Greenbackism Law and Legal Definition
Greenbackism is a movement which advocated increased issues of paper money to make cash more readily available to people. The greenbackers demanded shorter work hours, abolition of convict labor, boards of labor statistics, and restrictions on immigrant labor.
Greenbackism is also referred to as Greenback movement. The term comes in reference to partisans of the Greenback Party and the Greenback Labor Party of the 1870s. The national Greenback-Labor Party demanded that the government issue an adequate supply of paper money when the currency supply was falling short with population growth. People of the southern region of the U.S. suffered more from the lack of currency and credit. Greenbackism was a short-lived coalition of farmers and laborers protesting a variety of federal monetary policies. While in existence, it made allies with organized labor and also, managed to influence the Populist movement in the nineteenth century.
