Gary Freese shares the story of Coxey's Army
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[August 23, 2019]     Send a link to a friend  Share

Pictures by Curtis Fox


Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society researcher Gary Freese presented the program on Coxey’s Army, a unique part of 19th Century America that changed how the federal government treated the populace.

 

A photo of the women in Beason, Illinois, who helped feed the army of unemployed marchers that passed through Logan County.
 

Jacob Coxey of Massillon, Ohio, the businessman who started the march of the unemployed to Washington D.C. to ask the government for help during the devastating depression of the 1890’s.
 


The route taken by Jacob Coxey’s Army with Massillon on the upper left, and Washington D.C. on the lower right. It was a long march during which most of the bedraggled participants dropped out.

 


Many armies of unemployed started from all over the country heading to D.C. to let the U.S. government know of their hardships during the depression of the 1890’s. They walked, stole away on trains, and built rafts to float down rivers in their quest to make it to the nation’s capitol.

 

 

The opulent Chicago World’s Fair of the 1890’s went on amid the devastation of the depression with thousands of unemployed from failed railroads, banks, and farms. Strikes were held to protest the terrible treatment by companies that made their millions on the backs of the working poor, including Chicago’s Pullman Railroad Car Company.

 

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