HIST 151 Lecture 12 Chapters 19 The City and its Workers and 20 Dissent Depression and War 18901900 Outline of Last Lecture I How the Other Half Lives Jacob Riis II Sweatshops child labor III 1877 s Great Railroad Strike IV Samuel Gompers AFL V Knights of Labor VI Haymarket Riot Gov John Peter Altgeld VII Nickelodeons Coney Island Outline of Current Lecture I William Tweed Bossism II Tammany Hall III The Shame of the Cities by Lincoln Steffens IV The Southern and Colored Farmer s Alliance V Populists VI William Jennings Bryan VII Bimetal System Current Lecture William Tweed Bossism o Tweed was the unofficial unelected Boss of New York He had the loudest voice and highest power out of anybody in the state He ran New York politics o What he was doing was illegal because he was essentially buying votes He d do this by giving people jobs handing out infant coffins for the babies that died on the immigrant s voyage to America and giving gifts to those who would vote for him or who he wanted He wasn t the only one to do this most Bosses in machine politics big business running government did this o Slogan was vote early vote often This meant you could vote as many times as you wanted and would typically receive a gift each time 98 of the people were extremely poor so they would vote for big bosses as many times as they could and rack up as many gifts as they could Tammany Hall These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute o This is the building where Tweed would conduct his shenanigans It was the epitome of New York politics in the Gilded Age The people who worked there were sometimes politicians but mostly just men in power They were all Democrats as well LEFT VS RIGHT DEMOCRAT VS REPUBLICAN STARTS HERE IN THE 1890S The Shame of the Cities o This was an expos by muckraker Lincoln Steffens o He visited urban areas and studied their politics very carefully o Brought attention to machine politics Chapter 20 Dissent Depression and War 1890 1900 Southern and Colored Farmer s Alliance o Granges from the Gilded Age still existed and they were still just as upset about railroads as they had been before but they couldn t unionize like the city workers because they were all essentially independent contractors working for themselves o SO they formed larger political groups such as the Southern Farmer s Alliance Made up of farmers in the Bible Belt from Savanna Georgia to the Texas panhandle o There were a ton of black farmers in this same area but since the south was still extremely racist they weren t really willing to let the African Americans join the Southern Farmer s Alliance However they knew it was important to have as many members as possible if they wanted a political voice o SO in typical Jim Crow separate but equal fashion they sponsored the Colored Farmer s Alliance This leads us to the Populists o Formed officially in 1892 o Not every Populist was a farmer but most were This party also known as the people s party was aimed at the rural Americans such as the farmers homesteaders share croppers land owners etc o They wanted the government to have a hand in not only the railroads but all utilities As well they wanted direct election of senators They wanted structure William Jennings Bryan o Young Nebraskan senator who lined up with the Populists Not only due to his upbringing in Nebraska but due to the color of money Bimetal System o Government decided that silver and gold would be what our financial system would rest on o Populists want silver because there was an abundance of it in the states It was easily accessible and would fill their empty pockets quickly These people were poor and needed the money These are the Democrats o The captains of industry and the rich wanted gold because they knew that if we used silver inflation would happen due to the availableness of silver These are the Republicans