Ever wonder where the term "populist" came from? It came from "Populism," a nineteenth/early twentieth-century American political movement. Of course the Populists weren't really the "Populists," they were the "People's Party." But even that isn't a very good description. It would be better to call them the "Farmers' Party," because most of them were farmers. Most, but not all. A lot of them were urban types, and particularly union members. All this and more I learned from
Charles Postel and his award-winning book
The Populist Vision (Oxford, 2007). The Populists have a bad name (as does Populism, for that matter). It seems that historians erroneously branded them "backward-looking" because most of them were, well, farmers, and farmers are always "backward-looking" don't you know. Charles does a terrific job of correcting this libel. The Populists were the farthest thing from "backward-looking." By almost any contemporary measure, they were forward-looking. They favored market rationalization, labor organization, welfare, education, and even the emancipation of women. They also hated the Gold Standard, which is progressive in my book. There were some warts--the Populists generally favored racial segregation, which they viewed as progressive (so did a lot of other folks at the time). But they look pretty good in hindsight. Maybe we need a new People's Party?
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