Congress passed the Fourth Coinage Act in 1873. It discontinued the minting of silver money and put America on the gold standard, a monetary system in which banknotes are backed up by a certain weight of gold. Many called this the "Crime of '73." For the next five years, America experienced a depression, and deflation lasted until 1896, with the worst coming with the Panic of 1893.
A large percentage of Americans were not happy with the gold standard, and their discontent culminated at the 1896 Democratic National Convention, where Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan delivered his famous "Cross of Gold" speech. Bryan was a proponent of bimetallism, where banknotes would be backed up by both gold and silver. This would result in inflation, which would make it easier for people, mainly farmers, to pay off their debt.
The economy was definitely a hot topic back in the 19th century, debated on by all of America. For the most part, proponents of the gold standard (mostly urban Easterners) argued that the silver standard would hurt creditors, while "Free Silver" supporters (mostly rural Westerners) argued that the gold standard hurt debtors. This left people as uncertain and frustrated as Iraq, a completely unrelated topic, leaves us today.
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I wrote on another post, you can check it out [Silver and Gold] that the whole idea of changing the monetary system may have been the hidden message in The Wizard of Oz,
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