Lecture 3 -- Resisting Big Business: Populism, Unions and Late-19th-Century Protest Goals: To answer the following questions:
1) How did industrial workers in American cities in the late 19th century attempt to
improve their wages and working conditions?
2) What was the populist movement? What did populists want and what was the movement’s fate?
To understand the meaning and significance of the following concepts and terms:
1) Knights of Labor
2) Samuel Gompers
3) The American Federation of Labor
4) The Haymarket Affair
5) The Populist Party (a.k.a. The People’s Party)
Outline: I. Introduction
A. Steep Odds: The Huge Gap Between the Rich and the Poor in Late 19th-Century America
II. Banding Together in America’s Cities
A. The Knights of Labor B. Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) C. The Haymarket Affair a. The Decline of the Knights and the Relative Rise of the AFL
III. Banding Together in the Countryside
A. Cooperation and Farmer’s Alliances
B. The Populist Party (a.k.a., The People’s Party) IV. Conclusion
