Trump's Tariff Hero: William McKinley's Gilded Age Legacy

President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs have become a defining feature of his second term, central to his strategy for reshaping global trade. Aggressive tariff policies have been rare at the White House in recent decades, but history offers clues about how they can ripple through everyday American life.

The last time sweeping tariffs were enacted on such a scale was in the 1890s, at the hand of William McKinley. Trump has credited the 19th-century president for making America a "very wealthy country," repeatedly name-dropping him on the 2024 campaign trail.

"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.

Vintage photos from the late 19th and early 20th centuries highlight the economic factors at the time of McKinley's tariffs, how they changed day-to-day life for Americans, and what ultimately led to his backtracking on his policies.

By the late 1800s, industry leaders had accumulated exorbitant amounts of wealth. Industries like oil, steel, railroads, and manufacturing were growing rapidly in the United States, with industrial output reaching a value of $9.4 billion by 1890. Nearly five million people were employed by the 350,000 industrial firms operating in the country.

The businessmen who led this expanding manufacturing economy amassed massive amounts of personal wealth. The average family's annual income was around $500 (about $18,000 in today's money), 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 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, such as the 1897 Bradley-Martin Ball in New York City, where 700 members of the country's elite gathered in a royalty-themed costume party.

• Extravagant Gilded Age architecture
• Lavish fashion displays
• Massive industrial output

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. 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 using cheap materials, 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.

Photojournalist Jacob Riis documented the realities faced by millions of people in his book How The Other Half Lives. His work exposed conditions such as having 12 adults sleeping in 13-feet-wide rooms and child mortality in tenements being as high as one in 10.

"This was protectionist at its height. And there was a significant political backlash against it." — William K. Bolt, Professor of History

Ohio representative William McKinley authored the Tariff Act of 1890 while serving as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The act raised protective tariffs of over 1,500 products by almost 50%, imposing duties on items like tinplate and wool while eliminating tariffs on sugar, molasses, tea, and coffee.

The goal 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.

While miners and farmers of crops like corn, wheat, and potatoes benefited from the stimulus to American production, 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.

• Tinplate and wool faced high duties
• Sugar, molasses, tea, and coffee were tariff-free
• Consumer goods prices increased

The spike in prices was not well-received by American consumers. Ultimately, everyday people ended up paying the price for the tariffs. "Consumers had to pay a higher price for the manufactured good they wanted," said historian William K. Bolt. "So there was in fact a political backlash against the McKinley tariff."

Following the adoption of the Tariff Act, McKinley's Republican Party lost control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1890. The Ohio representative himself was ousted as the party lost 93 seats in the House of Representatives. Over the next two years, the party also lost the presidential election and both chambers of Congress in 1892.

By 1893, the economy had contracted significantly in what became known as the Panic of 1893. 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, along with government spending on Civil War pensions, contributed to the panic.

After running as a "tariff man standing on a tariff platform," McKinley won the presidential election in 1896. However, once in the White House, his approach to tariffs turned to a reciprocal view that would help export American products and stimulate trade rather than penalize it.

McKinley supported the Dingley Tariff Act, which raised previously lowered tariffs back to an average of 49% on imported goods. 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. This shift coincided with America's victory in the Spanish-American War, which expanded the country's reach in the hemisphere and ended America's isolationist approach of the 19th century.

"A policy of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals." — William McKinley, 1901

At the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, McKinley openly discouraged the protectionist economy in favor of reciprocal tariffs, signaling a shift in the Republican Party's views of trade. One day after the convention, the president was fatally shot by Leon Czolgosz, a Polish-American laborer and anarchist.

Despite the economic turmoil of the previous decade, McKinley was widely mourned by the country. His successor, President Theodore Roosevelt, and subsequent Progressive politics brought upon changes that alleviated the social and economic tensions of the Gilded Age.

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. The social instability of the turn-of-the-century economy set the stage for the Progressive Era.