In the late nineteenth century, monumental technological
innovations like the telegraph and steam power made America and the
world a much smaller place. New technologies also made possible
large-scale organization and centralization. Corporations grew
exponentially and the rich amassed great fortunes. Those on the
short end of these wrenching changes responded in the Populist
revolt, one of the most effective challenges to corporate power in
American history.
But what did Populism represent? Half a century ago, scholars such
as Richard Hofstadter portrayed the Populist movement as an
irrational response of backward-looking farmers to the challenges
of modernity. Since then, the romantic notion of Populism as the
resistance movement of tradition-based and pre-modern communities
to a modern and commercial society has prevailed. In a broad,
innovative reassessment, based on a deep reading of archival
sources, The Populist Vision argues that the Populists understood
themselves as--and were in fact--modern people, who pursued an
alternate vision for modern America.
Taking into account both the leaders and the led, The Populist
Vision uses a wide lens, focusing on the farmers, both black and
white, men and women, while also looking at wager workers and
bohemian urbanites. From Texas to the Dakotas, from Georgia to
California, farmer Populists strove to use the new innovations for
their own ends. They sought scientific and technical knowledge,
formed highly centralized organizations, launched large-scale
cooperative businesses, and pressed for reforms on the model of the
nation's most elaborate bureaucracy - the Postal Service. Hundreds
of thousands of Populist farm women soughteducation, employment in
schools and offices, and a more modern life. Miners, railroad
workers, and other labor Populists joined with farmers to give
impetus to the regulatory state. Activists from Chicago, San
Francisco, and other new cities provided Populism with a dynamic
urban dimension
This major reassessment of the Populist experience is essential
reading for anyone interested in the politics, society, and culture
of modern America.
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