Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Aaron A. Toscano, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Charlotte Debate
    • Fall 2025 & Spring 2026 Tournaments
    • Fall 2025 Practice Resolutions
  • Conference Presentations
    • Critical Theory/MRG 2023 Presentation
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS 2024 Presentation
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SAMLA 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • SEACS 2024 Presentation
    • SEACS 2025 Presentation
    • SEWSA 2021 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • Engaging with American Democracy
    • August 19th: Introduction to Class
    • August 21st: The Declaration of Independence
      • Drafting the Declaration of Independence
    • August 26th: Attention on the Second Continental Congress
      • Abigail Adams to John Adams
      • The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence
    • August 28th: “What is an American?”
      • de Crèvecoeur’s “What is an American?”
    • October 14th: Uncle Tom’s Cabin excerpt
    • October 16th: Revolutions, Civil War, Stability
    • October 21st: Civil War Stuff
    • October 23rd: Cross of Gold
    • October 2nd: Federalist Paper #78
    • September 16th: The Pursuit of Happiness
    • September 18th: The Bill of Rights
    • September 23rd: Key Amendments
    • September 25th: Federalist Paper #10
    • September 2nd: The Constitution of the United States
    • September 30th: Federalist Paper #51
    • September 4th: Alexis de Tocqueville
    • September 9th: Washington’s Farewell Address (1796)
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • April 10th: Analyzing Ethics
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • April 12th: Writing Ethically
    • April 17th: Ethics Continued
    • April 19th: More on Ethics in Writing and Professional Contexts
    • April 24th: Mastering Oral Presentations
    • April 3rd: Research Fun
    • April 5th: More Research Fun
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Research
    • February 13th: Introduction to User Design
    • February 15th: Instructions for Users
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 20th: The Rhetoric of Technology
    • February 22nd: Social Constructions of Technology
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
    • March 13th: Introduction to Information Design
    • March 15th: More on Information Design
    • March 20th: Reporting Technical Information
    • March 27th: The Great I, Robot Analysis
    • May 1st: Final Portfolio Requirements
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 23rd: Introduction to the Class
    • August 30th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • December 6th: Words and Word Classes
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2023)
    • November 15th: Cohesive Rhythm
    • November 1st: Stylistic Variations
    • November 29th: Voice and Other Nebulous Writing Terms
      • Rhetoric of Fear (prose example)
    • November 8th: Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation
    • October 11th: Choosing Adjectivals
    • October 18th: Choosing Nominals
    • October 4th: Form and Function
    • September 13th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 27th: Coordination and Subordination
      • Parallelism
    • September 6th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275/WRDS 4011: “Rhetoric of Technology”
    • April 23rd: Presentation Discussion
    • April 2nd: Artificial Intelligence Discussion, machine (super)learning
    • April 4th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • April 9th: Tom Wheeler’s The History of Our Future (Part I)
    • February 13th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 15th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 1st: Technology and Postmodernism
    • February 20th: Technology and Gender
    • February 22nd: Technology, Expediency, Racism
    • February 27th: Writing Workshop, etc.
    • February 6th: The Religion of Technology (Part 1 of 3)
    • February 8th: Religion of Technology (Part 2 of 3)
    • January 11th: Introduction to the Course
    • January 16th: Isaac Asimov’s “Cult of Ignorance”
    • January 18th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 23rd: Technology and Democracy
    • January 25th: The Politics of Technology
    • January 30th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • Major Assignments for Rhetoric of Technology
    • March 12th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 3
    • March 14th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 3
    • March 19th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 3 of 3
    • March 21st: Writing and Reflecting: Research and Synthesizing
    • March 26th: Artificial Intelligence and Risk
    • March 28th: Artificial Intelligence Book Reviews
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 11th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 18th: Feminisms, Rhetorics, Herstories
    • April 25th:  Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • April 4th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • February 15th: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • February 29th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • February 8th: Isocrates
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 1
    • March 14th: Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
    • March 21st: Feminist Rhetoric(s)
    • March 28th: Knoblauch’s Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • April 11th: McCarthyism Part 1
    • April 18th: McCarthyism Part 2
    • April 25th: The Satanic Panic
    • April 4th: Suspense/Horror/Fear in Film
    • February 14th: Fascism and Other Valentine’s Day Atrocities
    • February 21st: Fascism Part 2
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
    • March 28th: Nineteen Eighty-Four
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
    • May 2nd: The Satanic Panic Part II
      • Rhetoric of Fear and Job Losses
  • Intercultural Communication on the Amalfi Coast
    • Pedagogical Theory for Study Abroad
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology
    • August 19: Introduction to the Course
    • August 21: More Introduction
    • August 26th: Consider Media-ted Arguments
    • August 28th: Media & American Culture
    • November 13th: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 3
    • November 18th: Feminism’s Non-Monolithic Nature
    • November 20th: Compulsory Heterosexuality
    • November 25th: Presentation Discussion
    • November 4: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 1
    • November 6: Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Part 2
    • October 16th: No Class Meeting
    • October 21: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 1
    • October 23: Misunderstanding the Internet, Part 2
    • October 28: The Internet, Part 3
    • October 2nd: Hauntology
    • October 30th: Social Construction of Sexuality
    • October 7:  Myth in American Culture
    • September 11: Critical Theory
    • September 16th: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • September 18th: Postmodernism, Part 1
    • September 23rd: Postmodernism, Part 2
    • September 25th: Postmodernism, Part 3
    • September 30th: Capitalist Realism
    • September 4th: The Medium is the Message!
    • September 9: The Public Sphere
  • Science Fiction and American Culture
    • April 10th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts III and IV)
    • April 15th: The Dispossessed (Part I)
    • April 17th: The Dispossessed (Part II)
    • April 1st: Interstellar (2014)
    • April 22nd: In/Human Beauty
    • April 24: Witch Hunt Politics (Part I)
    • April 29th: Witch Hunt Politics (Part II)
    • April 3rd: Catch Up and Start Octavia Butler
    • April 8th: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Parts I and II)
    • February 11: William Gibson, Part II
    • February 18: Use Your Illusion I
    • February 20: Use Your Illusion II
    • February 25th: Firefly and Black Mirror
    • February 4th: Writing Discussion: Ideas & Arguments
    • February 6th: William Gibson, Part I
    • January 14th: Introduction to to “Science Fiction and American Culture”
    • January 16th: More Introduction
    • January 21st: Robots and Zombies
    • January 23rd: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • January 28th: American Studies Introduction
    • January 30th: World’s Beyond
    • March 11th: All Systems Red
    • March 13th: Zone One (Part 1)
      • Zone One “Friday”
    • March 18th: Zone One, “Saturday”
    • March 20th: Zone One, “Sunday”
    • March 25th: Synthesizing Sources; Writing Gooder
      • Writing Discussion–Outlines
    • March 27th: Inception (2010)
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • How to Make an Argument with Sources
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Judith Butler, an Introduction to Gender/Sexuality Studies
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Logical Fallacies
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
Engaging with American Democracy » October 23rd: Cross of Gold

October 23rd: Cross of Gold

Harriet Beech Stowe’s excerpt (Ch. 9)
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Gettysburg Address

“Cross of Gold Speech”

Announcements

  • Inside Washington Seminar
  • Discussion Post #7 due Friday, 10/17, 11:07pm

Plan for the Day

  • Inspiration from the Braver Angels Dialogue on AI advancing society
    • Social Construction of Technology
    • Protections around technology
      • Ethics Boards for using the tool
      • NATO-like group to police “good” use of AI
      • Industry limiting use of AI (mainly for children)
    • Other “dangerous” technologies we freely use
    • Replication of power structures…who actually controls nuclear proliferation?
  • Was the American Revolution really the beginning of the Civil War?
  • Causes of the American Civil War
    • Director Ken Burns says the American Revolution was a “civil war” that became a “world war”
  • Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “In Which it Appears that a Senator is but a Man” from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
  • The Emancipation Proclamation
  • The Gettysburg Address
  • William Jennings Bryan’s The Cross of Gold Speech
  • Democracy/Liberty/Freedom/ETC. quotation:
    “The ‘wealthification’ of politics has become a major problem in U.S. democracy, due, in part, to weakened campaign finance laws, allowing the ultra-rich to exert outsized influence on elections through massive, often undisclosed contributions.”
    –Darrell M. West and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, 10 April 2025. [Podcast]

Does more money mean more influence? Haven’t there been plenty of times in American history where people had more influence than others?

Civil War Readings (from Tuesday)

Let’s jump on back to Tuesday’s (10/21) class webpage to finish up the Civil War readings.

A History of Money

Well, a history of money is well outside the scope of this course, but I do want to get you thinking about money before discussing William Jennings Bryan’s “The Cross of Gold” speech.

  • What exactly is money?
  • What makes money valuable (or not valuable)?
  • Who/What determines value?

Here are some important types of money and their definitions:

  • bartering: directly exchanging goods and services for other goods and services
    • This house costs ten (10) steers, twenty-five (25) chickens, and your digging irrigation ditches for my crops.
  • commodity money: coins that have a medium of exchange like precious metals in them, usually gold or silver.
  • representative money: currency backed by a precious metal (US Gold Standard until 1971) that has a face value that can be exchanged for a commodity.
  • fiat money: is currency back by the authority of a governing body.
    • This is USD, EURO, Pound Sterling, etc.

Free Silver vs the Gold Standard

During the 1890s, there was a depression known as The Panic of 1893 and The Panic of 1896. This actually has roots in the Civil War and post-Civil War policies. War costs money, and the US government needed to raise money. It had a lower tax base because of Southern Sucession. Before the Civil War, gold and silver coins (commodity money) were used as official currency.

In order to raise money, the United States issued Greenbacks (fiat money), which could eventually be exchanged for gold or silver. The value of Greenbacks fluctuated with how well the North was doing in the Civil War: when things looked bad, their value fell; when things looked good the value rose. At the end of the war, Greenbacks increased in value, but their exchange rate didn’t match the value of gold until 1878, and then they could be exchanged for gold. This stablization was helped by The Resumption Act of 1875, which restored the gold standard.

Today, we don’t like inflation: when prices go up, we have less buying power. Putting the US back on the gold standard deflated currency, which hurt those paying off debt. If you have a $10,000 loan and inflation goes up, essentially your loan drops because your currency can pay off more of the debt. If currency deflates, your currency is worth less, but your loan amount stays the same. Consider what the phrase “money is cheap (or expensive) now” means.

In the 1890s, deflation was hurting farmers and workers, spurring a populist party (The People’s Party) to form, and one of it’s main platforms was free silver, which meant the unlimited coinage of silver. Silver was to have a direct exchange rate to gold, but this meant the money supply would increase, thus, increasing inflation. Farmers wanted inflation to increase their prices; debtors wanted inflation to lower their debts. These groups were in the West and South. Those opposed–wealthy Northeastern bankers–wanted to have a true gold standard. The depression(s) of the 1890s affected politics, and the free silver movement was championed by populist Democrats who nominated William Jennings Bryan for President in 1896 and 1900 (also in 1908).

Question: Why would farmers in particular want inflation to raise prices?
Think of this as the reverse of why debtors want inflation.

The Cross of Gold Speech

William Jennings Bryan was an amazing orator but seen as a radical. He was liked and hated, but his support was mainly in the (now) less populated South. In the 1896 Presidential Election, Bryan lost by around 600,000 votes, and we should compare the Electoral College of 1896 with that of 2024 for some perspective. Notice the population difference but also the “voting” blocks of the two different eras.

Bryan’s “Cross of Gold Speech” is a powerful oratory that on face seems like simply an issue about monetary policy, but it is an anti-elitist, anti-moneyed interest, pro-Southern, pro-common person coalition-building call. He would eventually fall out of favor with the Democratic Party establishment, which kept him out of running for president afte 1908, but he still was appointed as Secretary of State by Woddraw Wilson (he resigned when the US started to intervene in events of World War I).

But let’s concern ourselves with the speech. To whom is he speaking? Sure, the Democratic Convention, but his message is also for whom?

  • para. 1: “‘The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the whole hosts of error that they can bring.'”
    • “I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity.”
    • “The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest of principle.”
      • tricolon repetition
  • para. 2: Notice the gravity Bryan sets.
    • “Never before in the history of this country has there been witnessed such a contest as that through which we have passed.”
    • “Never before in the history of American politics has a great issue been fought out, as this issue has been, by the voters themselves.”
  • para. 3: “…the silver Democrats…” are victorious
    • “…the zeal which inspired the crusaders who followed PETER the Hermit…”
    • “Our silver Democrats…are assembled now, not to discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the judgment rendered by the plain people of this country.”
  • para. 4: Notice how he speaks about northeastern “businessmen” even though he claims, “we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic coast…”
    • “…those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose—those pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature’s heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds—out there where they have erected school houses for the education of their children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead—are as deserving of the consideration of this party as any people in this country.”
  • para. 6: Notice this repetition
    • “We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!”
  • para. 7: On future Amendment XVI (16)
    • “The income tax is a just law. It simply intends to put the burdens of government justly upon the backs of the people. I am in favor of an income tax. When I find a man who is not willing to pay his share of the burden of the government which protects him I find a man who is unworthy to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.
  • para. 8: “I stand with JEFFERSON….the issue of money is a function of the Government, and that the banks should go out of the governing business.”
    • Who stands to gain if banks issue money?
    • What would bank-issued currency risk?
  • para. 9: Incumbents…
    • “What we oppose in that plank is the life tenure that is being built up in Washington which establishes an office-holding class and excludes from participation in the benefits the humbler members of our society.”
  • para. 10: “…the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands.”
    • “…when we have restored the money of the constitution all other necessary reforms will be possible, and that until that is done there is no reforms will be possible, and that until that is done there is no reform that can be accomplished.”
    • Great repetition
  • para. 11: Interesting use of rhetorical questions (notice the strategy of course you know this…)
    • “Why this change?”
    • “Ah, my friends, is not the change evident to anyone who will look at the matter?”
    • Why might the gold standard leave the US open to foreign intervention?
      • “fastening the gold standard upon this people…willing to surrender the right of self-government and place legislative control in the hands of foreign potentates and powers.”
  • para. 14: “Here is the line of battle. We care not upon which issue they force the fight. We are prepared to meet them on either issue or on both.”
    • “…they will search the pages of history in vain to find a single instance in which the common people of any land ever declared themselves in favor of a gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed investments have.”
    • the common people vs the elite moneyed interests
  • para. 15: Say no to trickle down but yes to trickle up
    • “There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.”
  • para. 16: Climactic rise to the speech just before the “mic drop”
    • “Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in this country.”
  • para. 17: Nationalism?
    • “My friends, we shall declare that this nation is able to legislate for its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth, and upon that issue we expect to carry every single State in this Union.”
  • para. 18: Bombastic ending…we have behind us:
    • “the producing masses”
    • “the commercial interests”
    • “the laboring interests”
    • “all the toiling masses”
    • “…you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

By the way, the speech I linked to is a slightly shorter version of the original.

Next Class

Let’s see if we got through covering Harriet Beecher Stowe’s excerpt from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Abraham Lincoln’s “The Emancipation Proclamation” (1863), and his “The Gettysburg Address” (19 Nov 1863). We’ll move onto William Jennings Bryan’s The Cross of Gold Speech on Thursday, 10/23. There’s an argument to be made that Bryan’s populist party is a response to the treatment of soldiers as well as laborers as expendable…we’ll discuss. Don’t forget to do Weekly Discussion Post #7 before Friday, 10/24, 11:07pm.


Works Cited

West, Darrell M. and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas. “Can Billionaires Buy Democracy?” Brookings, 10 April 2025, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-billionaires-buy-democracy/.

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