Apush Dbq Populism

When populism was first used in the United States in the late 1800s, it was geared towards the farmers. The focus on farmers showed the interest the Populists had toward working class people, who made up the majority of the nation. Even though there were more working class people than wealthy, it was the wealthy business owners who ruled society. They ran political machines and monopolies and did not provide the best working and living conditions for their employees. William Jennings Bryan said, “There are two ideas of government...those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea...if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity

Republicans claimed that their policies of tariffs encouraged “home industry.” This was supposed to secure “the American market for the American producer…” (Reading 7). The Populist platform had a few similarities to the Republican platform. One of which was the concern for foreign control inside the country. They believed land inside the U.S. should be owned by citizens or the government, not by aliens. This was mostly to give the farmers more control and a deal them a better hand, which was what made the ideal different from the

The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890 and abolished monopolies and trusts. Jacob Riis helped to expose the horrid living conditions in the slums through his photographs. This helped move people to work toward better conditions for the masses. Because of efforts like these, significantly better conditions exist in the U.S. now for the masses. For the most part, the Populist idea, “wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery,” (Reading 2) has been followed. American society is not completely there, but there are movements still occurring and politicians still use