Date of Award

4-1969

Degree Type

Master's Essay - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

First Advisor

Robert P. Hay

Abstract

The Civil War was a cataclysmic event in American life; it unleashed a fury of energies and emotions that few realized existed. In particular, it freed the volatile forces inherent in the industrial revolution: bigness, consolidation, capitalism. Rural, agrarian America gradually awakened to the fact that a certain minor segment of American society was reaping all the benefits and controlling the means of production, while it was rapidly falling behind in production and profits. It considered this concentration of power as a sure sign of corruption, immorality and the destruction of all that was most precious to their American heritage. Ever since America's beginnings, the farmer had embodied all that was unique, good, wholesome in the American way of life. Now they were being replaced by a new capitalist class. The agrarian myth was on the verge of extinction and its "favorite sons" were quick to express their protest. Thus, the Populists--or the People's Party--were the distinct, rural protest to the industrialization and urbanization of American society.

Comments

ESSAY SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL FOR THE MASTER OF ARTS DEGREE IN HISTORY, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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