**Please note, this learning experience is a virtual event and will not be hosted at a physical site.**

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Gregg Cantrell 

"The People's Revolt: How Texas Cotton Farmers Invented American Liberalism"

This presentation will explore the economic and political conditions in the United States that led to the prolonged agricultural depression of the late nineteenth century, including the rise of large-scale industrial capitalism, the problem of monopoly, and an unresponsive political system. It will examine Texas farmers’ turn to self-help through the Farmers’ Alliance’s cooperative program and workers’ efforts to organize via the Knights of Labor in the 1880s, and the subsequent failure of those efforts. Then it will reveal how farmers and laborers turned to political solutions, solutions which required the use of a democratically controlled, activist government. When the two major parties refused to cooperate, farmers and laborers turned to a third party, the People’s (or Populist) Party, mounting one of the most significant third-party movements in American history. The presentation will explore the platforms and major personalities of the Populist movement in Texas, arguing that the party pioneered many of the causes and programs that later came to inform the reforms of the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, and modern liberalism.

For additional information, email Kyle Wilkison at kwildison@collin.edu

Please note: You must register for the webinar in two places:

1. Register for the event on the Region 10 Calendar of Events

2. Register for the Zoom using the provided link in the confirmation email.

All participants registered on the Region 10 website will receive login information prior to the webinar date.