The Tolerant Populists, Second Edition
Kansas Populism and Nativism
Second Edition
9780226054087
9780226054117
The Tolerant Populists, Second Edition
Kansas Populism and Nativism
Second Edition
A political movement rallies against underregulated banks, widening gaps in wealth, and gridlocked governments. Sound familiar? More than a century before Occupy Wall Street, the People’s Party of the 1890s was organizing for change. They were the original source of the term “populism,” and a catalyst for the later Progressive Era and New Deal.
Historians wrote approvingly of the Populists up into the 1950s. But with time and new voices, led by historian Richard Hofstadter, the Populists were denigrated, depicted as demagogic, conspiratorial, and even anti-Semitic.
In a landmark study, Walter Nugent set out to uncover the truth of populism, focusing on the most prominent Populist state, Kansas. He focused on primary sources, looking at the small towns and farmers that were the foundation of the movement. The result, The Tolerant Populists, was the first book-length, source-based analysis of the Populists. Nugent’s work sparked a movement to undo the historical revisionism and ultimately found itself at the center of a controversy that has been called “one of the bloodiest episodes in American historiography.”
This timely re-release of The Tolerant Populists comes as the term finds new currency—and new scorn—in modern politics. A definitive work on populism, it serves as a vivid example of the potential that political movements and popular opinion can have to change history and affect our future.
Historians wrote approvingly of the Populists up into the 1950s. But with time and new voices, led by historian Richard Hofstadter, the Populists were denigrated, depicted as demagogic, conspiratorial, and even anti-Semitic.
In a landmark study, Walter Nugent set out to uncover the truth of populism, focusing on the most prominent Populist state, Kansas. He focused on primary sources, looking at the small towns and farmers that were the foundation of the movement. The result, The Tolerant Populists, was the first book-length, source-based analysis of the Populists. Nugent’s work sparked a movement to undo the historical revisionism and ultimately found itself at the center of a controversy that has been called “one of the bloodiest episodes in American historiography.”
This timely re-release of The Tolerant Populists comes as the term finds new currency—and new scorn—in modern politics. A definitive work on populism, it serves as a vivid example of the potential that political movements and popular opinion can have to change history and affect our future.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the First Edition
List of Abbreviations
Part One: Populism Bastinadoed, and Some Caveats
1. The Populist as Monster
2. Revising the Revisionists
Part Two: The Salad Days
3. Kansas in the Eighties
I. The Ethnic Pattern
II. Prohibition and Political Futility
III. Economic Boom and Bust
4. “Agitate, Educate, Organize!”
I. The Birth of the Alliance
II. Goodbye, My Party, Goodbye
5. The People’s Party and Other People
I. Fruits of Victory
II. A Populist Profile
III. Money Question or “Money Power”?
IV. Englishmen and Jews
V. Alien Land
Part Three: The Political Years
6. Fusion and Victory
I. An Arm-in-Arm Campaign
II. Storms in the State House
7. Populism against Itself
I. Fusion and Faction
II. Women’s Suffrage, Prohibition, and the APA
III. A Three-Ticket Race
IV. Bleak Results
8. Free Silver and “Undesirable Classes”
I. A Single-Issue Campaign
II. The Literacy Test for Immigrants
III. After Seven Lean Years
9. Denouement
I. Jingoes and Humanitarians
II. The 1898 Campaign
III. And Afterward
10. Concluding Remarks
Notes
Bibliographical Note and Acknowledgments
Index
Preface to the First Edition
List of Abbreviations
Part One: Populism Bastinadoed, and Some Caveats
1. The Populist as Monster
2. Revising the Revisionists
Part Two: The Salad Days
3. Kansas in the Eighties
I. The Ethnic Pattern
II. Prohibition and Political Futility
III. Economic Boom and Bust
4. “Agitate, Educate, Organize!”
I. The Birth of the Alliance
II. Goodbye, My Party, Goodbye
5. The People’s Party and Other People
I. Fruits of Victory
II. A Populist Profile
III. Money Question or “Money Power”?
IV. Englishmen and Jews
V. Alien Land
Part Three: The Political Years
6. Fusion and Victory
I. An Arm-in-Arm Campaign
II. Storms in the State House
7. Populism against Itself
I. Fusion and Faction
II. Women’s Suffrage, Prohibition, and the APA
III. A Three-Ticket Race
IV. Bleak Results
8. Free Silver and “Undesirable Classes”
I. A Single-Issue Campaign
II. The Literacy Test for Immigrants
III. After Seven Lean Years
9. Denouement
I. Jingoes and Humanitarians
II. The 1898 Campaign
III. And Afterward
10. Concluding Remarks
Notes
Bibliographical Note and Acknowledgments
Index