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Chapter 17 - the panic of 1893
Chapter 17 - the panic of 1893
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Workers grew concerned about their situation as the century progressed, after the Silver Crash of 1893. The Sherman Act of 1890 (SHRM, 2014) obliged the Treasury to buy silver every month at market value. The government had bought almost all the silver from the mines. This also caused the depletion of gold. People presented their issued notes to the government and received gold instead of silver. Workers organized and tried to improve their lot in life. Management and government opposed their efforts. J.P. Morgan had an upper hand here. Morgan purchased the debt of the Treasury for 3.5 million ounces of gold in exchange for $65 million worth of 30-year gold bonds. During this time of panic, J.P. Morgan acted as the Nation’s bank. The unpredicted Silver Crash of June 26, 1893, compelled almost all the mines, mills, and smelters in the State to shut down. There was panic. Real estate fell, banks collapsed, and people lost their jobs. It was hard on everyone. The Panic of 1893 made things bad for the whole country. Some people thought that Colorado experienced harder times in the Silv...
On a stop in Colorado during a business trip to California in 1883, Coin became fascinated with silver and took up a pick to try his hand at mining. Calling his mine “Silver Bell,” Harvey’s mine was the second largest producer in the area; however, due to the increase in transportation costs, increasing labor unrest, and the plummeting market value of silver, Harvey abandoned his mine. From Coin’s mining days, he formed an interest in silver as opposed to gold as the U.S. monetary system standard. In 1891, he became the chairman of the Trans-Mississippi Congress, whose interest was in promoting legislation that would benefit the states west of the Mississippi.
As the economical ups and down took its tolls on the United States it also hit Spoon River hard. With the country going in and...
During the 1930's in Prairie Canada, the Great Depression created harsh conditions and it was a struggle until it ended. The event which triggered the Great Depression was the Stock Market crash of October 24, 1929 in New York. Another important cause was that: Later in the 1930's, the wide adoption of the gold exchange in many countries was widely criticized as a great mistake which greatly contributed to the severity and length of the Great Depression. 1 In Canada, wheat, the most important export, was being over-produced around the world, despite the fact that the 1928 supply of wheat was still available in 1929.
Amity Shlaes tells the story of the Great Depression and the New Deal through the eyes of some of the more influential figures of the period—Roosevelt’s men like Rexford Tugwell, David Lilienthal, Felix Frankfurter, Harold Ickes, and Henry Morgenthau; businessmen and bankers like Wendell Willkie, Samuel Insull, Andrew Mellon, and the Schechter family. What arises from these stories is a New Deal that was hostile to business, very experimental in its policies, and failed in reviving the economy making the depression last longer than it should. The reason for some of the New Deal policies was due to the President’s need to punish businessmen for their alleged role in bringing the stock market crash of October 1929 and therefore, the Great Depression.
Frederick Lewis Allen’s book tells in great detail how the average American would have lived in the 1930’s. He covers everything from fashion to politics and everything in between. He opens with a portrait of American life on September 3, 1929, the day before the first major stock market crash. His telling of the events immediately preceding and following this crash, and the ensuing panic describe a scene which was unimaginable before.
The Panic of 1819, preceded by land speculation, the expansion of state and private banks, easy credit, inflation, and an increase in agricultural exports, was triggered by the tightening of credit, the collapse of the export market, and increased imports.
Because of an economic depression in 1893, the Pullman employee’s wages were cut, and quite a few of them lost their jobs.3 Most were getting paid too little to live on. One lady that was interviewed said “I received [one dollar] day and paid [seventeen dollars seventy one cents] per month rent for one of the companies houses”.1 She needed either higher pay or lower rent in order to have the means to pay for housing. Multiple cases of this were reported when the strike went to court. Another example was when J. B. Pierson, another employee of Pullman was questioned as to the price of the Pullman houses he was quoted as saying that “the Pullman houses averaged from one-third to one-half higher than similar houses in the surrounding suburbs”.1 Pullman...
The 1920s were a time of leisure and carelessness. The Great War had ended in 1918 and everyone was eager to return to some semblance of normalcy. The end of the war and the horrors and atrocities that it resulted in now faced millions of people. Easily obtainable credit and rapidly rising stock prices prompted many to invest, resulting in big payoffs and newfound wealth for many. However, overproduction and inflated stock prices increased by corrupt industrialists culminat...
Many factors played into the bust of the 1980’s. One of these was layoffs. During this economic downturn nearly 48,000 workers were laid off. Frontier airlines went bankrupt in 1986 and shut down. 3,500 workers were laid off. Other companies that laid off workers and closed include Lowry Air Base, Fitzsimons Army Hospital, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, and the Rocky Flats nuclear weapon plant. Real estate prices were over speculated. Another factor was construction. With high immigration into the state, construction companies started over building. Instead of looking back, when the increase in prices was caused by speculation, people were looking forward to continued growth. Oil also played a part. The recession also hit western Colorado because of oil. Shale oil was promising ...
Chicone, S.J. "Respectable Rags: Working-Class Poverty and the 1913-14 Southern Colorado Coal Strike." International Journal of Historical Archaeology. 15.1 (2011): 51-81. Print.
The period in American history between 1900 and 1920 was a very turbulent one. Civil unrest was brewing as a result of many pressures placed upon the working class. Although wealth was accumulating at an astonishing rate in America, most people at the lower economic levels were not benefiting from any of it. Worst of all for them, the federal government seemed to be on the side of the corporations. Their helpless situation and limited options is why the coal strike of 1902 is so important.
Among the many changes during the Gilded Age, large corporations became powerful forces in American society. New technologies in communication and transportation allowed for a national marketplace and fueled industries including the railroad and telegraph grids. The wealth of this expanding industry became increasingly concentrated in the hands of a relative few. Often by gaining a monopoly in their respective markets, these “Robber Barons” amassed wealth and notoriety, making names for themselves that remain recognizable even today like Carnegie, Vanderbilt and Rockefeller. In 1890, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed to combat these large trust-based monopolies as the power of the large corporations invited abuses of government and individuals (America’s Library).
During the 1800’s, business leaders who built their affluence by stealing and bribing public officials to propose laws in their favor were known as “robber barons”. J.P. Morgan, a banker, financed the restructuring of railroads, insurance companies, and banks. In addition, Andrew Carnegie, the steel king, disliked monopolistic trusts. Nonetheless, ruthlessly destroying the businesses and lives of many people merely for personal profit; Carnegie attained a level of dominance and wealth never before seen in American history, but was only able to obtain this through acts that were dishonest and oftentimes, illicit. Document D resentfully emphasizes the alleged capacity of the corrupt industrialists. In the picture illustrated, panic-stricken people pay acknowledgment to the lordly tycoons. Correlating to this political cartoon, in 1900, Carnegie was willing to sell his holdings of his company. During the time Morgan was manufacturing
Grant, Peter. "The Giant J.P. Morgan and The Panic of 1907." The New York Daily News 20 Mar. 1998: 49 "J. P. Morgan". Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribners and Sons, 1934. Vol. 7 "J. P. Morgan". International Directory of Company Histories. Chicago: St. James's Publishing, 1990. Vol. 2
During the 1920s, approximately 20 million Americans took advantage of post-war prosperity by purchasing shares of stock in various securities exchanges. When the stock market crashed in 1929, the fortunes of many investors were lost. In addition, banks lost great sums of money in the Crash because they had invested heavily in the markets. When people feared their banks might not be able to pay back the money that depositors had in their accounts, a “run” on the banking system caused many bank failures. After the crash, public confidence in the market and the economy fell sharply. In response, Congress held hearings to identify the problems and look for solutions; the answer was found in the new SEC. The Commission was established in 1934 to enforce new securities laws that were passed with the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The two new laws stated that “Companies publicly offering securities must tell the public the truth about their businesses, the securities they are selling and the risks involved in the investing.” Secondly, “People who sell and trade securities must treat investors fairly and honestly, putting investors’ interests first.”2