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Questions For Class Discussion

Questions For Class Discussion
Chapter 23: Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age, 1869 - 1896

  1. Why did politics in the Gilded Age seemingly sink to such a low level? Did the Gilded Age party system have any strengths to compensate for its weaknesses?

  2. Was the Compromise of 1877 another cynical political deal of the era or a wise adjustment to avoid a renewal of serious sectional conflict?

  3. What were the short-term and long-term results of the Jim Crow system in the South? Why was the sharecropping system so hard to overcome? Were blacks worse off or better off after the Civil War?

  4. Why was the political system so slow to respond to the economic grievances of farmers and workers, especially during the hard economic times of the 1890s? Were the Populists and others more effectively addressing the real problems that America faced, or was their approach fatally crippled by their nostalgia for a simpler, rural America?
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