Farmers Alliances Southern Farmers Alliances o Texas and Great Plains o 3 million members Northern Farmers Alliances o Midwest o 2 million members Colored Farmers Alliances o Membership of 250 00 couldn t not be traded for gold During the civil war to fund the war made money known as the Green Back and This was to pay for all the things that went into the war 400 Million Green Back Money was put into the market and inflation happens during the More money in the economy than ever before Paper money was on used in the east and had never seen in the west until now Farmers now could pay off debts and bills that had been building up over time They also could start saving the money The problem that occurs is that the leaders wanted to go back on the gold standard so they started to take back the Green Back until there was no more of them The farmers didn t want this because it made everything easier on the farmers The government start to take back Green Backs anyways and so the value on this started A bush of wheat in 1860 sold for 1 and in 1890 it sold for 50 and this happened to all to go down 4 million every year the crops the farmers made Farmers started to expand what they grew so they could kept up the cost of farming and this leads to in 1890 in Kansas 45 of the farms were in foreclose Farmer s want a lose money system so that there is more money available Another thing that hurts farmers during this time was the railroads that are connected to Farmers would be charged more because of these trust because the leaders had control The railroads required farmers to keep their crops and would charge them rent to hold the big trusts monopolies over the railroads them for pick up The farmers felt that their voices were not being heard so in 1890 they try to find a person to elect that would stand up for them and people who didn t have a voice and change things to better them What gave the famers their voice in the Grange The Grange is a farmers house this was started by Oliver Evans After the war he was to travel the south and look over farms and tell them what they could fix so they wouldn t be poor He tells them they need to pull their money together and buy products that everyone could use and that they need to meet to talk about what farming works and what doesn t and spread the word of that Farming was a boring thing and the Grange was supposed to bring entertainment to the farming community and was supposed to help out all farmers and was supposed to be none political place But in time every time they had meetings at the Grange the topics of everything that effected farming and they came up with the idea of electing someone who would be all about farming Every town had its own chapter and these turned into voting blocks the Grange turned These Alliances sprang up everywhere The Southern Farmers Alliance was found in 1877 and was the earliest founded as the into the Farmer s Alliances Knights of Alliance The Northern Alliance was founded in 1880 founded in NY and moved to Chicago Over 5 million people join these alliances and this was a big number in voting blocks They are all controlled by the Farmer s alliance they did everything the Grange did in the past crops They talked about everything the Grange did but also encouraged debts between the members The Farmer s Alliance printed papers so that everyone could see what they were doing The most successful of the group was the Southern Alliance because they had the cotton The problem is cotton farmers had to sell their crops to a middle man that would then sell to the textile mills In Texas the cotton farmers grouped together and cut out the middle man and made more profit on their crops The Farmer s Alliance also went after the lose money system and they came up with the idea of silver being the solution to their problem The alliance pushed for the government to start making silver coins so that the farmers could have more money and this would make them happy and the miners of silver happy This allows the miners of sliver to join force and push for the minting of silver They start to make progress in several states railroads were being forced to reduce prices on the farmers and the Supreme Court in 1877 upheld the states putting rates on the railroads The Railroads said that because they went from state to state only the government could The government puts out the Interstate Comers act and this regulates the rates on the pass laws like that railroads The Government also starts to buy silver form people but they don t mint anything which is still ok with the people Not everyone in the Farmer s Alliance liked what they were doing the middle man in Texas went to banks and started to stop farmers from getting money The Farmer s Alliance also started to go to companies and buy products straight from them and the sellers that went out to sell these products were mad and started trouble for farmers The Alliance had general stores for their members so they could get cheap supplies and this didn t sit well with regular folks The Alliance came into trouble because they tried to fight to many big companies and tried to many changes and the only way they could accomplish this was to get elected figures in office to help them It was formed in Ocala FL in 1890 The Alliance group with miners and other to form a party in 1890 The Peoples Party From there the give out he Ocala Demands Women in the party could do everything the men could do in the party Mary Ellen Lease was one of the figure heads of the women in the party and was a key speaker of the party The party runs candidates in Kansas and the Midwest The party elects 38 senators and congressmen from states in the Midwest The party gets their views out there so that the political parties could see them and some of the bigger parties take them for their use The People s Parties Ocala Demands o The People s want the government to help the people directly examples would be government built places for the people that could only be used by the people and not businesses o They want silver to be minted to coins so that more money could be in the economy o Want a federal income tax because it would get rid of tariffs on products so that farmers could get products from European goods that are cheaper and it would lead to more money out west for the government to be used o They didn t want big business …