Editing People's Party (United States) (section)

=== Debate by historians ===

Since the 1890s, historians have vigorously debated the nature of Populism.<ref>For a summary or how historians approach the topic see Worth Robert Miller, "A Centennial Historiography of American Populism." ''Kansas History'' 1993 16(1): 54–69.</ref> Some historians see the populists as forward-looking liberal reformers, others as reactionaries trying to recapture an idyllic and utopian past. For some, they were radicals out to restructure American life, and for others, they were economically hard-pressed agrarians seeking government relief. Much recent scholarship emphasizes Populism's debt to early American [[Republicanism in the United States|republicanism]].<ref>See Worth Robert Miller, "The Republican Tradition," in Miller, ''Oklahoma Populism: A History of the People's Party in the Oklahoma Territory'' (1987) [http://history.missouristate.edu/wrmiller/Populism/texts/republican_tradition.htm online edition]</ref> Clanton (1991) stresses that Populism was "the last significant expression of an old radical tradition that derived from Enlightenment sources that had been filtered through a political tradition that bore the distinct imprint of Jeffersonian, Jacksonian, and Lincolnian democracy." This tradition emphasized human rights over the cash nexus of the Gilded Age's dominant ideology.<ref name="Clanton 1991">Clanton (1991), p. 83</ref>

[[Frederick Jackson Turner]] and a succession of western historians depicted the Populists as responding to the closure of the frontier. Turner wrote:

: The Farmers' Alliance and the Populist demand for government ownership of the railroad is a phase of the same effort of the pioneer farmer, on his latest frontier. The proposals have taken increasing proportions in each region of Western Advance. Taken as a whole, Populism is a manifestation of the old pioneer ideals of the native American, with the added element of increasing readiness to utilize the national government to effect its ends.<ref>Frederick Jackson Turner, ''The Frontier in American History,'' (1920) p. 148; [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22994/22994-h/22994-h.htm online edition]</ref>

The most influential scholar of Populism was [[John Donald Hicks]], who emphasized economic pragmatism over ideals, presenting Populism as interest group politics, with have-nots demanding their fair share of America's wealth which was being leeched off by nonproductive speculators. Hicks gave attention to the massive drought that ruined so many Kansas farmers in the 1880s, but also pointed to greed, financial manipulations, deflation in prices caused by the gold standard, high interest rates, mortgage foreclosures, and high railroad rates. Corruption accounted for such outrages and Populists presented popular control of government as the solution, a point that later students of republicanism emphasized.<ref>Martin Ridge, "Populism Redux: John D. Hicks and The Populist Revolt," ''Reviews in American History'' 13 (March 1985): 142–54.</ref> In the 1930s, [[C. Vann Woodward]] stressed the southern base, seeing the possibility of a black-and-white coalition of poor against the overbearing rich.<ref>C. Vann Woodward, '' Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel'' (1938); Woodward, "Tom Watson and the Negro in Agrarian Politics," ''The Journal of Southern History,'' Vol. 4, No. 1 (Feb., 1938), pp. 14–33 [https://www.jstor.org/pss/2191851 in JSTOR]</ref>

In the 1950s, scholars such as [[Richard Hofstadter]] portrayed the Populist movement as an irrational response of backward-looking farmers to the challenges of modernity. Though Hofstadter wrote that the Populists were the "first modern political movement of practical importance in the United States to insist that the federal government had some responsibility for the common weal", he criticized the movement as anti-Semitic, conspiracy-minded, nativist, and grievance-based.<ref name="zeitz1"/> According to Hofstadter, the antithesis of anti-modern Populism was the modernizing nature of Progressivism. Hofstadter noted that leading progressives like [[Theodore Roosevelt]], Robert La Follette Sr., George Norris and [[Woodrow Wilson]] were vehement enemies of Populism, though Bryan cooperated with them and accepted the Populist nomination in 1896.<ref>Richard Hofstadter, '' The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R.'' (1955)</ref>{{page needed|date=November 2019}} Reichley (1992) sees the Populist Party primarily as a reaction to the decline of the political hegemony of white Protestant farmers; the share of farmers in the workforce had fallen from about 70% in the early 1830s to about 33% in the 1890s. Reichley argues that, while the Populist Party was founded in reaction to economic hardship, by the mid-1890s it was "reacting not simply against the money power but against the whole world of cities and alien customs and loose living they felt was challenging the agrarian way of life."<ref name="Reichley 2000, p. 142"/>

Goodwyn (1976)<ref>{{cite book|last1=Goodwyn|first1=Lawrence|title=Democratic Promise: the Populist Moment in America.|url=https://archive.org/details/democraticpromis0000good|url-access=registration|date=1976|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-501996-4}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2018}} and Postel (2007) reject the notion that the Populists were traditionalistic and anti-modern. Rather, they argue, the Populists aggressively sought self-consciously progressive goals. Goodwyn criticizes Hofstadter's reliance on secondary sources to characterize the Populists, working instead with material generated by the Populists themselves. Goodwyn determines that the farmers' cooperatives gave rise to a Populist culture, and their efforts to free farmers from lien merchants revealed to them the political structure of the economy, which propelled them into politics. The Populists sought diffusion of scientific and technical knowledge, formed highly centralized organizations, launched large-scale incorporated businesses, and pressed for an array of state-centered reforms. Hundreds of thousands of women committed to Populism, seeking a more modern life, education, and employment in schools and offices. A large section of the labor movement looked to Populism for answers, forging a political coalition with farmers that gave impetus to the regulatory state. Progress, however, was also menacing and inhumane, Postel notes. White Populists embraced social-Darwinist notions of racial improvement, Chinese exclusion and separate-but-equal.<ref>Postel (2007)</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2018}}