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This chapter discusses liberalism in American society. Topics covered include the populist movement, the progressive movement, the New Deal as the pivotal point in the development of American liberalism, liberal disturbances, and liberal complaints.

This chapter sketches Minnie Fisher Cunningham's early years in New Waverly (Walker County) in East Texas during the 1880s and 1890s, as the New South emerged from the economic devastation of the Civil War. The struggle of her once prosperous parents to make a living at cotton farming marked her deeply; she also witnessed the agrarian unrest that culminated in the Populist movement, and the conservative backlash that disfranchised African Americans and poor whites. Although frustrated in her desire to study medicine, Cunningham became one of her generation's most educated and independent New Women. She was one of the earliest female graduates (1901) of the new pharmacy program at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and practiced briefly until her marriage in 1902.

This chapter examines Populism in the Deep South (essentially Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi), highlighting the complexity of local organizing, alliances with African American voters, and how Populists tried to organize for elections throughout the 1890s. It places the Populist insurgency into the context of indigenous radical movements that challenged the Democrats for power. It discusses the ways in which the Democrats used intimidation, fraud, violence, and disfranchisement to restrict the Populists in the Deep South and prevent a broad political realignment. It also offers some useful comparisons of the Populists in the Deep South.

This chapter examines the local dynamics behind the rise and fall of the Populist Party and tensions over issues of race and political organization. It analyzes the efforts of Populists in Grant Parish, Louisiana, to work with African Americans to throw out the entrenched Democrats. It argues that in the early 1890s white Populists rejected the white political solidarity and instead called for an interracial coalition of laboring classes to push through economic and political reforms. Despite overtures toward the local black leadership in Grant Parish, a long history of autonomous black political action and tensions over class interests put an end to interracial alliance. The tensions in Grant Parish highlight the problems of Populists in organizing a mass movement of whites and blacks, especially after 1892.

This chapter explores the issue of race and African Americans and the Populist insurgency from another direction. Instead of seeing black Populism as an appendage to the Populist Party, it places black Populism in context and as part of a long tradition of independent African American political action after the Civil War. It argues that black Populism had its own political integrity and used a variety of methods to advance the political and economic interests of the black communities in the South. This is evident in the Colored Farmers’ Alliance, black fraternal organizations, black churches, and finally in black Populism. Black Populists ran independent candidates for office and created cooperative and coalition campaigns when needed. Black Populism was the largest African American movement in the South prior to the civil rights movement.

This chapter examines how the Populists in the eastern section of North Carolina tried to organize white and black voters to resist the resurgence of the Democrats and push back against the disfranchisement campaign of 1900, during the twilight of the Populist Party. Using contested election testimony, which is often the only way to get to the voices of the rank-and-file Populists, the chapter argues that white Populists attempted to register African Americans and get out the black vote, even after the passage of the disfranchisement amendment. Although white Populists held racist views, they believed in the political rights of all men, black and white, and they risked their lives to see an honest and fair count. The decline of southern Populism and its impact on the economic and political life of the South is far more subtle than the political implosion of the 1896 election.

Klaiber analyzes the relationship between the Catholic Church and the leftist populist regimes of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and Evo Morales in Bolivia. In each case, the populist leaders have used messianic rhetoric to describe their own leadership and associate themselves with the aspirations of the peasant class. At the same time, they have identified themselves as the voice of their national cultures, a move meant to separate civil society from the influence of the Catholic Church. Yet, the leaders in each country support Christian-inspired social and educational services (e.g., Fe y Alegria schools). Historically, the Catholic Church has served as the moral mediator between national governments and civil society. It remains to be seen whether the Church will continue in that role as the political fortunes of leftist populist movements change over time.

This chapter explores the career of producerist thought and rhetoric following the demise of the People’s Party. It describes how white Socialists and then African Americans in the Garvey Movement (through the United Negro Improvement Association) in the South, as well as Oklahoma and Missouri, used producerist rhetoric to challenge the corporate powers and political elites in the early twentieth century. Although both white and black organizations failed to stop the reorganization of the southern agricultural economy, the chapter elucidates how the legacy and ideas of Populism far outlasted the political organization of the People’s Party. It shows that both the Socialists and the Garveyites used the Populists’ organizing tactics, employed Populist rhetoric, and adhered to a producerist ideology to offer a radical alternative to the exploitative nature of corporate farming.

This chapter begins with a conceptual framework for understanding political parties as mediating institutions. It centers the discussion on party structure and the ways in which the organization of party politics operates interdependently with the country’s governing institutions. The chapter then takes a massive sweep of American political history to demonstrate how the different arrangements of party organization and governing authority have worked in conjunction to mediate populist protests and produce meaningful political change in the pre-New Deal period. Drawing on extensive historical evidence, the chapter focuses on the Anti-Masonic movement of the 1820s, the Agrarian Populist movement of the post–Civil War period, and the threat posed by economic nationalists, such as Charles Coughlin, during the early New Deal. The chapter reinterprets these critical moments of populist anger, and the ways in which the political system reacted to “outside” movements.

This chapter argues against the populist nature of the Tea Party by closely comparing it to the history of American populism. Instead, it turns to America's conservative tradition as the appropriate historical backdrop of the Tea Party. It explains how the Tea Party tapped into fear and anger over potential shifts in political economy to form a grassroots movement following in the historical traditions of the anti-New Deal American Liberty League, Joseph McCarthy and the witch hunts, Robert Welch and the John Birch Society, and Barry Goldwater and the right-wing Republicans of the early Cold War. The speed with which the Tea Party organized, and its rapid capture of much of one of the nation's two main political parties, shows the volatility of the political environment in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

This chapter examines the relationship between Populist leader, Tom Watson, and labor organizing in the Midwest and North. Watson was the key leader of the People’s Party in the South and much is known about his economic, political, and racial views. But the analysis focuses on an often-overlooked part of Watson’s Populist leadership—his hostility towards labor unions and workers in the North and Midwest because he believed the labor leaders and trade unionists wanted to take over the People’s Party. The chapter argues that Watson turned his back on the growing Populist insurgency in the Midwest, which ultimately crippled the national insurgency and prevented an alliance of the laboring and farming classes. In some ways, Watson epitomizes the tensions within the Populist movement.

This introductory chapter sets out the book’s purpose, which is to examine the Populist Party in the Old North State, filling an important gap in the history of southern Populism and late nineteenth-century political culture. It analyzes key themes and issues in the Populist Party that will address longstanding historiographical questions on southern Populism, North Carolina politics, Populists’ attitudes toward African Americans and black voting, the long-term impact of the movement on the lives of small farmers in the Old North State, and the legacy for historians. The central theme of this study is the political culture of the Populist Party and the grassroots activism of its rank and file.

The introduction outlines the book’s central argument, while providing an overview of the historical case. It begins by developing the idea that, like other populist projects, the American Populist movement was defined by the coupling of popular mobilization and populist rhetoric. Drawing on the language of field theory, this chapter develops an elite-centered account of electoral Populism. It argues that the task of explaining where electoral Populism comes from amounts to explaining how a particular configuration of the political field came to be. In the case of the American West, field formation was part and parcel of the settlement process. The rise of electoral Populism was an outgrowth of the transformation of physical space resulting from the simultaneous expansion of both state and market, which together served as the organizing force behind western settlement during the late 19th century.

This chapter analyzes the Knights of Labor in Georgia and the ways in which the brief organizing of the Knights paved the way for the electoral success of both labor candidates and Populists in some cities and counties in the 1890s. It argues that the Knights helped create the political culture and leadership for the Populist insurgency in Georgia and even furnished several local leaders. It shows that the Populist insurgency had deep roots and committed relationships with organized labor.

This chapter explores the role of the African Americans in the establishment of the Populist movement in the late 1800s. It explains that during the late 1800s, multiple African American populist groups existed. These were composed of farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian workers. Most of these groups were independent from the white-led populist movement, and the most notable example of African American leadership in populist groups was the Colored Alliance.

This chapter surveys US currency policy in the 1890s. The United States was on the gold standard from 1879 until 1933. For almost all that time, US currency policy was politically controversial. The controversy became particularly heated during periods of economic distress, especially in the 1890s. In what is perhaps the most famous modern political conflict over exchange rate policy, the Populist movement launched a concerted attack on the gold standard, which led up to a presidential election fought largely over gold. The rise of the Populist movement came at a pivotal time as the country had matured industrially while remaining predominantly agrarian. The battle of the standards was also a fight over whose vision of society would dominate: the big cities with their booming finance, commerce, and industries, or the countryside with its thriving cotton, tobacco, and wheat farms whose products dominated world markets.

This chapter examines organized labor in Dallas, Texas, and during the Populist revolt of the late 1880s and early 1890s. Southern historians often overlook urban Populism, perhaps in part because the South was predominantly rural. But it is shown that Populism had strong support in some southern cities and that urban laborers were crucial in the organization of the People’s Party, especially in Texas. Grassroots activism and leaders played a pivotal role in the political insurgency of the 1890s. Local activists employed labor-organizing strategies to build a vibrant third-party movement in Dallas, and eventually across the state. The collaboration among workers, the Farmers’ Alliance, and independents was crucial in building an insurgency. But, Populism in Dallas quickly faded after 1892 because key leaders returned to the Democrats, and election fraud undermined the organizational abilities of the Populists.

This chapter focuses on North Carolina, the one state where the Populists achieved statewide power, to determine how the Populists saw the issue of debt and how debt influenced Populist attempts to reform the state economy. It places the Populists’ notion of debt in the long duree and traces the development of attitudes toward and the rhetoric of debt. By the 1880s and 1890s, white farmers saw debt as a form of slavery and oppression. It is argued that debt relief was a central tenet of North Carolina Populism, but once the Populists achieved power in the mid-1890s, they were unable to pass much in the way of debt relief, in part because they achieved power in alliance with Republicans, who were less than enthusiastic about wholesale debt reform.

This chapter explores the roots of the African American populist movements during the Reconstruction era. After the Civil War, numerous black communities were established in places such as in churches, fraternal orders, and charitable institutions, which helped increased black American participation in politics. This chapter points out that the increased black participation in politics led to the election of several thousand African Americans in public offices, as well as hundreds of white Republican allies of the black communities.