIRGINIAWEST
VIRGINIA
KENTUCKY
TENNESSEENEW
YORK
PENNSYLVANIA N.J.CONN.MASS.VT.
N.H.MAINER.I.MD.DEL.FLORIDA
63
55
40
20
4Percentage of all
farmers, 1900
MEXICO Gulf ofMexicoATLANTIC
OCEANFalling Prices
and Farm
Tenancy
After 1870 the falling price of
wheat and cotton (see the
graph, below) spelled disas-
ter to farmers who were
obliged to make fixed pay-
ments on their mortgages.
Beleaguered farmers joined
the Farmers’ Alliance and simi-
lar organizations to pool
resources and negotiate better
deals with railroads, banks, and
grain merchants. Nevertheless, many
farmers fell behind in their mortgage
payments; millions became bankrupt
and lost their farms, obliging them to
work as sharecroppers, tenant farmers,
or hired hands in the fields.
To avert bankruptcy, farmers
increasingly formed political
groups whose chief goal was to drive up
farm prices. Many blamed falling prices on the federal govern-
ment’s return to hard money after the Civil War. Not enough
gold had been minted into dollars during the subsequent
decades of economic expansion. As more goods were pro-
duced with a constant or slowly-rising supply of gold dollars,
prices fell. Thus the farmers lobbied for an infusion of new
currency—greenbacks as well as silver dollars—to raise
prices.“We meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge
of moral, political and material ruin,” declared the People’s
party in 1892. The nation must abandon the “gold standard.”
The Rise of Populism in Texas
That Populism was fueled by agrarian discontent is reflected in
the accompanying map of Texas in the 1890s. In Texas, the
birthplace of the Knights of Reliance (Lampasas County) and
the Southern Alliance, Populists made the most gains in the
marginal cotton-growing counties, the drier counties near the
western edge of the cotton-cultivating frontier, and the pine
woods of east Texas. Conversely, the more prosperous farming
lands of the Black and Grand prairies rarely voted Populist.
Populism appealed most to marginal farmers.
Bryan versus McKinley in 1896
The depression of 1893, which lasted much of the decade,
altered the geography of American politics. President
Cleveland’s defense of the gold standard fractured the
Democrats. In the congressional election of 1894,
Republicans seized control of both houses of Congress and
increased their delegation in the House by 100 votes. This
defeat prompted Democrats from the West and South to
reach out to the Populists in 1896; the Democratic party then
adopted a platform that endorsed the free coinage of silver,
and nominated William Jennings Bryan, a proponent of silver
currency, for president.
The Republicans nominated William McKinley, whose
endorsement of the gold standard, though ambiguously
worded, ensured that the election of 1896 would be the
most sharply defined since the Civil War.
On election day, Bryan won in the South, the Plains states,
and the Rocky Mountain region. But McKinley carried the East;Sharecroping and Tenancy, 1880–1900Sharecropping and farm tenancy, which had
prevailed in the South since the Civil War, spread to other parts of the nation after 1880.