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and the Iowa State University Department of History for their support of this project.
Populism on the Great Plains
The Populists, who proclaimed to speak for the people's interest in the face of
corrupt government and oppressive special interests, reached the height of their
influence in the 1890s. Embodied in the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party,
Populism was first and foremost a social and political movement which drew on
strong rural traditions of organizing for community action. Although building on the
experiences and political ideas of earlier organizations such as the Grange and the
Greenback Party, the Populist movement far surpassed the impact of their
predecessors through their maintenance of a large network of local organizations
and through proposing a comprehensive set of solutions to the problems of the
struggling farmer within the framework of an over-arching social theory.
The Farmers' Alliance had its origins in the two farm organizations popularly known as the Northern Alliance and the Southern Alliance, whose activities dated back to the 1870s. However, it was the disastrous droughts of the late 1880s and early 1890s that made the Alliance and then its political offshoots forces to be reckoned with in Great Plains politics.
At the heart of Populist thought was the idea of producerism. Producerism, or radical republicanism, had its origins in the Jeffersonian ideology of a republic founded on an independent yeomanry, and more immediately in the antebellum artisan ideology stressing the difference between producing and non-producing classes. Co-operative exchanges were set up to remove predatory, non-producing middlemen by buying directly from wholesalers or manufacturers. Despite some temporary successes for Alliance exchange ventures, they generally failed because of lack of credit. As a result, the Populists turned to the federal government. Charles Macune's elaborate subtreasury plan suggested the creation of a system of warehouses and grain elevators where farmers could deposit their crops, borrowing from the federal government at minimal interest while waiting for higher prices and minimizing costs for handling, storage, and insurance.
Calls for government assistance logically resulted in increasing politicization of the Populist movement in the late 1880s. By 1890, Populist parties were organized in several of the Plains states, and the first national convention was held in Omaha in 1892. The Omaha platform, recognized as the purest embodiment of Populist political thought, contained calls for the subtreasury plan, the elimination of the gold standard, reduction of the tariff, a graduated income tax, public ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, and a variety of other reforms.
On the face of it, the election of 1892 was a success for the Populists. Presidential candidate James Weaver carried four states, and three Populists were elected governor. Yet Populist support was concentrated in the Great Plains and the Mountain West, with minimal success in the populous Northeast. Furthermore, the Alliances were collapsing because of exchange failures and the transformation of Populism to a political creed threatening traditional party loyalties.
Following the onset of a major depression in 1893, Populist leaders increasingly focused on the currency issue, joining with a faction in the Democratic Party which wanted to eliminate the gold standard in favor of free coinage of silver. The Populists believed inflating the money supply would benefit indebted farmers. In 1896, the Populists endorsed Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and his single-minded crusade against the gold standard. Bryan was decisively defeated, and despite some local victories in the Plains states, the 1896 election was the beginning of the end for the People's Party. The Populists had so fully entered the joint battle as to abandon their own most cherished principles and become merely an attachment to the Democrats. Nevertheless, the major parties had responded to the Populist challenge by absorbing some of their ideas, ensuring the lasting impact of the dying movement. The concern with concentrated economic power became the most explosive political issue of the early twentieth century. In the longer term, the federal government's role in American agriculture grew and exceeded even what the Populists had envisioned.
The Populists of the Great Plains were farmers with one foot in the traditional world of self-sufficiency and pioneering and the other in the modern world of commercial agriculture, railroads, and mortgages. They harbored an ambivalence toward modernity that such pragmatic people could only resolve through the judgment of their own successes and failures. When the promises of urban boosters failed to produce rain in subhumid areas, when crops failed and prices dropped, these farmers saw good reason to fall back on Jeffersonian and Jacksonian ideals, even if they had been transformed by intellectuals into a vision of a just and equitable future social order. Neither the vanguard of twentieth-century liberalism nor a mass of narrow-minded bumpkins, most Populists were practical people who combined traditional ideas of a just society with a selective appeal to the government to protect their own interests.
Knut Oyangen
References
Bicha, Karel. Western Populism: Studies in an Ambivalent Conservatism. Lawrence, Kan.: Coronado Press, 1976.
Clanton, O. Gene. Kansas Populism: Ideas and Men. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1969.
Hicks, John D. The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1931.
McMath, Robert. American Populism: A Social History, 1877 - 1898. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992.
Miller, Worth Robert. Oklahoma Populism: A History of the People's Party in the Oklahoma Territory. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
Parsons, Stanley: The Populist Context: Rural versus Urban Power on a Great Plains Frontier. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973.
Further reading
Argersinger, Peter. Populism and Politics. William Alfred Peffer and the People's Party. Lexington: University of Kentucy Press, 1974.
Barnes, Donna. Farmers in Rebellion. The Rise and Fall of the Southern Farmers' Alliance and People's Party in Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.
Buck, Solon. The Agrarian Crusade. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920.
Cherny, Robert. Populism, Progressivism, and the Transformation of Nebraska Politics, 1885 - 1912. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
Clanton, O. Gene. Populism. The Humane Preference in America, 1890 - 1900. Boston: Twayne, 1991.
Durden, Robert. The Climax of Populism. The Election of 1896. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1966.
Goodwyn, Lawrence. Democratic Promise. The Populist Moment in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
_________________. The Populist Moment. A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.
Martin, Roscoe. The People's Party in Texas. A Study in Third Party Politics. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1933.
Ostler, Jeffrey. Prairie Populism. The Fate of Agrarian Radicalism in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, 1880 - 1892. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1993.
Piott, Steven. The Anti-Monopoly Persuasion. Popular Resistance to the Rise of Big Business in the Midwest. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985.
Pollack, Norman. The Populist Response to Industrial America: Midwestern Political Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962.
The Farmers' Alliance had its origins in the two farm organizations popularly known as the Northern Alliance and the Southern Alliance, whose activities dated back to the 1870s. However, it was the disastrous droughts of the late 1880s and early 1890s that made the Alliance and then its political offshoots forces to be reckoned with in Great Plains politics.
At the heart of Populist thought was the idea of producerism. Producerism, or radical republicanism, had its origins in the Jeffersonian ideology of a republic founded on an independent yeomanry, and more immediately in the antebellum artisan ideology stressing the difference between producing and non-producing classes. Co-operative exchanges were set up to remove predatory, non-producing middlemen by buying directly from wholesalers or manufacturers. Despite some temporary successes for Alliance exchange ventures, they generally failed because of lack of credit. As a result, the Populists turned to the federal government. Charles Macune's elaborate subtreasury plan suggested the creation of a system of warehouses and grain elevators where farmers could deposit their crops, borrowing from the federal government at minimal interest while waiting for higher prices and minimizing costs for handling, storage, and insurance.
Calls for government assistance logically resulted in increasing politicization of the Populist movement in the late 1880s. By 1890, Populist parties were organized in several of the Plains states, and the first national convention was held in Omaha in 1892. The Omaha platform, recognized as the purest embodiment of Populist political thought, contained calls for the subtreasury plan, the elimination of the gold standard, reduction of the tariff, a graduated income tax, public ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, and a variety of other reforms.
On the face of it, the election of 1892 was a success for the Populists. Presidential candidate James Weaver carried four states, and three Populists were elected governor. Yet Populist support was concentrated in the Great Plains and the Mountain West, with minimal success in the populous Northeast. Furthermore, the Alliances were collapsing because of exchange failures and the transformation of Populism to a political creed threatening traditional party loyalties.
Following the onset of a major depression in 1893, Populist leaders increasingly focused on the currency issue, joining with a faction in the Democratic Party which wanted to eliminate the gold standard in favor of free coinage of silver. The Populists believed inflating the money supply would benefit indebted farmers. In 1896, the Populists endorsed Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and his single-minded crusade against the gold standard. Bryan was decisively defeated, and despite some local victories in the Plains states, the 1896 election was the beginning of the end for the People's Party. The Populists had so fully entered the joint battle as to abandon their own most cherished principles and become merely an attachment to the Democrats. Nevertheless, the major parties had responded to the Populist challenge by absorbing some of their ideas, ensuring the lasting impact of the dying movement. The concern with concentrated economic power became the most explosive political issue of the early twentieth century. In the longer term, the federal government's role in American agriculture grew and exceeded even what the Populists had envisioned.
The Populists of the Great Plains were farmers with one foot in the traditional world of self-sufficiency and pioneering and the other in the modern world of commercial agriculture, railroads, and mortgages. They harbored an ambivalence toward modernity that such pragmatic people could only resolve through the judgment of their own successes and failures. When the promises of urban boosters failed to produce rain in subhumid areas, when crops failed and prices dropped, these farmers saw good reason to fall back on Jeffersonian and Jacksonian ideals, even if they had been transformed by intellectuals into a vision of a just and equitable future social order. Neither the vanguard of twentieth-century liberalism nor a mass of narrow-minded bumpkins, most Populists were practical people who combined traditional ideas of a just society with a selective appeal to the government to protect their own interests.
Knut Oyangen
References
Bicha, Karel. Western Populism: Studies in an Ambivalent Conservatism. Lawrence, Kan.: Coronado Press, 1976.
Clanton, O. Gene. Kansas Populism: Ideas and Men. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1969.
Hicks, John D. The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1931.
McMath, Robert. American Populism: A Social History, 1877 - 1898. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992.
Miller, Worth Robert. Oklahoma Populism: A History of the People's Party in the Oklahoma Territory. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.
Parsons, Stanley: The Populist Context: Rural versus Urban Power on a Great Plains Frontier. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973.
Further reading
Argersinger, Peter. Populism and Politics. William Alfred Peffer and the People's Party. Lexington: University of Kentucy Press, 1974.
Barnes, Donna. Farmers in Rebellion. The Rise and Fall of the Southern Farmers' Alliance and People's Party in Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.
Buck, Solon. The Agrarian Crusade. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920.
Cherny, Robert. Populism, Progressivism, and the Transformation of Nebraska Politics, 1885 - 1912. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
Clanton, O. Gene. Populism. The Humane Preference in America, 1890 - 1900. Boston: Twayne, 1991.
Durden, Robert. The Climax of Populism. The Election of 1896. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1966.
Goodwyn, Lawrence. Democratic Promise. The Populist Moment in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
_________________. The Populist Moment. A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.
Martin, Roscoe. The People's Party in Texas. A Study in Third Party Politics. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1933.
Ostler, Jeffrey. Prairie Populism. The Fate of Agrarian Radicalism in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, 1880 - 1892. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1993.
Piott, Steven. The Anti-Monopoly Persuasion. Popular Resistance to the Rise of Big Business in the Midwest. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985.
Pollack, Norman. The Populist Response to Industrial America: Midwestern Political Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962.
William Jennings Bryan