The scene of early- twentieth century life in New York City was captured by GeorgeWesley Bellows.

After the Civil War, American life changed dramatically. An agricultural Stalemate has become an urban and industrialized nation deeply entwined in world markets and international politics.

The period from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the Rural Revolt century saw a widening social, economic, and political gap between the powerful and the powerless.

The United States became a nation dominated by rapidly growing cities between 1865 and 1900. The urban population went from 8 million to 30 million. European and Asian immigrants, as well as migrants from America's rural areas, streamed into cities, attracted by plentiful jobs. The adoption of new agricultural machinery pushed many off the land. Four men can now do the farmwork that was previously required.

New towns were formed around mines and railroad junctions by the end of the 19th century.

Other migrants who were bored by rural or small town life moved to cities in search of more excitement. America became an urban society.

New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and others are large cities in the Northeast and Mid west. Most city dwellers had little or no money. They were forced to live in hovels that looked like prisons.

Researchers made discoveries that improved living conditions, public health, economic productivity, and communications during the last quarter of the 19th century. Public support for higher education was stimulated by modern science, but it also opened up doubts about many long- accepted "truths" and religious beliefs. The second half of the 19th century saw more and more people questioning the truth of the Bible.

City buildings were able to hold on to their populations because of advances in technology. The construction of large apartment buildings was financially feasible in the 1870s due to the use of steam radiators, instead of coal-burning fireplaces. Before the 1860s, most structures were less than six stories. The first electric elevator was installed by the Otis Elevator Company in 1889.

Horse drawn streetcars and commuter rail ways allowed people to live farther away from their downtown workplace as cities grew out as well as up. San Francisco became the first city to use cable cars in the 19th century. Electric trolleys were preferred over steam- powered trains in the 1890s. Mass transit got a boost from underground trains built in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia.

Many of the working poor could not afford to leave the inner cities.

As their populations grew, cities became dangerously congested and plagued with fires, violent crimes, and diseases. New York City doubled in size between 1860 and 1890 so fast that basic services couldn't keep up.

Electric lights, streetcars, telephones, department stores, theaters, and many other attractionslured rural dwellers to big cities. They traded one set of problems for another.

They usually housed twenty- four to thirty- two families, with lots of children who had few places to play except in the streets.

Poverty, unsanitary living conditions, and new forms of political corruption were some of the problems brought about by the growth of cities.

How to feed, shelter, and educate the new city dwellers taxed the imaginations and resources of government officials. Neighborhoods were divided by racial and ethnic background as well as social class.

The cities of the late 19th century were filthy. There were dead animals and contaminated water in the streets.

Tobacco spit spread Tuberculosis. There were infectious diseases caused by Gar bage and raw sewage being dumped into the streets and waterways.

The child mortality rate in tenements was high. Three of every five babies died before their first birthday in a poor Chicago district at the end of the century.

Garbage carts were used to retrieve trash in New York City.

Regulations requiring more space per resident as well as more win dows and plumbing facilities were created by sanitary reformers. Reformers pushed for modern water and sewage systems. They wanted to ban slaughters and hogs and cattle in the city.

After the Civil War, America's prosperity and promise of political and religious freedom attracted waves of immigrants from all over the world. 30 percent of the city's residents were foreign born by 1900. Most of the newcomers were poor people who wanted to live in the U.S. They had a distinctive work ethic. It's bad to work only to sur vive. labor gives a fierce dignity when working for a better life for oneself and one's children and grandchildren The new immigrants were endowed with dignity and an optimistic energy. The influx of immigrants sparked racial and ethnic tensions.

Immigration is one of the most powerful and controversial forces in Amer ican development. Between 1860 and 1900, as more and more foreigners arrived from eastern and southern Europe, this was true. The number of immigrants rose from 3 million in the 1870s to 5 million in the 1880s. In the first decade of the twenti eth century, nearly 9 million people came to the United States. Four out of five New Yorkers were foreign born in 1890. Chicago was not far behind.

Rapidly growing industries sent agents abroad to lure low- wage workers to the United States. Immigrants' travel expenses were paid for by the federal government under the Contract Labor Act. The law was repealed in 1868 but not until 1885, when it was stopped from being used to import foreign workers.

Protes tants and Roman Catholics from northern and western Europe were the majority of the so- called "old immigrants" who came before 1880. The largest ethnic population in America by 1900 were from the Political Stalemate and Rural Revolt. The United States had 490 German-language newspapers by 1910.

The proportion of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe rose during the last quarter of the 19th century.

A majority of arrivals were made up of that. Their languages and cultural background were vastly different from those of previous immigrants. Judaism, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholicism were the main religions of the new immigrants.

Immigrants headed West after arriving in New York. 45 percent of the people in North Dakota were foreign born by 1890.

Congress built a reception center on Ellis Island to accommodate the growing number of immigrants passing through New York City. The registry room is where immigrants are questioned by officials.

The South was unattractive to immigrants. Between 1860 and 1900, the percentage of foreign born residents in the states of the former Confederacy declined. The national average of immi grants was 15 percent, but only 2 percent of southerners were. The low wages, racial dynamics, and widespread poverty of the South made newcomers avoid it.

The changes in immigration patterns were examined by the commission. The commission concluded that immigrants from southern and eastern Europe posed a social and cultural threat to America. About one third of those over 14 years of age admitted to being uneducated.

Immigrants were poor and needed to find jobs quickly. Many were greeted at the docks by family and friends, others were met by representatives of immigrant- aid societies or by company agents who offer low- paying and often dangerous jobs in mines, mil s, sweatshops, and on railroads.

Immigrants were easy targets for exploitation because they did not know much about American employment practices.

In exchange for a bit of whiskey and a job, many lost a large percentage of their wages. Immigrants were given train tickets to inland cities such as Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and St. Louis.

As strangers in a new land, most immigrants wanted to live in neigh borhoods populated by people from their homeland. The largest cities had vibrant immigrant districts with names such as Little Italy, Little Hungary, and Chinatown, where immigrants maintained their native religions and customs and spoke and read newspapers in their native languages.

They paid a price for being part of a solidarity community. When new immi grants moved into an area, the previous residents often moved out, taking with them whatever social prestige and political influence they had achieved.

The living conditions deteriorated when owners failed to abide by the codes.

Many native- born Ameri cans saw the newest immigrants as a threat to their jobs and way of life. Racists believed that people of British or Germanic ancestry were superior to newcomers.

Most of the Chinese people in California lived in the late 19th century. They were the first non- European and non- African group to migrate to America. Chinese immigrants were easy targets for discrimination because they were not white, Christian or literate. Chinese labor ers were willing to do menial work that whites refused to do, despite the fact that whites resented them for taking their jobs.

John was a young Chinese immigrant when he arrived in San Francisco.

Similar treatment was experienced by another Chinese newcomer.

White Californians wanted an end to Chinese immigration. Immigration policies were left up to the states. The Page Act was the first federal law intended to restrict "undesirable" immigration.

It was the first federal law to restrict the immigration of free people on the basis of their race and class.

The act that prevented Chinese laborers from entering the country for ten years was renewed annually. The golden door welcoming foreigners to the United States began to close after the Chinese Exclusion Act. Barriers to Chinese immigration were removed in 1943.

The Chinese were not the only group that was targeted. The American Protective Association was formed by Protestant activists in Iowa in the late 19th century.

The APA quickly enlisted 2.5 million members and helped shape the 1894 election results in Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, and Colorado.

In 1891, nativists in New England formed the Immigration Restriction League to save the Anglo- Saxon race from being "con taminated" by immigrants. Congress was persuaded by the League to ban uneducated immigrants. There were three presidents who vetoed such bil s: Grover Cleveland in 1897, William H. Taft in 1913, and Woodrow Wilson in 1915 and 1917. The last time, Congress banned immigrants who were not literate.

Recreation and leisure changed as a result of the flood of people into the cities.

Middle- and upper- class families often spend time together at home, singing around a piano, reading, or playing games. Politics as a form of public entertainment attracted large crowds in congested urban areas. Movie theaters, vaudeville shows, art museums, symphonies, sporting events, Wild West shows, and circuses were some of the new forms of mass entertainment. In large cities, new streetcar transit systems allowed people to travel easily to sporting events, and rooting for the home baseball team helped unify a city's ethnic and racial groups. Sports were a major part of popular culture by the end of the century.

Modern science can be traced back to the pres tige of urbanization and technological progress. Scientists generated changes throughout social, intellectual, and cultural life by encouraging what one writer called a "mania for facts." Electric power and lights, telephones, phonographs, motion pictures, bicycles, and automobiles are some of the transformational technologies of scientific research.

Vaudeville shows aim to please the tastes of their wildly diverse audience with a great range of entertainment.

Mulberry Street in New York City was home to many Italian immigrants at the turn of the century. People are shopping, socializing, and gazing.

Although only men could vote in most states, both men and women went to hear candidates speak. There were many social benefits to being a member of a political party in the largest cities. As labor unions became more common, they took on social roles for working class men.

New York City had 10,000 saloons.

Saloons were popular with immigrants who wanted to meet other people in a strange land. The customers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago were all Irish, German, and Italian. In New York City in the 1800s, saloons doubled as polling places, where patrons could cast their votes in elections.

Men went to saloons to check job postings, participate in labor unions, cash paychecks, mail letters, read newspapers, and gossip. Chess, billiards, darts, cards, dice, or even handbal were played by the Political Stalemate and Rural Revolt. In the winter, saloons were used as refuges for homeless people.

Although saloons were for men only, women and children could use a side door to buy a pail of beer to carry home.

There were separate rooms for women customers in some saloons.

"Wine rooms" were where prostitutes worked.

Women who were married to working class men had less free time. Many were working for their own pay, and even those who weren't were often overwhelmed by child rearing responsibilities. The men have saloons, political clubs, trade- unions or fraternal lodges for their recreation.

The streets and alleys were often used by married working class women. There were opportunities for socializing when washing clothes, supervising children at play, or shopping at the market.

The inexpensive rides at this popular amusement park could be enjoyed by members of the working class.

The cinema was the most popular form of entertainment for working women.

If you are tired of life, go to the movies. Go to the picture show if you're tired of troubles.

Darwin showed how the chance processes of evolution give energy and unity to life. He showed that organisms produce more off spring than they can survive. The offspring with certain favorable characteristics adapt and live.

The process of nat ural selection was driven by the struggle for existence in a crowded world. Modern species evolved from less complex forms of life, while others fell by the wayside.

Darwin's theory of biological evolution was shocking because most people still believed that God created all species at the same time and they remained the same thereafter. Although Darwin had trained for the ministry and was reluctant to be drawn into religious controversy, his biological findings suggested that there was no God. People were like plants and animals in that they evolved by trial and error.

Many Christians believed that Darwin's ideas led to a denial of the existence of God, while others found their faith severely shaken. The faithful reconciled science and religion. Evolutionary change in nature must be done by God.

Many applied Darwin's theory of evolution to human society.

Spencer argued that the same process of natural selection led to the evolution of human society. Spencer said that the survival of the fittest was the engine of social progress.

He didn't think the evolutionary process in the natural world had a relationship to human social institutions. Social Darwinism was endorsed by others. Spencer believed that if society evolved for the sake of survival of the fittest, then inter ference with human competition in the marketplace was a mistake.

The need for hands- off, laissez- faire government policies was implied by social Darwinism. Spencer believed that the only acceptable charity was voluntary. Spencer warned that "fos tering the good- for- nothing people at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty to the health of civilization."

Business men and corporations that were successful provided proof of Spencer's idea of survival of the fittest.

John D. Rockefeller told his Baptist Sunday school class that the growth of a large business is a survival of the fittest. This is not a bad thing in business.

William Graham Sumner preached the idea of natural selection while he was a professor at Yale University.

Sumner's efforts to use Darwinism to pro mote "rugged individualism" and oppose government regulation of business led to an alternative use of Darwinism in the context of human society.

Sumner claimed that people compete like animals. Ward explained that people also colborate. People have the ability to plan for a distant future because of their minds. Ward argued that humanity could control social evolution through long range planning.

Alleviating poverty and promoting the education of the people should be the government's two main goals. Social improvement could be fostered by intelligent people. Reform Darwinism was one of the pil ars of the progressive movement.

Romanticism dominated American literature and painting before the Civil War. The unseen world of ideas and spirit was what the New England transcendentalists believed to be the fundamental truth. They used their excursions in nature to take notice of the divinity in outdoor scenes: a solitary encounter with a deer or a fox or a hemlock, or wading in a creek or swimming in a pond.

During the second half of the 19th century, a new generation of writers and artists called themselves "realists" began to challenge the nature- worshiping ethos of the Roman tic tradition.

The horrors of the Civil War led to a more realistic view of life for many Americans. An editor at an art exhibition in 1865 saw the reality of the war.

Modern science contributed to the rise of realism. One editor said that the "stupendous power of Science" would remove American thought of "every old- time idea, every trace of old romance and art, poetry and romantic or sentimental feel ing."

Embracing realism meant that stories and novels should be based on fact and textured social details.

During the Gilded Age, the worship of money was the most common theme in realistic novels.

Henry James said that the daily urban scene unleashed a flood of the real to study and portray. John Sloan spied on people in his New York City studio. He admitted in his diary that he was addicted to looking through his windows and along the sidewalks.

Others had the same "spectatorial" sensibility.

The scientific spirit gave rise to the realists' emphasis on observing everyday life.

The saloon of a retired boxer named "Sailor" Sharkey was where George Bellows witnessed fierce boxing matches. One of the most famous artists from the Ashcan School was Bellows, who was committed to capturing the reality of the urban scene.

Americans were made aware of the significance of their surroundings, in all their beauty and ugliness.

Political corruption was more prevalent in the Gilded Age.

Roosevelt agreed with Wilson about the venality of politics.

Business tycoons were more powerful than political parties during the Gilded Age.

Businesses that bought political and legislative favors from government officials dominated the politics of the Gilded Age. By the end of the nineteenth century, new movements and parties were pushing to reform the excesses and injustices created by a political system that had grown corrupt in its efforts to support the special interests of Big Business.

The local focus was the most important feature of Gilded Age politics. At the state and local levels, most political activity took place. The federal government was insignificant in the lives of most citizens because it was so bad. In 1871, the entire federal civilian workforce totaled 51,000, of which only 6,000 actually worked in Washington, D.C., but the importance of the federal government began to surpass that of local and state governments.

Americans were very loyal to their political party, which they joined as much for the fellowship and network connections as for its positions on issues. Party members paid dues to join and party leaders demanded large campaign contributions from captains of industry and finance. "Of course, we do rotten things in New York," said Conkling, a Republican senator from New York.

In cities with a lot of new immigrants, politics was usual and trolled by small groups who shaped policy and managed the election of candidates. Each ring had a powerful "boss" who used a network of neighborhood activists and officials to govern.

Colorful, larger- than- life figures such as New York City's William "Boss" Tweed ruled shamelessly, plundered, and occasionaly improved municipal government, often through dishonest means and frequent bribes.

Business allies and political supporters were given jobs by the political machine. One in twelve New York men worked for the city government in the late 1870s. The various city rings and bosses brought structure, stability, and services to rapidly grow inner- city communities, many of them composed of immigrants newly arrived from Ireland, Germany, and southern and east European countries.

Every government job was subject to the latest election results. In New York City, a Democratic party official admitted, "You can't keep a political organization together without patronage." Men are not in politics for nothin'.

Party loyalists were given a wide range of jobs, from cabinet posts to courthouse clerk positions. Half of all federal civilian employees work for the postal service. People who were awarded government jobs were expected to give a percentage of their salary to the political party.

Civil service reformers and progressives who pushed through legisla tion designed to limit patronage drew criticism for the corruption associated with the system. They wanted amerit system for government employment based on ability and experience.

The texture of national politics was given by several factors. There was a close division between Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Both parties avoided controversial issues for fear of losing an election. At the same time that many divisive issues were ignored, voter intensity peaked at all levels. Typically, voter turnout was 70 to 80 percent.

Most voters cast their votes for the same party year after year. Party loy alty can be an emotional choice. The Civil War continued during political campaigns in the 1870s and 1880s. Republicans took credit for abolishing slavery and saving the Union, while Democrats were accused of causing "secession and civil war."

Democrats in the South reminded voters that they stood for limited government, states' rights, and white supremacy. Many Democrats supported high tariffs on imports if they were compatible with the dominant businesses in their districts or states. Third parties, such as the Greenbackers, Populists, and Prohibitionists, appealed to specific interests and issues, such as currency inflation, railroad regulations, or legislation to restrict alcohol consumption.

Religious, ethnic, and geographic divisions were reflected in party loyalties. In New England, upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the Midwest, the Republican party remained strong after the Civil War. Republicans were more likely to be Protestants of English or Nordic descent. Republicans could rely on the votes of African Americans in the South until their right to vote was taken away by Jim Crow laws, as well as the support of a large bloc of Union veterans.

A man who wants you to go to church every Sunday is a Republican.

Many immigrants and Catholics of Irish, Italian, or German background were offended by the efforts of the Protestant Republicans to limit or prohibit the consumption of alcoholic beverages. They pushed for policies to restrict immigration and the employment of foreigners.

Many Irish, Germans, and Italians brought with them robust drinking traditions that upset many Protestant Republicans who considered saloons the central social evil around which all others revolved.

Carrie Nation, the most colorful member of the WCTU, became a national celebrity for her attacks on saloons with a hatchet.

Republicans dominated the White House from 1869 to 1913, except for two terms of New York Democrat Grover Cleveland.

National politics was balanced. In each of the presidential elections, sixteen states voted Republican and fourteen voted Democratic. Six states were left to decide the outcome. The election of eight presidents was decided by New York and Ohio.

Both Republican and Democrat presidents deferred to their party leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives.

The White House should not be in charge of major policies that the president would implement. The President should obey and enforce the law according to Senator John Sherman of Ohio.

Both Republicans and Democrats were willing to buy and sell votes. In response to the corruption uncovered in the Grant administration, each party promoted honesty in government. The struggle for clean government became one of the most important issues of the Gilded Age.

There was a controversy over the election results and an uprightness in comparison to the scandals of Grant's presidency. An agency notorious for trading jobs for political favors was cleaned up by the Political Stalemate and Rural Revolt.

In the Civil War, the son of an Ohio farmer was wounded four times. He went on to serve as governor of Ohio.

The compromise presidential nominee of two groups fighting for control of the Republican party, the so- called "Stalwarts and Half- Breeds," were led by Senators James G. Blaine of Maine and Roscoe Conkling of New York. During the furor over the misdeeds of his cabinet members, the president's supporters were "stalwart" in their support.

They had mastered the patronage system of political jobs. The two groups existed to advance the careers of Conkling and Blaine, who were enemies.

The President tried to stay above the squabbles.

He joined the growing public outrage over the era's astonishing corruption, admitting that his party must mend its ways by focusing on Republican prin ciples rather than fighting over the spoils of office. The 1889 cartoon depicts the corrupt alliance between big business and legislators.

Republican leaders were enraged by Hayes's commitment to cleaning politics.

He confessed that he had little hope of success because he wasopposed.

For the rest of the century, the conservatives held to a conservative line on economic issues. The Bland- Allison Act was a bipartisan effort to increase the quantity of silver coins and was vetoed by him. He believed in gold coins.

In his diary, the president said that he had become a president without a party after the Democrats took control of Congress. In 1879, with a year left in his term, he was ready to leave the White House.

The Republican presi dential nomination in 1880 was up for grabs after Hayes decided not to run for a second term. The compromise candidate was Congressman James A. Garfield.

Garfield was a minister, a lawyer, a professor, and a college president before he became a Union army general. The Republicans named Chester Arthur, who had been fired as head of the New York Customs House, as their candidate for vice president in order to win the swing state of New York.

The Democrats, even more divided than the Republicans, chose a retired Union general who had done little since the Battle of Gettysburg. Political Stalemate and Rural Revolt had been friends for forty years. He said he was a weak, vain man.

He's the most selfish man I know.

The Democrats selected Hancock to help distract the Republicans from their attacks on Democrats. The effort to strip blacks of voting rights was undermined by Hancock.

In an election marked by widespread bribes, Garfield got a plurality of the popular vote of only 39,000. He won an electoral margin of 215 to 155. Republicans took control of Congress. Garfield was the last president born in a log cabin as the country entered the last decades of the century.

The Democrats won all of the southern states, while the Republicans won all of the northern states.

The Civil War was not over. If the Republicans lost New York State, they would lose the White House. Securing the nation's most populous state was central to Republican strategy.

He said that the end of slavery has added to the moral and industrial forces of the people. The Republicans ended efforts to reconstruct the former Confederacy.

Garfield was an old school boy. Presidents should defer to Congress and the federal government should stay out of the way of the states, he argued. Garfield was not an executive in his talents, according to the outgoing President.

Garfield chose the Half- Breeds in the ongoing feud between the two groups of the Republican party.

The former president told reporters that Garfield is a man without backbone after James G. Blaine was named secretary of state. A man with good ability but not enough strength.

Garfield wouldn't have time to prove himself as president.

After only four months in office, he was shot twice by a Republican officeseeker at the Washington, D.C. railroad station. Guiteau tried to get a job in the U.S. con sulate in Paris but was turned down.

The Republican party would eventually be destroyed by that declaration.

On September 19th, Garfield died of an illness caused by poor medical care. Grant cried when he heard about Garfield's death, explaining that it had caused a shock to the public and less than that caused by the nation of Mr.

Guiteau claimed that he was ordered by God to kill the president. Two men, one of them Guiteau's jailer, tried to shoot him but missed. Charles J. Guiteau, who was convicted of murder, was depicted in a cartoon. Guiteau killed President James A. Garfield on June 30, 1882.

Americans blamed the Republicans for inciting Guiteau after Garfield's death.

The new president, Chester A. Arthur, had been a trusted lieutenant of Conkling. Arthur surprised political watchers by becoming a civil service reformer. He did not remove federal office holders for political reasons. He made appointments based on merit.

President Chester Arthur is not well known. Unlike most presidents, there is no museum dedicated to his career. All his papers and correspondence were burned before he died. He got obscurity because he wanted it. He didn't invest much time in his role as chief executive. He took Sundays and Mondays off and worked from ten to four each day.

The Civil Service Commission, the first federal regulatory agency, was established because of the momentum created by Garfield's assassination. At least 15 percent of federal jobs would now be filled based on the merit system, rather than political favoritism, because of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Federal employees were not allowed to receive political contributions from government workers.

The first step in cleaning up the patronage process was the Pendleton Act. It was needed because the federal government was growing rapidly. There would be 256,000 federal employees by 1901, five times the number in 1871. By 1890, a third of the government's clerical jobs were held by women.

Republican leaders did not like Chester Arthur's efforts to clean up the spoils system. In 1884, the Republicans dumped the ailing Arthur and replaced him with a handsome, colorful secretary of state from Maine.

He knew how to make backroom deals, and he inspired the party faithful with his speeches. Newspapers found evidence of his corruption in the Mulligan letters. They found out that the congressman had sold his votes on measures favorable to the railroad corporation.

There were more letters linking Blaine to shady deal making during the presidential campaign. For the reform element of the Republican party, this was too much, and many independent- minded Republicans refused to endorse the candi dacy. One of the independents said that they are not slaves.

The good- government crowd who were outraged by the corrupting influence of money in politics were disdained by party regulars.

The election was seen by the Mugwumps as a moral rather than a political contest. The Mugwumps were mostly professors, editors, and writers in the large cities and major universities of the northeast. The rise of the Mug wumps, as well as growing national concerns about political corruption, prompted the Democrats to nominate New Yorker Grover Cleveland, a mas sive figure with a bull neck, strong jaw, and an overflowing moustache.

Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo on an anti- corruption platform in 1884. The issue of New York City's corrupt Tammany was central to the politics of the late 1880s.

He vetoed bil s that he felt served private interests at the expense of the public good. He was in favor of civil service reform, opposed expanding the money supply, and preferred free trade.

Although Cleveland was known for his honesty and integrity, two personal issues hurt him: the discovery that he had paid for a substitute to take his place in the Union army during the Civil War, and a juicy sex scandal that erupted when a Buffalo newspaper revealed that Cleveland, a bachelor, had sex Cleveland provided financial support for the child after they refused to marry her.

Some of the most colorful battle cries in political history were inspired by the escapades of Blaine and Cleveland. In the crucial state of New York, near the end of the nasty campaign, Blaine and his supporters committed two fateful blun ders.

The first occurred at New York City's fashionable Delmonico's rest aurant, where Blaine went to a private dinner with 200 of the nation's wealthiest business leaders to ask them to help finance his campaign. The accounts of the event appeared in the newspapers.

Since he had cultivated Irish American support with his anti- English talk and his mother being a Catholic, he let pass the implied insult to Catholics. Democrats said that Blaine was anti-Catholic and anti-Irish.

The election may have been influenced by the two incidents. Cleveland's electoral vote was more than 200 to 182 in its favor, but the popular vote was less than 30,000 votes out of 10 million cast. Cleveland won New York by a small margin. The Democrats paid so many voters in New York that it cost the Republican the White House. The Republicans were buying votes as well, so Blaine refused to challenge the results. A Democrat was back in the White House.

During his first few months in office, President Cleveland had to fight to keep the patronage system in place. He refused to give federal jobs to his supporters. Despite the president's best efforts, about two thirds of the federal jobs went to Democrats.

Cleveland was an old style Democrat who believed in minimal govern ment activity. In his first term, he vetoed more acts of Congress than any other president. He vetoed a congressional effort to help Texas farmers in the aftermath of a terrible dry spell.

Cleveland said that the government should not support the people.

President Cleveland urged Congress to adopt a new policy of federal regulation of the rates charged by interstate railroads to ship goods, crops, or livestock. Cleveland urged Congress to close the loophole because most railroads crossed state lines.

The new agency was called a delusion and a sham by one senator. The commission's powers were challenged in the courts. The railroads continued to charge high rates while making secret pricing deals with large shippers.

The Republican party shaped the Political Stalemate and Rural Revolt 1865-1900, which favored American manufacturers by effectively shutting out foreign imports. Imported items brought in more revenue for foreign manufacturers than the federal government spent. Cleveland and the Democrats realized that the rates were too high when the annual government surplus was produced by the tar iff revenues.

The vicious, inequitable and illogical source of unnecessary taxation should be reduced by Congress according to Cleveland. His stance set the stage for his reelection campaign.

To oppose Cleveland, the Republicans turned to an obscure Civil War veteran who was from Indiana, Benjamin Harrison, who was a pivotal state in presidential elections. He had lost a race for governor and served in the U.S. Senate, but he was the grandson of President William Henry Harrison.

The most important attribute of Harrison was that he would do as he was told.

Business executives gave a lot of money to the Republicans' campaign. The out come was very close.

Matthew Quay was the powerful Republican boss of Pennsylvania.

Quay's decision to distribute campaign money in key states and to promise federal jobs to loyalists helped Republicans gain control of the House and the Senate.

President Benjamin Harrison owed a heavy debt to military veterans, whose votes were critical to his election, and he paid it by signing the Depen dent Pension Act, which doubled the federal pensions paid to veterans between 1889 and 1893.

The Sherman Anti- Trust Act, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, the McKinley Tariff Act, and the admission of Idaho and Wyoming into the Union were all passed by the Republicans in 1890.

Powerful corporations were banned from "conspiring" to establish monopolies or "restrain trade" under the Sherman Anti- Trust Act. The United States was the first nation in the world to outlaw monopolistic business practices.

The Sherman Anti- Trust Act was a hoax intended to make it appear that Congress was cracking down on corporations that were dominating more and more industries. Employers tried to get the working class to vote for the Republican party ticket, including presidential nominee Benjamin Harrison.

The bill was mostly for show according to Political Stalemate and Rural Revolt.

The Swiss Cheese Act had many loop holes in it's language.

We attacked the trusts.

In an attack on Benjamin Harrison's spending policies, rarely enforced, Harrison is shown pouring Cleveland's of its vague definitions of trusts and huge surplus down a hole.

Four lawsuits were filed against labor unions rather than corporations, claiming that striking workers were conspiring to restrain trade.

The Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required the Treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver each month to convert into dol ar coins, was an effort by the Republicans to please the six new western states. The bill's sponsor, Senator John Sherman, admitted that he only proposed the bill to appease the cries for "unlimited coinage" of silver.

During the financial panic of 1893, the Sherman act helped set the stage for the money problem.

Republicans viewed their victory as a mandate to reward the support of large corporations by raising tariffs even higher. The McKinley Tar iff Act of 1890 raised duties on imported manufactured goods to their highest level and added many agricultural products to the tariffs to appease farmers. Many businesses raised prices because their European competitors were not allowed to compete in the U.S. market.

The Republican efforts to reward Big Business backfired. Democrats regained control of the House in the November 1890 congressional elections. William McKinley lost his seat after he was elected Ohio's governor.

The Republican majority in the Senate was reduced to four. Republicans were shocked by their election losses. The Populists are a new political party that represents disgruntled farmers and wage laborers. The revolution was happening.

Monetary issues were more important to national politics during the Gilded Age than tariffs, trusts, and efforts to clean up political corruption. The nation's money supply didn't grow with the economy and population.

Currency deflation caused the cost of borrowing money to go up as the money supply went down.

The policy limiting the currency supply was supported by bankers and others who lent money. Farmers, ranchers, miners, and others who had to borrow money to make ends meet claimed that the sound money policy lowered prices for their crops and drove them deeper into debt. The currency supply was raised to target the growing power of monopolies.

The Republican-controlled Congress made a decision in 1873 that only gold, not silver, could be used for coins. The decision was made at a time when silver mines in the western states were increasing production and gold deposits were drying up.

In 1874, several farm organizations across the nation organized the Greenback party to promote the benefits of paper money over gold and silver coins, and they won fifteen seats in Congress. The Greenback party died out in 1889, but the demands for increasing the money supply remained.

The new congressional delegations of the western states wanted the federal government to buy more silver to mint coins.

In the farming communities of the South, on the plains of Kansas and Nebraska, and in the mining towns of the Rockies, there was unrest after the congressional elections. Corn prices had fallen by a third, wheat by half, and cotton by two thirds. Overproduction and growing international competition caused the decline in prices.

Farmers in the South and West have become increasingly indebted to local banks or merchants who lend them money at high interest rates to buy seeds, tools, and other supplies. The farmers were prevented from paying their debts on time because of the income they received as prices for their crops dropped.

Most farmers had no choice but to grow more wheat, cot ton, or corn because the increased supply pushed down prices and incomes. Farmers were hurt by high tariffs on imported goods.

Railroads, which had a monopoly over the shipping of grain and animals, charged high rates to ship agricultural products.

In many states harvests were destroyed because of successive years of dry summers and bitterly cold winters.

The cornerstone of American society is the farmer. Without the food he produces, no man in any occupation can do his job, including the railroad magnate and warehouse owners who try to exploit him.

The hot winds burned up the entire crop, leaving thousands of families whol y destitute and vulnerable to the "money loaners and sharks" charging criminal rates of interest.

Populists won five congressional seats in Kansas in 1890. The Populists and Democrats took control of Congress just as farmers' debts were mounting as crop prices continued to decline.

Oliver H. Kelley was struck by the social isolation of people living on small farms when he was sent on a tour of the South by the Department of Agriculture. The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange, was founded by Political Stalemate and Rural Revolt 1865-1900.

By 1875, the Grange had a membership of 858,000 men and women.

In five Midwest states, Grange chapters persuaded legislatures to pass "Granger laws" establishing state commissions to regulate the prices charged by railroads and grain warehouses. Farmers used the grain elevators to store their harvest before it was sold and shipped. The elevator operators were corrupt. They colluded with their competitors to fix the storage rates. Railroads squeezed the farmers. Railroads were able to charge what they wanted to ship grain, and discriminated in favor of the largest farms, because they had a monopoly on the agricultural community.

In order to address the concerns of grain growers, the Illinois legislature in 1871 established regulations prohibiting railroads from charging different freight rates. The Board of Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners was created by the state.

Similar laws were passed by other states.

Railroad and warehouse owners argued that attempts to regulate them were forms of socialism. Chicago grain elevators lowered their storage fees in response to the court's decision.

The main concern of struggling farmers was the decline in crop prices and the amount of money in circulation. The Farmers' Alliance was formed as a result. The Farmers' Alliances organized social and recreational activities for small farmers and their families while also emphasizing political action and eco nomic cooperation to address the hardship caused by chronic indebtedness, declining crop prices, and droughts.

The Southern Alliance movement swept across the South, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. The white Alliance movement had 1.5 million members by 1890. The Southern Alliance wouldn't allow blacks to join because most black farmers were tenants and not owners.

Many landless farmers supported the Alliances, but the majority of them sold their crops in the marketplace. The Colored Farmers' National Alliance was formed in 1886 by a white minister in Texas. It would claim more than 1 million members by 1890.

In the west states of the Mississippi River, political activism intensified after a series of record storms in the late 19th and early 20th century, which killed most of the cattle and hogs across the northern plains and destroyed millions of acres of corn, wheat, and oats.

The Alliances wanted the federal government to take ownership of the railroads and impose an income tax on wealthy Americans. They formed an economic cooperative to bind together their strength in negotiations with railroads and warehouse operators. Texas farmers were urged to create their own Alliance Exchange to free themselves from dependence on commercial warehouses, grain elevators, and banks. Members of the Alliance Exchange would pool their resources to borrow money from banks and purchase goods and supplies from a new corporation created by the Alliance in Dal. The exchange would build warehouses to hold market members' crops. The loans would be used to buy household goods and agricultural supplies. The Alli ance warehouse provided loans to the farmers so they could sell their crops.

Cash loans can be up to 80 percent of the crops' value. Farmers could store a crop in hopes of getting a better price later.

The sub treasury plan wasnixed by Congress despite the strong support from farmers. The defeat of the Alliance proposal convinced many farm leaders that they needed more political power in order to save the agricultural sector.

The majority of Alliance members were women. A woman from North Carolina enjoyed the opportunities the Alliance provided.

The Alliances called for action to address their concerns. The Independent party was formed in 1890 by farm activists in Colorado and railroad workers in Nebraska.

In the South, the Alliance movement elected four Democrats as governors, forty- four as congressmen, and several as U.S. senators. The most respected of the Southern Alliance leaders was a lawyer from Georgia. After the Civil War, the son of prosperous slaveholders lost everything, so he urged black and white tenant farmers to join forces. He wanted cooperation between black and white farmers to fight the power of the wealthy in the South.

Mary Elizabeth Lease was a fiery speaker for the farm protest movement. Lease, who was born in Pennsylvania to Irish immigrants, failed at farming and moved to Kansas to teach. She was one of the first female attorneys in the state.

During the 1890s, Lease began giving rousing speeches on behalf of struggling farmers.

Eastern financiers were viewed as the enemy by Lease. Wall Street has control of the country.

The eight- hour workday and new laws limiting "undesirable" immigration were endorsed by the Populists for fear that the criminal classes of the world would take Amer icans' jobs. The Populists said that they meet in the midst of a nation that is on the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. The fruits of millions of dollars are taken to build up fortunes for a few.

The Populist party's platform was more exciting than that of the Greenback party's candidate, James B. Weaver. The major parties nominated the same candidates who had run in the past.

Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, and Idaho were all won by Weaver. 37 percent of Alabama's vote went to Weaver, making it the banner Populist state of the South.

While farmers were funneling their discontent into politics, a fundamental weakness in the economy was about to cause a social rebellion. It was the worst depression the nation had ever experienced.

The railroads took many banks with them.

Europeans withdrew funds from America. By the fall of 1893, more than 600 banks had closed and 15,000 businesses had failed, as a quarter of unskilled urban workers lost their jobs.

By 1900, a third of American farmers rented their land instead of owning it, as farm foreclosures soared in the South and West.

The nation's economy had bottomed out by 1894. Unemployment went up to 20 percent after four years of the depression. The rate was close to 35 percent in New York City.

The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 was repealed by President Cleveland in order to return the nation's money supply to a gold standard. Inves tors rushed to exchange their silver for gold.

There was a wave of labor unrest. Some 750,000 workers went on strike in 1894. Coxey's Army was led by "General" Jacob S. Coxey, a wealthy Ohio quarry owner who demanded that the federal government provide the unemployed with meaningful work. Coxey, his wife, and their son, Legal Tender Coxey, rode in a carriage ahead of some 400 protesters who marched hundreds of miles to Washington, D.C., where police arrested Coxey for walking on the grass. The march as wel as the growing strength of Populism struck fear into the hearts of many conservatives.

Populists were portrayed as "tramps" and "hayseed socialists" who would endanger the capitalist system.

Coxey's economic ideology was popular with immigrants.

President Cleveland and the Democrats were blamed for the economic crisis after the 1894 congressio nal elections. The Republicans gained 118 seats in the House. In the solidly Democratic South, the party retained its advantage. The Populists emerged with six senators and seven representatives, and they expected the discontent in rural areas to carry them to national power in 1896. Their hopes were dashed.

The Sherman Silver Purchase Act was repealed by Cleveland. The pro- silver Democrat labeled the president a traitor.

The "free silver" crusade had taken on symbolic significance because it would probably not have provided the benefits its advocates claimed.

The left wing of the "goldbug" nominated William McKinley, a former "silverite" with his running mates on the right.

I would not be able to vote in the election.

One of the great turning points in political history was the Democratic convention. The pro- silver delegates surprised the party leadership and the "goldbugs" by capturing the convention.

The final speech at the Democratic convention was given by William Bryan of Nebraska. When Democrats were swept out of office in 1894, Bryan lost a race for the Senate and was a fiery evangelical moralist.

Bryan was a crusading preacher in the role of a Pop Ulist politician. He claimed in his speech that two ideas about the role of government were competing for the vote of the American voter.

His "cross of the eastern "financial magnates" who gold" speech at the 1896 Democratic had enslaved them by manipulating Convention roused the delegates and secured him the party's presidential the money supply to ensure high inter- nomination.

I am here to defend the cause of liberty and the cause of humanity. Our peti tions have been ridiculed. They have mocked when our calamity came.

Bryan identified himself with Jesus Christ. He shouted "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns" as he moved his fingers across his forehead. He extended his arms out from his sides, as if he were being crucified. His performance was better than he could have imagined. The delegates erupted in applause as he strode triumphantly off the stage.

The Republicans were not amused by Bryan's antics.

Theodore Roosevelt claimed that Bryan was a demagogue with an "unsound mind" who was in favor of mob rule because of the shiftless and disorderly elements of society.

The Democratic party was fractured after Bryan won the presidential nomination on the fifth ballot. Bryan was dismissed as a fanatic and a socialist by those who had supported Grover Cleveland. They walked out of the convention and nominated Senator John M. Palmer of Illinois because they were so angry with him.

The Populists faced an impossible choice when they gathered in St. Louis for their convention. They could name their own candidate and split the pro- silver vote with the Democrats, or they could endorse Bryan and lose their identity. The Democrats were invited to drop their vice- presidential nominee after they chose their own candidate. Bryan refused.

Bryan was like an Evangelist. He was the first major candidate since Andrew Jackson to champion the poor. He was positive for struggling farmers, miners, and union members.

He was the first leader of a major party to call for the expansion of the federal government to help the working class.

Bryan loved campaigning. He traveled 18,000 miles by train to deliver speeches in 26 states.

His crusade was for whites only. Bryan did not challenge the practices of racial segregation and violence against blacks in the solidly Democratic South. Many working class Catholics in northern states were offended by his support for the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

McKinley kept his mouth shut, letting other Republicans speak for him. He knew he couldn't compete with Bryan as a speaker, so he conducted a " front- porch campaign," welcoming some 750,000 supporters who came to his home in Canton, Ohio, during the cam paign. Most of the prepared statements he gave to the press warned middle class voters of the dangers of Bryan's ideas. McKinley's campaign manager portrayed Bryan as a Popo crat, a radical who would ruin the capitalist system and stir up a class war. The Republican party declared that it was "unreservedly for sound money", meaning gold coins.

By appealing to such fears, the Republicans raised huge sums of money to finance an army of speakers who promoted McKinley. It was the most expensive and sophisticated presidential campaign of all time.

Bryan won the most votes of any candidate in history, but McKinley won more votes. The Republicans won the electoral college vote by a wide margin.

Bryan carried most of the West and all of the South but didn't get much support in the North and East. He did not win a state in the critical Midwest. Many Roman Catholic voters were repelled by his evangelical Protestantism.

Farmers in the West and South were more interested in reform than farmers in the Northeast.

Bryan's farm is free of charge. Bryan was the only one of the twenty largest cities to win.

The Democratic party's shift from pro- business conservatism to its eventual twentieth century role as a party of liberal reform was launched by Bryan. The Populist party did not survive. It collected only 50,000 votes in 1900 after winning a million votes in 1896. The struggle for political control of an industrialized urban America culminated in McKinley's victory. The Republicans would rule for sixteen years.

When McKinley was inaugurated, prosperity was back.

The Greenbackers and silverites argued that the nation's money supply had been inadequate during the Gilded Age, and that the inflation of U.S. currency was to blame for the economic recovery.

Congress passed a bill in 1900 affirming that the nation's money supply would be based on gold.

The volcanic turmoil of the 1890s set the stage for the twentieth century's struggles and innovations.

Electric elevators and steel frame construction allowed architects to extend buildings upward, and mass transit allowed the middle class to retreat to suburbs.

Their languages, culture, and religion were not the same as those of native Americans.

The popu larity of Wild West shows and the emergence of spectator sports were caused by the growth of large cities.

Corporations bought political influence. State and local levels were still the focus of political activity. The major parties were so balanced that they didn't want to offend voters.

The professionalization of federal workers began after the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. The Sherman Anti- Trust Act, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the McKinley Tariff Act were passed by the Republicans in 1890.

As the economy grew, the money didn't increase. Many farmers believed that the coinage of silver would result in inflation, which in turn would increase the value of their crops and reduce their debts. The coinage of silver was adopted by William Bryan, who was nominated by the Democratic party. William McKinley supported the gold standard. McKinley appealed to the growing number of city dwellers and industrial workers.

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The United States went through a wave of change in the twentieth century. Americans were excited and scared that the nation was on the threshold of modernity. Old truths and beliefs clashed with new discoveries. People debated the legitimacy of Darwinism, the existence of God, the dangers of jazz, and the federal effort to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages.

William McKin ley was the first president to ride in an automobile, to appear in motion pictures, and to use the telephone to plot political strategy.

The United States emerged from its isolationist shel because of its growing industrial power. Presidents and statesmen used to try to keep America out of the conflicts of European powers. John Adams had warned against the U.S. involvement in Europe.

Statesmen during the 19th century gave only a few exceptions. The U.S. foreign policy was formed because of noninvolvment in foreign wars and nonintervention in the internal affairs of foreign governments. Expanding commercial interests led Amer icans to broaden their global commitments during the 1890s.

The focus of the major European powers was Imperialism, and a growing number of expansionists demanded that the United States join in the hunt for new territories and markets outside of North America. Others thought America should support democratic ideals. The War of 1898 was sparked by mixed motives and resulted in the acquisition of colonies. alliances with European pow ers soon followed.

The Great War in Europe in 1914 posed a challenge to America's tradition of nonintervention. The balance of power in Europe was threatened by a Ger man victory over the French and British. By 1917, it was clear that Germany would triumph over the Western Hemisphere.

In April 1917, the United States entered the Great War, after German subs sank American merchant ships.

Wilson's crusade to transform international affairs in accordance with his idealistic principles removed American foreign policy from its isolationist moorings. It spawned a lengthy debate about the nation's role in world affairs, a debate that World War II would resolve on the side of internationalism.

While the United States was becoming a formidable military power, cities and factories sprouted across the nation's landscape, and an abundance of jobs and affordable farmland attracted millions of foreign immigrants. Labor unrest grew as did ethnic and racial unrest.

Reformers made their first attempt to adapt political and social institutions to the realities of the industrial age in the midst of social turmoil.

The worst excesses of urban development were child labor, corruption, and unsafe working conditions. Local, state, and federal governments sought to rein in industrial capitalism and develop a more rational and efficient public policy during the Progressive Era.

During the 1920s, the new regulatory state was challenged by a conservative Republican resurgence. The stock market crash of 1929 led to the worst economic downturn in history. Demands for federal programs to protect the general welfare were renewed after the Great Depression. The framework for a welfare state that has since served as the basis for public policy was created by many New Deal initiatives and agencies.

It took a second world war to end the Great Depression and restore full employment after the New Deal. The growth of the federal government was accelerated by the need to mobilize the nation to support the war. The development of atomic bombs ushered in a new era of nuclear diplo macy that held the fate of the world in the balance. Americans in 1945 were living with an array of new anxieties.

Prior to becoming a professional artist, Frederic Remington had unsuccessful ventures into hunting, ranching, and even the saloon business in the West. Theodore Roosevelt invited him to travel with the Rough Riders during the Spanish- American War because of his technical skill and sense of observation.

A desire to stay out of conflicts elsewhere in the world dominated American public opinion after the Civil War. The nation's geographic advantages made it possible for the oceans to be to the east and west. The British navy protected the ship ping lanes between the United States and the British Isles, giving Americans a heightened sense of security.

By the end of the 19th century, people realized that America was a world power with responsibilities and ambitions.

A growing number of Americans want officials to acquire territory outside of North America. The United States was "destined" to expand its territory eastward across the continental United States, so it expanded into other regions of the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific and Asia. Americans embraced a new form of expansion that sought distant territories as colonies, with no intention of admitting them to the nation as states. In other words, the new manifest destiny became a justification for imperialism.