The subtitle of this book is “America in the 1890’s”, and Brands does a good job of describing many of the major issues of the decade. And it was a tumultuous ten years. I have read about several of the events from this decade separately, and some events have entire books written about them. That makes this a good book to read for an overview of the entire decade. It’s amazing to realize that several of these events would have been in our ancestors’ newspapers simultaneously. It helps you understand why end of century fears take root. We tend to think of many of these issues by themselves, and it’s hard to imagine what it might have been like for our ancestors to actually live through them.
Some of the major occurrences of the 1890’s covered in the book are the rise of the ultra-rich monopolists, like Rockefeller and Morgan, the plight of the destitute, who lived mostly in slums in larger cities, and the labor unrest that led to unionization and devastating strikes. The first and last items are, of course, somewhat connected. The author also discusses the rise of the Populist movement, and gives the best explanation I have seen of why the US stopped coining the silver dollar, and why the “silverites” wanted us to start coining in silver again.
Two other major themes Brands covers are the rise of Jim Crow, and America’s attempt at imperialism in the Philippines. And there are also numerous other topics and incidents and people that are mentioned throughout the book. The final chapter discusses how many of the issues in the 1890’s continue to color our political landscape today. While we no longer talk about the silver standard, we still have issues with racial injustice, poverty, and labor vs. management balance.
If this was your family, how would you research them? Of course, research in the 1890’s is hampered by the loss of the 1890 census. I did discover, through newspaper research, that my 2nd great-grandfather, who lived in Wichita, Kansas, was a member of the Populist Party. You may not be related to one of the families of oligarchs from the 1890’s, or to families who lived in the slums, but you might have had a union member, or a soldier in the Spanish-American War. If any of your ancestors lived in the US in the 1890’s then they would have been aware of, and possibly impacted, to one degree or another, by all of the events described in this book.