The turn of the century saw a rise in labor movements as industry grew largely unregulated.
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William McKinley came to power during a time of economic instability and inequality.
As a congressman in 1890, he authored the highest and most protectionist tariff act in US history.
As president, his views on trade shifted towards a more reciprocal approach.
President Donald Trump has brought a historical figure to the forefront in recent months: William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States.
McKinley, who was president between 1897 and 1901, famously authored the highly protectionist Tariff Act of 1890, later named after him, which imposed over 50% tariffs on many imported goods.
President Trump has name-dropped McKinley multiple times. During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly lauded McKinley's tariff policies, crediting them for making America a "very wealthy country."
"In the 1890s, our country was probably the wealthiest it ever was because it was a system of tariffs," Trump said in a Michigan town hall in September. "We had a president, you know McKinley?"
McKinley's tariff policies, which were rolled out when he was a congressman, had far-reaching impact on the economy, and were ultimately widely unpopular among voters, leading him and other Republican congressmen to lose their seats in the 1890 midterms. Even McKinley himself changed his mind on foreign trade by the time he became president.
"This was protectionist at its height," William K. Bolt, a professor of history at Francis Marion University, told Business Insider of McKinley's original policy. "And there was a significant political backlash against it."
Photos from the late 19th century and early 20th century highlight the economic factors that led to McKinley's tariffs, how they changed day-to-day life for Americans, and what ultimately led to him backtracking on his policies.
By the late 1800s, industry leaders had accumulated exorbitant amounts of wealth.
The 1890s saw extravagant displays of wealth among industry leaders.
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In the latter half of the century, industries like oil, steel, railroads, and manufacturing were growing rapidly in the United States. The Economic History Association estimated that industrial output in the US had reached a value of $9.4 billion by 1890. Nearly five million people were employed by the 350,000 industrial firms operating in the country, and the rapid expansion of business generated unprecedented revenue.
The businessmen who led the expanding manufacturing economy amassed massive amounts of personal wealth, even by today's standards.
The average family's annual income was around $500 (about $18,000 in today's money), according to an 1892 report from the Senate Finance Committee, yet the top 1% of families owned over half of America's wealth. During this era, known as the Gilded Age, the wealthiest families in America, such as the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, formed a new social elite akin to European aristocracy.
The economic disparity became more obvious through the wealthy's over-the-top displays of their riches in social gatherings like the 1897 Bradley-Martin Ball in New York City, where 700 members of the country's elite gathered in a royalty-themed costume party.
Meanwhile, cities were crowded by immigrants, and workers lived in extreme poverty.
A man smoked in his home in the cellar of a New York City tenement house, a common living arrangement by the end of the 19th century.
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On the other side of the wealth divide, workers and immigrants faced harsh living conditions.
The rapid increase in industrialization drew masses to America, and immigration, particularly from countries in eastern and southern Europe, changed the face of the workforce, according to the Library of Congress.
Children, who weren't protected by law from physically challenging labor, had often started contributing to their households by age 10.
In New York City, the population doubled every decade from 1800 to 1880. Tenement housing, where families packed as many people as possible into apartments by using cheap materials to create walls or add floors to existing buildings, quickly dominated parts of the city. These settlements often lacked indoor plumbing or ventilation, leading to a rapid increase in the spread of illnesses. The cramped conditions also led to many fires in major cities.
Jacob Riis' "How The Other Half Lives," a photojournalism book documenting the lives of poor Americans towards the end of the century, exposed the realities faced by millions of people, such as having 12 adults sleeping in 13-feet-wide rooms and child mortality in tenements being as high as one in 10.
Although it was relatively small, a middle class also began to flourish.
During this period, department stores rose in popularity amongst the emerging middle and upper classes.
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An average family spent nearly 60% of their annual income on food and rent, and laborers — including children — often worked six 10-hour days per week.
One report of living standards of the time suggested that an average family's dreams would be fulfilled by owning a home valued around $36,000 in today's money, a Sunday dress and suit, a barrel of flour, 5 tons of coal, and $9,000 in today's money in savings.
The presence of disposable income led to the establishment of department stores and consumerism in the big cities.
For women entering the workforce, retail stores offered a more respectable field of work than the factory work available to them, which was mostly in textile and garment manufacturing. While job opportunities opened for women, their wages remained significantly lower than men's, who were still seen as the breadwinners of the households, according to the Library of Congress.
Postwar tariffs and rapid industrialization led to the federal government running a fiscal surplus.
By 1900, an estimated 15% of the workforce was employed in factories.
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Prior to the adoption of the federal income tax in 1913, tariffs were the federal government's main source of funding.
In an effort to help the economy recover following the Civil War, the government had kept tariffs on foreign goods relatively high compared to pre-war rates, Douglas Irwin, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, wrote for the National Bureau of Economic Research.
However, by the late 1880s, a unique problem had arisen: The federal government was taking in too much money from tariffs, resulting in a budget surplus over 40% higher than its spending.
Both parties agreed to revisit tariff rates in efforts to reduce it, although each side supported a different alternative in what became known as the Great Tariff Debate of 1888.
Ohio representative William McKinley authored the Tariff Act of 1890.
William McKinley supported high tariffs on imports to protect the growing domestic industry.
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Born in 1843 in Niles, Ohio, William McKinley was working as a school teacher when the Civil War broke out in 1861. He enlisted in the Union Army and quickly climbed the ranks. After the war, he attended Albany Law School in New York and began his political career shortly after, being elected to the House of Representatives in 1876.
By 1890, he had risen within the congressional chamber and became chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, overseeing taxation and tariffs.
Authored by McKinley and later named after him, the Tariff Act of 1890 raised protective tariffs of over 1,500 products by almost 50%.
The tariff imposed duties on items like tinplate and wool while eliminating tariffs on sugar, molasses, tea, and coffee. The goal of the act was to "make the duty on foreign-tinplate high enough to insure its manufacture in this country," McKinley said in 1890.
It also protected American workers' wages from competition from cheaper labor abroad.
Tariffs on goods like wool and steel affected industries differently.
The spread of motorized machinery changed the makeup of American labor in the 1800s.
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While miners and farmers of crops like corn, wheat, and potatoes benefited from the stimulus to American production and the rise in foreign competitors' prices, some manufacturing was hurt by the price hikes in raw materials.
The tariffs affected consumer products like shoes, clothes, and canned goods, as well as some other 1,500 products, ranging from chemicals and metals to dairy products and grains, to varying degrees.
Ultimately, it was everyday people who ended up paying the price for the tariffs, Bolt said.
"Consumers had to pay a higher price for the manufactured good they wanted," Bolt said. "So there was in fact a political backlash against the McKinley tariff."
The spike in prices was not well-received by American consumers.
Economic unrest, rising prices, and unfair labor conditions led workers to turn against vendors and employers.
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Following the adoption of the Tariff Act, McKinley's Republican Party lost control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1890, and the Ohio representative himself was ousted as the party lost 93 seats in the House of Representatives.
Over the next two years, as voters continued to feel the impacts of the measure and other economic instabilities, the party also lost the presidential election and both chambers of Congress in 1892.
Across the country, economic unrest as prices rose turned workers against vendors and employers, leading to a rise in the labor movement.
Strikes erupted as growing industrialization stirred labor tensions.
The Pullman Strike set the stage for the rise in popularity of progressive politics.
Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images
As industries expanded, workers began to unite against industry barons to demand fair work conditions.
An 1892 strike demanding improvements in working conditions turned deadly after Carnegie Steel-hired security forces exchanged gunfire with the worker coalition.
Across the country, labor movements gained momentum, with the rising hostility between industry leaders and workers ending in fatal incidents.
In 1894, the Pullman Strike, after which Labor Day was established, led to dozens of deaths and millions of dollars in damages, pushing then-President Grover Cleveland to legitimize the labor movement by declaring the national holiday.
The economy reached a tipping point during the Panic of 1893.
The panic was exacerbated by rising unemployment and economic instability.
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By 1893, the economy had contracted significantly. Production rates were far exceeding domestic consumption, leading companies to slow down production and lay off workers.
The rise in unemployment (which reached 17% by the winter and surpassed 10% for the next half of the decade), along with government spending on Civil War pensions, were some of the factors that contributed to the panic.
Following the panic, the Democrats reduced some of McKinley's tariffs with the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894. Tariffs on some items — including iron ore, lumber, and wool — were nixed entirely, angering US producers of those products.
Following the economic troubles, voters blamed President Grover Cleveland and his Democratic party, which didn't regain power in any branch of government until 1910.
After running as a "tariff man standing on a tariff platform," McKinley won the presidential election in 1896.
President McKinley promised high tariffs during his presidential campaign, but later changed his mind on foreign trade.
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Shortly after ending his term as governor of Ohio, serving from 1892 to 1896, McKinley ran for president on a protectionist platform that aimed to benefit American industries while discouraging trade with foreign nations.
"Free trade gives to the foreign producer equal privileges with us," McKinley proclaimed in an 1892 speech. "It destroys our factories or reduces our labor to the level of theirs."
McKinley's tariff plans heavily targeted the import of goods like tinplate, wool, yarn, steel, and sugar in an effort to encourage domestic manufacturing.
With domestic manufacturing at a high, US companies looked to export goods, but tariffs hindered some of their efforts.
A need for exportation pressured the government into facilitating trade with other nations.
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With domestic industries continuing to grow thanks to widespread industrialization and an increase in goods production, American manufacturers saw a need for exports to an international market.
However, America's tariffs on foreign imports led other nations to increase their duties on American products, limiting the domestic industries' role in foreign trade and hurting the economy as a surplus of production failed to bring in more revenue for manufacturers.
Once elected president, McKinley changed his mind on tariffs, supporting a reciprocal approach.
Looser tariffs allowed for increased trade of American and foreign products on a global stage.
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Once in the White House, President McKinley's approach to tariffs turned to a reciprocal view that would help export American products and stimulate trade rather than penalize it.
Staying true to his election promise of high tariffs, McKinley supported the Dingley Tariff Act, which raised previously lowered tariffs back to an average of 49% on imported goods, according to Lewis L. Gould, a professor of American history at the University of Texas. However, the act also granted the president the power to negotiate tariff reductions up to 20% or add products to a tariff "free-list."
Using the tariffs as a negotiating tool with foreign markets, McKinley encouraged nations to lower their tariffs on American goods to allow for more exports.
Big business grew bigger during his administration.
Industry leaders like JP Morgan grew more influential in politics through campaign donations.
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Major donations from executives from firms like JP Morgan and Standard Oil ensured that the McKinley presidency remained friendly to business interests.
McKinley was also in office for part of the Great Merger wave of 1895-1904, in which companies consolidated into larger firms, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Between 1895 and 1904, the average number of firms disappearing to mergers each year was 301; in 1899 alone, as merger activity peaked, this number rose to 1,028, per the NBER.
While the Sherman Antitrust Act — a federal law prohibiting businesses from engaging in unfair practices that restrain competition — was passed in 1890, it is understood that the McKinley administration failed to strictly enforce the law to prevent large firms from consolidating into even larger monopolies during this period.
Meanwhile, in factories and mills, child labor rose as low-income families sought out additional income.
Children often worked in coal mines, factories, and mills.
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According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, one out of every eight children was employed by 1870. By 1900, the rate had risen to one in every five, with almost two million kids aged 10 to 15 working full-time jobs.
In rural areas, young boys (some even younger than 14) often worked at coal mines, breaking up coal with their bare hands or performing farm labor. In cities, many earned an income through newspaper delivery. In towns, both boys and girls often worked at mills or factories.
Labor movements gained momentum.
Strikes became more common as workers started unionizing and demanding better conditions and wages.
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The unregulated growth of large firms led to more workers getting involved with the labor movement. Between 1897 and 1904, union membership increased from less than 500,000 to over two million workers, according to the US Department of Labor.
Workers united to demand fair working conditions, like improved facilities and hours. At the time, the norm for a worker was to work over 10 hours a day in places like factories or mills that exposed them to dangerous chemicals and conditions.
As the labor movement gained support, tensions between workers and businesses grew more hostile. One 1897 encounter between coal miners and local authorities, which later became known as the Lattimer Massacre, resulted in the death of 19 strikers.
McKinley's administration oversaw the start and end of the Spanish-American war.
Images of the wreckage of the USS Maine made the Spanish-American war popular.
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Sent to Havana Harbor during the Cuban War of Independence against the Spanish, the USS Maine and its accidental explosion set the stage for America's declaration of war with Spain.
Unverified reports of a Spanish attack on the ship alarmed Americans and quickly built support for the war, which Americans saw as a just cause for Cuban freedom.
On the night after the explosion alone, the Army received over 100,000 volunteers.
The Spanish-American war was perhaps the most significant development of the McKinley administration, and might've contributed to the president's shift in tone regarding foreign trade towards the end of his presidency.
McKinley's presidency ushered in a new era of American imperialism.
America's success in the war secured the nation's political and economic dominance in the hemisphere.
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The Spanish-American war greatly expanded America's reach in the hemisphere and beyond.
The 16-week war and low casualties on the American front helped raise the national spirit following the economic and political instability of the past century.
By absorbing Spain's colonial territories in the Caribbean, the United States became its own imperial power, and an era of imperialism and global prevalence quickly followed.
After the war, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
The annexation of Hawaii increased America's influence in the Pacific and opened trade opportunities.
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America's victory in the Spanish-American War and the subsequent annexation of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam ended America's isolationist approach of the 19th century in favor of a globalist view, which was then reflected in the domestic politics adopted by McKinley's leadership.
Victory in the war effectively turned a page in American politics as the country was now emboldened by its newly found global power.
McKinley announced the end of his protectionist tariff measures at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition.
At the Pan-American Exposition, McKinley announced a change of course in regards to foreign trade.
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In a drastic change in views since his Congress days, McKinley openly discouraged the protectionist economy in favor of reciprocal tariffs, saying that "a policy of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals."
His speech at the Pan-American Exposition signaled a shift in the Republican Party's views of trade following the war, and opened the door for an expansionist economy.
One day after the convention, McKinley was fatally shot.
McKinley's assassination marked a turning point in American politics with the ascension of Theodore Roosevelt.
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While attending the event, the president was shot by Leon Czolgosz, a Polish-American laborer and anarchist. He died from the wounds eight days later, on September 14, 1901.
Despite the economic turmoil of the previous decade, McKinley was widely mourned by the country.
"It's a great "what-if" in American politics," Bolt said. "If McKinley wasn't assassinated, [would] we [have started] to move towards free trade a lot earlier than we did?"
The social instability of the turn-of-the-century economy set the stage for the Progressive Era.
President Roosevelt ushered in an era of economic and social reform.
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Following McKinley's death, his successor, President Theodore Roosevelt, and subsequent Progressive politics brought upon changes that alleviated the social and economic tensions of the Gilded Age.
Power shifted from the barons and reforms in labor, trust busting, tax policies, and civil rights changed the landscape of American life.
While McKinley's presidency is often overshadowed by his successor's, he had a significant impact on setting the stage for a new age in the domestic economy, both through his protectionist tariffs and his undoing of them.
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