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            [August 26, 2019]     
		 Send a link to a friend 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.
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            |  A photo of the women in Beason, 
			Illinois, who helped feed the army of unemployed marchers that 
			passed through Logan County.
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            |  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.
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			 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.
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			 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.
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			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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