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10.4 Worksheet

Farmers Face Economic Difficulty

  1. Analyze Interactions - As you read the text for this lesson, use this graphic organizer to keep track of important ideas. In the first column, note economic problems that farmers faced. In the second column, note causes of the economic problems. In the third column, note actions that farmers took to solve the problems

    Problems Causes Farmers’ Responses
    Farmers received low prices for crops but paid high costs for transportation
    Cotton prices were dropping drastically    		 Farmers went into debt in order to buy new machinery, seed, livestock and other needs Farmers began to mortgage their farms to raise funds and survive

  2. Paraphrase the quotation from the farmers’ newspaper by putting it in your own words. Based on evidence in the text, do you think that the author’s point of view is justified? Explain. Within Nebraska, there are the hard workers/farmers, but they would need to deal with the absurd freight rates as well as interest - all of this money going towards people who don’t get physically exhausted. Taking into account the time that they were in, where regulations were a lot looser - I think the author’s point would be justified as the farmers couldn’t do anything about it, they literally just had to deal with it even if that meant going into more debt, etc.

Farmers Seek Change Through Alliances

  1. Summarize the goals of the Farmer’s Alliance. Did the Alliance achieve those goals? Cite textual evidence to explain why or why not The Farmer’s Alliance wanted railroads to lower freight prices and wanted government regulation of interest for loans. The alliance was somewhat able to achieve these goals, and according to the book, they were able to come together forming sub-treasuries, postal banks, etc. to provide farmers with low interest loans.

The Beginnings of Populism

  1. Vocabulary: Use context clues - Read the first paragraph of “The Beginnings of Populism” What do you think the term grassroots means? What context clues helped you figure out this definition? Grassroots in this case would probably denote the party as basically being non-existent beforehand, the very beginning. Some context clues included the words “new political party”, hinting that it was something new.
  2. Determine Central Ideas - Explain the strategy of the Populist Party. To what groups did it try to appeal and why? The strategy that the Populist Party had was to present solutions to problems. For example, they to remedy low prices with the coinage of silver, combat high costs with government ownership of railroads, etc. They appealed to the people who felt oppressed and demanded change to the structure society had built during that time.

Populism’s Declining Influence

  1. Analyze Style and Rhetoric - Analyze how William Jennings Bryan used language to appeal to populists in his “Cross of Gold” speech. What words, phrases, or expressions do you think would appeal the most to the audience and why? With the phrases “our farms”, “we beg no longer”, Bryan develops a tone of pathos to further emphasize and develop an emotional connection with the audience. Additionally, he uses rhetoric devices such as anaphora to further establish pathos.
  2. Identify Cause and Effect - What factors contributed to the downfall of the Populist Party? Use information from both “The Beginnings of Populism” and “Populism’s Declining Influence” to identify cause and effect Bryan was not able to appeal to urban workers, which probably caused him to lose the elections. Additionally, by endorsing Bryan, it weakened Populists and the local and state level, and they wouldn’t be able to recover from their defeat after that.