White working class Americans during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries found themselves in a social order that was fundamentally reorganizing itself. The railroads stitched the nation together at the same time as they began to wrench people and communities out of their rural or agrarian ways of life. The abolishment of slavery meant that agriculture needed to be altered within the south, and it drove many Americans to seek out new ways to reassert the racial hierarchies that had so long been the heart of America's social order. Some working class whites looked to new political movements to answer the emerging questions and difficulties of the changing times. Many acted to strengthen the labor movement, but found fierce and violent resistance from businessmen and corporations. Ultimately, it was a difficult and perilous time for the white working class, fraught with numerous failures and some successes. Essentially, the emergence of the industrial age restructured American society in ways that relied upon old class and ethnic divisions but in entirely new ways.
One of the most significant ways in which the western world changed during after the Civil War is associated with transportation. Primarily, this change was brought about by advancements in the refining of steel, and the invention of the steam engine. The consequences for travel and commerce in the United States and Europe were enumerable. Additionally, the social makeup of the land was drastically changed by these forces. In the United States, for example, when the Union Pacific Railroads traversed the thousands of miles of American soil; often, if the railways failed to pass through an existing town, the people moved away; in fact, new towns and cities were often formed by virtue of where the railroads converged. This began another large trend that would continue to this day: the urbanization of the developed world.
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This was made possible by the vast distances that goods and foods could be transported. In other words, cities were able to be supported by larger areas of land because these new modes of transportation could supply people's needs with greater efficiency. The move to the city was also fostered by what came to be known as the Industrial Revolution. This revolution began in cloth factories in England, but soon spread throughout Europe and the Americas, and altered the manner in which many previously home made goods were produced. Businessmen discovered that they could increase production and lower costs by setting up massive plants by which products could be manufactured far more quickly. This generated far more urban jobs, thus contributing greatly to the swelling western cities.
The Populist Movement emerged out of these growing economic concerns, which were acutely felt by white farmers in the post Civil War era. However, the actual form and ideology that the movement generated was not uniformly accepted by all of its proponents. Although the concrete economic woes of the individual farmer were enough motivation for one sect of society to solidify politically, what attracted many other learned people to the Populist cause was a sort of nostalgia summarized by the "agrarian myth." The agrarian myth became the bedrock of the moral backing for the pull away from industrialization and commercialization of agriculture, and towards the traditional, self-sufficient farmer. Generally, the practical backing for the Populist Movement came from the fact that foreign demand for American products increased and this, in turn, built increased competition between individual farmers and, more importantly, between regions. It became essential for eastern farmers to expand their lands far…
