Farmers, who remained a majority of the American population through the first decade of the twentieth century, were hit especially hard by industrialization.

By the middle of the 1890s, Populism had exploded in popularity. The first major political force to tap into the vast discomfort of many Americans with the disruptions wrought by industrial capitalism, the Populist Party seemed poised to capture political victory.

In 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Manhattan caught fire. The doors of the factory had been chained shut to prevent employees from taking unauthorized breaks (the managers who held the keys saved themselves, but left over two hundred women behind). A rickety fire ladder on the side of the building collapsed immediately. Women lined the rooftop and windows of the ten-story building and jumped, landing in a “mangled, bloody pulp.”

It welcomed all laborers, including women (the Knights only barred lawyers, bankers, and liquor dealers)

American farmers also lashed out against the inequalities of the Gilded Age and denounced political corruption for enabling economic theft.

The meanest of our log-houses is a dry and comfortable habitation. Lawyer or merchant are the fairest titles

We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself.

we are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida.

The rich and the poor are not so far removed

The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions

Wives and children, who before in vain demanded of him a morsel of bread, now, fat and frolicsome, gladly help their father to clear those fields whence exuberant crops are to arise to feed and to clothe them all; without any part being claimed, either by a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord

The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born.

whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world

I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations.

What then is the American, this new man