ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Grangers,

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Hermione's biggest fans. Remember?

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Hermione Granger? Harry Potter?

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That guy. Yeah. This image is "Gift for the Grangers."

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Clever linking there.

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[ chuckles ] At Shmoop, nothing outdoes, uh...

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Okay, what political change led the group in the image

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to shift toward the creation of the Populist Party?

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And here are your potential answers.

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Populist... popular kids... the mean girl...

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All right, here we go.

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Well, by the late 1800s, disagreements between state and national

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Grange organizations led to a steep decline in membership.

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So let's see how the Populist Party roped in

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these disparate members and rebranded the movement.

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Was the creation of the Populist Party a result of A -

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the availability of affordable farmland from the government?

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Hmm. Well, the passage of the Homestead Act encouraged

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the formation of groups specifically focused on land development,

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whereas the Populist Party had a much wider set of interests.

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So we can nix A.

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Could the creation of the Populist Party have been a result of C -

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increasing corporate power in agriculture?

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Actually, that was Las Gorras Blancas, which was

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created specifically to fight off the land speculation by

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corporations in the Southwest.

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That clears away C, as well.

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Did the Grangers move toward the creation of the Populist Party

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because of D - the shift toward the gold standard?

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Well, though the Populist Party, founded in the

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early 1890s, was in favor of the silver standard,

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the gold standard wasn't put into law until 1900.

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That's where we based our currency off the value of gold

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instead of silver or vice versa.

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So if we're still a bit early for D, then the Grangers shifted

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toward the Populist Party because of C -

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increasing corporate power in agriculture.

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By the early 1890s, farmers were really struggling

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against the entrenched interests of

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railroads, bankers, and corporations.

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The Populist Party, which was all about defending the little guy,

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picked up on many Grange movement ideas,

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particularly the desire to stop corporate influence in agriculture.

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So C is the correct answer.

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With big business and railroad tycoons dictating how they lived

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their lives, farmers had a pretty, uh, croppy

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time trying to fight back.

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Huh.

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[ groaning ]

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