William Jennings Bryan

• Why was there a reaction against laissez faire?

  • morganisation = took companies that were fighting and brought them together and controlled them, prioritising profits.
  • maximised profits by cutting workers
  • abusive conditions for workers
  • rich vs poor divide kept growing
  • titans became a symbol for everything that was wrong with America
• About William Jennings Bryan

  • politician that personified the negative reactions to big business
  • spoke for the farmers and industrial workers = ‘spokesman for the common man’
  • anti capitalist, anti big business, anti monopoly, anti imperialist, Prohibitionist
  • left wing socialist
  • led the populist party
  • serial loser - three lost time Democrat presidential candidate, each time failed
• Did Bryan provide effective opposition against big business?

  opposed high tariffs, a national leader of the free silver movement - opposing the ‘hard money’ policy

  secured the Democratic nomination Woodrow Wilson in 1912

  believed in African Americans having full rights