Women spoke at public meetings against the influence of the spread of railways and for the need to protect farmers’ income.
- For example, Elizabeth Lease. She was a well-known orator for the Populist Party, and she and female activists led protests despite bitter hostility from business interests.
- The reforming impulse which swept through rural America during the Gilded Age (1875-95) also included Native American women, who in 1883, formed the Women’s National Indian Association for Native American rights.
