A dramatic economic depression known as the Panic of 1893 led to desperation among the nation’s unemployed. So when “General” Jacob S. Coxey organized a march to Washington, D.C., they responded.  Approximately 500 hundred displaced workers in Montana gathered under the command of William Hogan in Butte to participate in this “petition with boots on” to reform government policy toward the unemployed. What motivated these leaders to organize?  Why did those leaders choose to present their views through a march?  Was it an effective way to communicate with the public and with elected officials?  

Secondary sources:

Clinch, Thomas A. “Coxey’s Army in Montana.”  Montana, The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1965), pp. 2-11

Howard, Oliver Otis, Thomas Byrnes, Alvah H. Doty.  “The Menace of ‘Coxeyism,’” The North American Review, Vol. 158, No. 451 (June, 1894), pp. 687-705

McMurry, Donald L.  “The Industrial Armies and the Commonweal,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 10, No. 3 (December, 1923), pp. 215-252.

Schwantes, Carlos A.  “Western Women in Coxey’s Army in 1894,” Arizona and the West, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 5-20.

Schwantes, Carlos A. Coxey’s Army: An American Odyssey (University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln and London, 1985). 

Walter, Dave, "Hogan's Army: A Petition with Boots On," Montana Campfire Tales: Fourteen Historical Narratives (Helena, MT, 1996), 103-13.

Primary sources:

MC 35a Montana Governor’s Papers, J.E. Rickards Administration 1893-1896, Montana Historical Society Research Center Archives, Helena, MT. 

Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Agriculture, Labor and Industry of Montana for the Year Ended November 30, 1894 (State Publishing Co., Printers, Helena, Montana, 1895).  S354.5 Ag1r 1894

Primary and Secondary Sources on the Internet

Coxey’s Army – Ohio History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History

Vertical Files at the Montana Historical Society:

Coxey’s Army