Republican Rutherford B. Hayes became president after a special electoral commission settled the disputed election of 1876.
Missing Word
Hayes
Rutherford B. Hayes, a former governor of Ohio, won by a single electoral vote. The informal bargain that put him in office, usually called the Compromise of 1877, is commonly seen as the end of Reconstruction.
Category: Election of 1876
Question 2
Democrat Samuel Tilden, known for prosecuting corrupt officials in New York, won the popular vote in 1876 but lost the presidency.
Missing Word
Tilden
Samuel Tilden fell one electoral vote short of a majority while three Southern states' returns were in dispute. A party-line commission gave those states to his opponent.
Category: Election of 1876
Question 3
Chester Arthur, once a New York customs official tied to the spoils system, surprised critics by signing the Pendleton Civil Service Act as president.
Missing Word
Arthur
Chester Arthur became president when James Garfield died in 1881. Though he had been a loyal ally of the patronage-minded Stalwart Republicans, he signed the Pendleton Act in 1883, which required merit exams for a portion of federal jobs.
Category: Civil Service Reform
Question 4
Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker, assassinated President James Garfield in 1881.
Missing Word
Garfield
James Garfield's death shocked the nation and built support for civil service reform. Congress passed the Pendleton Act two years later.
Category: Civil Service Reform
Question 5
Grover Cleveland, a Democrat who had fought machine politics as governor, won the presidency in 1884 with help from reform-minded Republicans.
Missing Word
Cleveland
Grover Cleveland was the first Democrat elected president since before the Civil War. He lost in 1888 and won again in 1892.
Category: Elections of the 1880s
Question 6
The McKinley Tariff of 1890, passed under President Benjamin Harrison, sharply raised duties on imported goods.
Missing Word
McKinley
The McKinley Tariff was named for Ohio congressman William McKinley, who later became president. Its high rates raised prices for consumers and farmers.
Category: Tariffs and Regulation
Question 7
Using both gold and silver as the basis of the nation's money supply was a policy called bimetallism.
Missing Word
bimetallism
Bimetallism would have increased the amount of money in circulation, which debtors hoped would raise prices and ease their debts. Gold standard supporters opposed it as inflationary.
Category: Money Question
Question 8
A general decline in prices, which made fixed debts harder for farmers to repay, is called deflation.
Missing Word
deflation
Deflation means each dollar buys more, so a farmer selling crops at falling prices must work harder to repay a loan of the same size. This drove farmers' demands for a larger money supply.
Category: Farmers' Movements
Question 9
Charles Macune, leader of the Southern Farmers' Alliance in Texas, promoted the subtreasury plan for federal crop loans.
Missing Word
Macune
Charles Macune built the Southern Alliance into a mass movement and pushed for a national alliance. His subtreasury plan would have let farmers borrow against stored crops.
Category: Farmers' Movements
Question 10
Georgia Populist Tom Watson, who called on poor Black and White farmers to unite, was the party's vice-presidential nominee in 1896.
Missing Word
Watson
Tom Watson ran on the Populist ticket beside William Jennings Bryan in place of the Democrats' own vice-presidential choice. Early in the 1890s he urged poor farmers of both races to join against the planter and business elite, though after the Populist collapse he turned to bitter racism.
Category: Populist Party
Question 11
The People's Party adopted its famous 1892 platform at a national convention held in Omaha, Nebraska.
Missing Word
Omaha
The Omaha Platform blamed bankers, railroads and big business for farmers' hardships. Many of its demands, such as direct election of senators, later became law.
Category: Populist Party
Question 12
A court order forbidding a specific action, such as the order used to halt the 1894 Pullman Strike, is called an injunction.
Missing Word
injunction
An injunction lets a court order people to stop an action, and defying it brings jail time. Employers and the government used injunctions as a powerful weapon against strikes.
Category: Labor Unrest
Question 13
After serving jail time for his role in the Pullman Strike, labor leader Eugene Debs became a leading voice of American socialism.
Missing Word
Debs
Eugene Debs headed the American Railway Union during the strike. He later ran for president several times as a Socialist candidate.
Category: Labor Unrest
Question 14
Former Nebraska congressman William Jennings Bryan won the 1896 Democratic presidential nomination after a stirring speech for silver coinage.
Missing Word
Bryan
William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech made him the champion of farmers and silver. He lost the general election to the Republican candidate.
Category: Election of 1896
Question 15
A gold rush in the Klondike region of Canada's Yukon in the late 1890s increased the gold supply and eased pressure for silver coinage.
Missing Word
Klondike
New gold from the Klondike expanded the money supply without silver, making the gold standard more workable. Along with returning prosperity, it helped end the silver movement.
Category: Election of 1896