Why Was the Transcontinental RR Crooked?

· Was the idea of the “American Dream” used for control as Zinn says? Explain.

· Why was the Transcontinental RR “Crooked?”

· Analyze Zinn’s criticisms of: Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie

· “And so it went, industry after industry—shrewd, efficient businessmen building empires, choking out competition, maintaining high prices, keeping wages low, using government subsidies. These industries were the first beneficiaries of the ‘welfare state.’”—Zinn, 251. What does Zinn mean by this?

· Do you see any similarities to what Zinn is saying and the criticism of the so-called “bailouts” of 2008? See p. 253.

· How does Zinn believe the court rendered the Sherman Antitrust Act useless, through Munn v. Illinois and Wabash v. Illinois?

· How does Zinn believe the masses in poverty were kept in control? Were they really “philanthropists?” According to Zinn, what was the role of schools?

· What are Zinn’s views of women strikers?

· Examples of violence between strikers/owners? What events led up to the Haymarket Square riot? Effects?

· How did the Panic of 1893 make things WORSE? (see p. 272) How did it lead to the Pullman Strike of 1894, and catapult Eugene V. Debs onto the national scene?

· What examples of agrarian rebellion does Zinn explain? How did the farmers become completely dependent upon the banks? (278)

· How did Farmer’s Alliance come to realize currency reform was the main issue? (281) How were the Alliance, and later Populists, contradictory?