Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

American farmers faced an economic crisis beginning in 1870. Farmers turned to the Republican and Democratic parties to represent their grievances, to no effect. As a result, farmers launched the Farmers’ Alliances, and then, the People’s Party. As a movement, populism was a resounding success. As a political party, populism was an abject failure. Populists won seats in Congress and arrived with a clear mandate. What they encountered was a legislative order designed to render them inert. Excluded from the committee system, denied recognition on the floor, and unable to caucus with either of the two main parties, Populist representatives could not advance the agenda for which they had been elected. The People’s Party collapsed and fused with the Democrats, undone by the institutional structure of Congress as much as by the verdict of the electorate. American populism in the 1890s is both borne and ultimately terminated by way of obstructed representation.

Keywords

populism American politics American political development Congress

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

A Man Without a Soul. 1896. The Coming Nation.

Alexander

De Alva Stanwood

. 1916. History and Procedure of the House of Representatives. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Appleton

1891. Appleton’s Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1890. D. Appleton & Company.

Argersinger

Peter H

. 1992. “No Rights on This Floor: Third Parties and the Institutionalization of Congress.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 22 (4): 655–90.

Argersinger

Peter H.

1995. The Limits of Agrarian Radicalism: Western Populism and American Politics. University Press of Kansas.

Bach

Stanley

. 1990. “Suspension of the Rules, the Order of Business, and the Development of Congressional Procedure.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 15: 49–63.

Baltimore Sun . 1891.

Bawn

Kathleen

Cohen

Marty

Karol

David

Masket

Seth

Noel

Hans

Zaller

John

. 2012. “A Theory of Political Parties: Groups, Policy Demands and Nominations in American Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 10 (3): 571–97.

Brady

David W.

1973. Congressional Voting in a Partisan Era: A Study of the McKinley Houses and a Comparison to the Modern House of Representatives. University Press of Kansas.

10.

Cox

Gary W.

McCubbins

Mathew D.

. 2005. Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the US House of Representatives. Cambridge University Press.

11.

Cramer

Katherine J.

2016. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. University of Chicago Press.

12.

Eichengreen

Barry

. 1984. “Mortgage Interest Rates in the Populist Era.” The American Economic Review 74 (5): 995–1015.

13.

Goodwyn

Lawrence

. 1978. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. Oxford University Press.

14.

Harrower

H. D.

1889. The New States: A Sketch of the History and Development of the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington. Ivison, Blakeman & Company.

15.

Hicks

John Donald

. 1931. The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers’ Alliance and the People’s Party. University of Minnesota Press.

16.

Hochschild

Arlie Russell

. 2016. Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. The New Press.

17.

Hofstadter

Richard

. 1955. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR. Vintage.

18.

House

Albert V.

1935. “The Contributions of Samuel J. Randall to the Rules of the National House of Representatives.” American Political Science Review 29 (5): 837–41.

19.

James

Scott C.

2006. “Patronage Regimes and American Party Development from ‘The Age of Jackson’ to the Progressive Era.” British Journal of Political Science 36 (1): 39–60.

20.

James

John A

. 2015. Money and Capital Markets in Postbellum America. Princeton University Press.

21.

Lynd

James W.

1864. “History of the Dakotas: James W. Lynd’s Manuscripts.” Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society 2: 143–74.

22.

Mappin

W. F

. 1889. “Farm Mortgages and the Small Farmer.” Political Science Quarterly 4 (3): 433–51.

23.

McConnell

Grant

. 1953. The Decline of Agrarian Democracy. University of California Press.

24.

Ostler

Jeffrey

. 1993. Prairie Populism: The Fate of Agrarian Radicalism in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, 1880-1892. University Press of Kansas.

25.

Porterfield

Jason

. 2004. The Homestead Act of 1862: A Primary Source History of the Settlement of the American Heartland in the Late 19th Century. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

26.

Proceedings in Congress. 1897. Vol. 4. New York Times.

27.

Reed

Thomas

. 1899. Rows in Congress, Vol. 9. Saturday Evening Post.

28.

Sanders

Elizabeth

. 1999. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877-1917. University of Chicago Press.

29.

Shannon

Fred Albert

. 1977. The Farmer’s Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860-1897. ME Sharpe.

30.

Simpson is

Sat Upon.

1897. Vol. 4. The Washington Post.

31.

Snowden

Kenneth A

. 1987. “Mortgage Rates and American Capital Market Development in the Late Nineteenth Century.” The Journal of Economic History 47 (3): 671–91.

32.

Thompson

C. W.

1916. “Interest Rates Paid by American Farmers.” In Agricultural Economics, edited by Nourse

Edwin G.

. Princeton University Press.

33.

Topeka Advocate . 1891.

34.

U.S. Bureau of the Census . 1896. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1895 . Technical report.

35.

U.S. Bureau of the Census . 1911. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1910. Technical report.

36.

U.S. Bureau of the Census . 1921. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1920. Technical report.

37.

U.S. Bureau of the Census . 1934. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1933 . Technical report.

38.

U.S. Bureau of the Census . 1936. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1935 . Technical report.

39.

U.S. Congress . 1892. Congressional Record, 52nd Congress.

40.

US Congress . 1896. Congressional Record, 54th Congress, 1st Session.

41.

Washington Post . 1897.

42.

Weaver

J. B.

1892. A Call to Action: An Interpretation of the Great Uprising, its Source and Causes. Iowa printing Company.

43.

Wilson

Woodrow

. 1885. Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics. Houghton Mifflin.

44.

Woodward

C. Vann

. 1963. Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel. Oxford University Press.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.12 MB

0.00 MB