Chapter 17 identifiers

Farmers' Alliance

A rural movement founded in Texas during the depression of the 1870s that spread across the plains states and the South. The Farmers' Alliance advocated cooperative stores and exchanges that would circumvent middlemen, and it called for greater government aid to farmers and stricter regulation of railroads. The National Alliance focused on the deepening crisis in farm prices in the 1880s resulted in the blending of a host of organizations into the National Alliance Movement. The movement had distinct branches in the South and Midwest. The Ocala Platform demanded, among other things, the abolition of national banks, a graduated income tax, free and unlimited coinage of silver, the establishment of sub treasuries where farmers could obtain money at less than 2 percent on nonperishable products, and the election of U.S. senators by a direct vote of the people.

Crop Lien System

A way for farmers to get credit. After the crops were harvested, farmers would use it to pay back their loan. To protect the creditor, the storekeeper took a mortgage, or lien, on the tenant's share of the crop. To finance the sharecropping system, southerners turned to the crop lien system. Landowners and sharecroppers borrowed (at high interest rates) against the future harvest. Lenders insisted that they produce cash crops like cotton. The system made landowners and sharecroppers dependent on local merchants, and it prevented the development of diversified farming in the South. This is different from sharecropping.

Frederick Jackson Turner/

American historian in the early 20th century best known for his essay *"The Significance of the Frontier in American History"* in which he argued that the spirit and success of the United States was directly tied to the country's westward expansion. The Frontier Thesis or Turner Thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that American democracy was formed by the American frontier. He stressed the process—the moving frontier line—and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process.

New South

Even before Reconstruction ended in 1877, some southerners promoted a new vision for a self-sufficient southern economy built on modern capitalist values, industrial growth, and improved transportation. Chief among them was Henry Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution. Grady spread the gospel of the New South with editorials that argued for economic diversity and laissez-faire capitalism. Local governments helped spur growth by offering tax exemptions to attract investors to start new industries. Cheap (low-wage) labor was another incentive for businesses to locate in the New South

commercial farming

Northern and western farmers of the late 19th century concentrated on raising single cash crops (such as corn or wheat in order to become more specialized) for both national and international markets. Commercial farms are very large and rely on machinery and fertilizers to grow vast amounts of food such as this bumper crop of corn being harvested in Ukraine.

National Grange Movement/cooperatives/granger laws

Organized by Oliver H. Kelley primarily as a social and educational organization for farmers and their families. By the 1870s however, the Grange organized economic ventures and took political action to defend members against the middlemen, trusts, and railroads. Cooperatives or co-ops were HMOs that are managed by the members of the health plan or insurance purchasing arrangements in which businesses or other groups join together to gain the buying power of large employers or groups. Granger Laws were a series of laws passed in several midwestern states of the United States, namely Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois, in the late 1860s and early 1870s. The Granger Laws were promoted primarily by a group of farmers known as The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry.

Assimilationists/Dawes Sevaralty Act/Ghost Dance Movement

Reformers advocated formal education, job training, and conversion to Christianity. They set up boarding schools such as the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania to segregate Native American children from their people and teach them white culture and farming and industrial skills. Dawes Sevaralty Act was designed to reform what well-meaning but ignorant whites perceived to be the weaknesses of Indian life-- the lack of private property, the absence of a Christian based religion, the nomadic traditions of the Indians, and the general instability in their way of life -- by turning Indians into farmers. The main point of the law was to emphasize treating Indians as individuals as opposed to members in a tribe. The Ghost Dance Movement was a religion of the late 1880s and early 1890s that combined elements of Christianity and traditional Native American religion. It fostered Plains Indians' hope that they could, through sacred dances, resurrect the great bison herds and call up a storm to drive whites back across the Atlantic.

Indian Wars

The American Indian Wars, or Indian Wars, were the multiple armed conflicts between European governments and colonists, and later American settlers or the United States government, and the native peoples of North America. Ranged from colonial times to the Wounded Knee massacre and "closing" of the American frontier in 1890, generally resulted in the conquest of American Indians and their assimilation or forced relocation to Indian reservations

Interstate Commerce Act

The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 is a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates.

Jim Crow Laws

These were racial segregation state and local laws enacted after the Reconstruction period in Southern United States that continued in force until 1965 mandating de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern U.S. states, starting in 1890 with a "separate but equal" status for African Americans. The Grandfather Clause was a regulation established in many southern states in the 1890s that exempted from voting requirements (such as literacy tests and poll taxes) anyone who could prove that their ancestors ("grandfathers") had been able to vote in 1860. Since slaves could not vote before the Civil War, these clauses guaranteed the right to vote to many whites while denying it to blacks. Poll taxes and literacy tests came into play after the passage of the 15th Amendment MS established several methods that would prevent African-Americans from voting. These two methods required voters to pay a tax prior to voting, prove they were able to read in order to vote.

Plessy v. Ferguson

Was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896. It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal".