Chapter 24 of A Concise History of the American Republic
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| 667097650 | Homestead Act | Under the Homestead Act of 1862 any citizen, except one who had served in the Confederate Army, could obtain 160 acres on the public domain by living on it or cultivating it for five years. | 0 | |
| 667097651 | Mechanization of agriculture | The application of machinery to agriculture lagged fully a century behind the application of machinery to industry. Mechanization of agriculture began in the 1930s and 40s, when Obed Hussey and Cyrus McCormick experimented with a reaper, A.D. Church and George Westinghouse with a thresher, and John Deere with a chilled plow. Agricultural machinery, however, remained relatively unimportant before 1860. The Civil War, robbing farms of their laborers and raising grain prices, induced farmers to adopt machines such as the reaper, which enabled a woman or a boy to perform the work of several men. | 1 | |
| 667097652 | Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862 | The Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862 not only had a great impact on education but was the most important piece of agricultural legislation in American history. This far-sighted law, which provided for the appropriation of public land to each state for the establishment of agricultural and industrial colleges, discriminated heavily in favor of the more populous states of the East - where farming was of less importance - and against the agricultural states of the West. New York States got almost a million acres of Western lands, while Kansas, which depended entirely on agriculture, got 90,000 acres. | 2 | |
| 667097653 | crop-lien system | The crop-lien system is a credit system that became widely used by farmers in the United States in the South from the 1860s to the 1920s. Under this system the farmer mortgaged his ungrown crop in order to obtain supplies. Rates of interest were usurious, and the merchant who supplied food, clothing, see, and other necessities customarily charged from 20 to 50 percent above the normal price. | 3 | |
| 667097654 | Patrons of Husbandry | The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry (also known as the Grange), organized in 1867, was led by Oliver H. Kelley. Kelley's first objective was to enhance the lives of isolated farmers through social, educational, and fraternal activities. | 4 | |
| 667097655 | Populism | Populism was a farm-based movement of the late 1800s. It arose mainly in the area from Texas to the Dakotas and grew into a joint effort between farmer and labor groups against big business and machine-based politics. The movement became a third party in the election of 1892. | 5 | |
| 667097656 | silver backed money | Grover Cleveland was inaugurated President on March 4, 1893, and promptly confronted the money question. Investor classes entertained the classical bullion theory, which held that the value of money was determined by the bullion which was held as security for its redemption. It required that all money in circulation have behind in some substantial metallic value (gold or silver), and that government confine itself in the treasury vaults, either directly or indirectly through banks. | 6 | |
| 667097657 | Panic of 1893 | The Cleveland administration was just two months old when it was struck by the panic of 1983. The agricultural depression which began in 1887 had seriously curtailed the purchasing power of one large group consumers, and had similarly affected railway income. The Government's silver policy impaired business confidence and persuaded European creditors to dump American securities on the market and drain the nation of its gold. By midsummer of 1893 the panic was in full swing. The Reading Railroad had failed in the spring. In July came the failure of the Eric, and soon the Northern Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the Santa Fe were in the hands of receivers. | 7 | |
| 667097658 | Presidential Election of 1896 | The 1896 campaign is often considered to be the reason of the collapse of the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System. Although in it William Jennings Bryan and received more votes than had ever before been cast for a presidential candidate, McKinley won a big edge in the Electoral College. | 8 | |
| 667097659 | Bryan's Cross of Gold speech | Bryan's Cross of Gold speech in 1896 stated the Populist position against gold standard which favored business and bankers. Byran ran for president as Democrat but lost, and Populism lost power. | 9 |
