Is Hamlin Garland short story about the farmer a tragedy with no solution? Or is there anything that they could have done, either inside the story or as a political solution to fix what happens to the main character?

Armor plant, Cincinatti.

Union Stock Yards, Chicago

Union Stock Yards, 1883

Meatpacking, Chicago

Grain Elevator

A grain elevator

Smithsonian Institution.

"Greenback" from 1869

Inflation in the consumer price index since 1950

Deflation in the US, 1850-1900

The value of consumer purchases, 1800 to present.

Who benefits from deflation?

Falling Commodity Prices, 1870-1895

The Farmers' Alliance

Mary E Lease.

"Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. The West and South are bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East. Money rules, and our Vice-President is a London banker"

• Mary E Lease

Charles Macune.

Omaha Platform (1892)

• Government Ownership of Railroads, telephone, and telegraph
• Coinage of Silver
• More money in circulation
• Graduated Income Tax
• All land owned by railroads and foreigners returned to the government.
• 8 hour day
• Abolition of Pinkerton company

Populist votes in the 1892 election

The free silver movement is a fake. Free silver is the cow-bird of the reform movement. It waited until the nest had been built by the sacrifices and labor of others, and then it lay its own eggs in it, pushing out the others which lie smashed on the ground. Henry Demarest Lloyd, journalist and reform leader.

The Crisis of the 1890s

1. Attacks on idea of democracy
2. Agricultural recession and drought
3. Labor strikes
4. Continuing deflation
5. Economic "Panic" (recession).

Two panics