All told, from 1872 through 1892, Gilded Age politics were little more than political showmanship. In the years following the Civil War, American politics were disjointed, corrupt, and, at the federal level, largely ineffective in terms of addressing the challenges that Americans faced.

Local and regional politics, and the bosses who ran the political machines, dominated through systematic graft and bribery. Americans around the country recognized that solutions to the mounting problems they faced would not come from Washington, DC, but from their local political leaders.

Gilded Age — the period in American history during which materialism, a quest for personal gain, and corruption dominated both politics and society. bloody shirt campaign — the strategy of Republican candidates to stress the sacrifices that the nation had to endure in its Civil War against Democratic southern secessionists. Coxey’s Army — an 1894 protest, led by businessman Jacob Coxey, to advocate for public works jobs for the unemployed by marching on Washington, DC. Farmers’ Alliance — a national conglomeration of different regional farmers’ alliances that joined together in 1890 with the goal of furthering farmers’ concerns in politics.