Literature: Apocalypse and Utopia

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Abrahams, Edward H. "Ignatius Donnelly and the Apocalyptic Style." Minnesota History. 46(3):102-11. 1978.   Donnelly foresaw disaster for America if it refused to return to its innocent past.  Donnelly's view was colored by the pre-1860 concepts of an agrarian rural democracy controlled by farmers and handicraftsmen of his youth. He believed in a classless society without social rank based on wealth. His political disappointments coupled with his writing of such catastrophe-tinged books as Atlantis: The Antediluvian World and its successor Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel, generated his thinking along apocalyptic lines in which he foresaw mass disaster for America if it refused to return to the innocent past. His Populist speeches and such works as Caesar's Column reflect this attitude. Other writings such as Doctor Huguet, The Golden Bottle, and The American People's Money deal with Populist ideas to some extent. America: History and Life, 16A:6434

Axelrad, Allan M. "Ideology and Utopia in the Works of Ignatius Donnelly." American Studies. 12(2):46-69. Fall 1971.  Ignatius Donnelly and the Populists ideology "is extracted from the ethical imperatives of the agrarian myth." Donnelly was at odds with modern technology, urbanization, and industrialization.  American: History and Life, 14A:819

Bengtsson, Håkan. "Utopia År 2000 [Utopia in the Year 2000]." Folkets Historia [Sweden] 1987 15(3): 32-37.  Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888) was a critique of capitalism without openly advocating socialism. The novel was an inspiration to European socialists and a catalyst for liberalism and Populism.  American History and Life, 26:8645

Brass, Tom. "Popular Culture, Populist Fiction(s): The Agrarian Utopiates of A. V. Chayanov, Ignatius Donnelly and Frank Capra." Journal of Peasant Studies [Great Britain] 1996-97 24(1-2): 153-190.  Examines attempts to construct an imaginary alternative to capitalism and socialism, as projected in the community constructed by agrarian populism.  Caesar's Column (1890), by Ignatius Donnelly; The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia (1920), by Russian author Aleksandr V. Chayanov; and Lost Horizon, written by Englishman James Hilton and made into a 1937 film directed by Frank Capra all share a common utopic/dystopic vision based on a series of symptomatic oppositions.  Agrarian populism identifies the dystopic as dark, unnatural, and western, where modern production controlled by finance capital in an urban setting is linked to the threat of socialism and chaos. Utopia, on the other hand, was portrayed as a realm of light that is harmonious, natural and orientalist, in which neither finance capital nor proletariat exists, and which consists instead of small-scale artisan and peasant producers. American History and Life, 34:14618

Bryan, Ferald Joseph. "Thomas E. Watson Versus Henry W. Grady: The Rhetorical Struggle for the Mind of the South, 1880-1890." Ph.D. dissertation (Speech Communication), University of Missouri - Columbia, 1985.  DAI, 47, no. 02A, (1985): 0344.  Watson and Grady presented two divergent visions for the economic future of the South.  Grady called for diversification of southern agriculture, financial dependency on northern investors, and political unity among middle-class whites in unquestioning support of the Democratic Party.  Watson asked poor farmers to stay economically independent on the farm and join in political unity with poor blacks against the political and economic stranglehold of northern bankers and political leaders.  Watson's Populist metaphors offered hope to those poor black and white farmers ignored by the New South mentality.   

Burt, Donald Charles. "Utopia and the Agrarian Tradition in America, 1865-1900." 272 p. Ph.D. dissertation, U of New Mexico, 1973.  DAI 1974 34(11):7182-A.  Because of Populist's nostalgia for the agrarianism of the pre-Civil War period and their recognition that industrial capitalism made that life impossible, most utopians found effective compromises between the two worlds. 

Cherny, Robert W. "Willa Cather and the Populists." Great Plains Quarterly. 3(4):206-18. 1983.  Cather believed Populists were lazy, radical complainers. 

Dobkowski, Michael N. "Populist Antisemitism in U.S. Literature." Patterns of Prejudice [Great Britain] 1976 10(3): 19-27.  Discusses anti-Semitism and racial stereotypes of Jews in US literature during the Populist era, including the influence of the Rothschild image and the theory of Jewish world conspiracy. America: History and Life, 15A:1138

_____. "Where the New World Isn't New: Roots of U.S. Antisemitism." Patterns of Prejudice [Great Britain] 1975 9(4): 21-30.  Discusses the historiography of anti-Semitism in the United States from 1855 to the turn of the century, emphasizing ethnic stereotypes in popular novels and in Populism. America: History and Life, 14A:6710

Doermann, Humphrey. "All My Immense Labor for Nothing...." American Heritage 1961 12(4): 60-64 and 104-107.  Traces the career of Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901), whose varied career as politician, author and reformer brought him failure more often than success. Many of his reforms, especially those espoused by the Populist Party became accepted after his death. America: History and Life, 0:2813

Garland, Hamlin. A Spoil of Office. 385 p. Boston: Arena, 1892.  Novel set in Wisconsin and Iowa concerning the creation of the Populist Party. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corp., 1969.  

Gemorah, Solomon. "Samuel Leavitt: Apocalyptic Prophet in Quest of Community." American Studies [Lawrence, KS] 1972 13(2): 107-117.  Samuel Leavitt was a journalist who later became a Populist who proposed a series of anti-monopoly measures in 1874. He attempted through his writing to bring about an economic and social reorganization, and looked forward to a new communal consensus.  America: History and Life, 13A:389

Gessel, Michael. "Tale of a Parable." The Baum Bugle 39 (Spring, 1992): 19-23.  Analysis of Henry M. Littlefield's 1964 article (cited below), with a short commentary by Littlefield on how he conceived the article. 

Glazener, Nancy. "Regional Accents: Populism, Feminism, and New England Women's Regionalism." Arizona Quarterly 1996 52(3): 33-53.  New England women regionalist writers Alice Brown, Rose Terry Cooke, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and Sarah Orne Jewett that appeared in Boston's Arena magazine in the 1890's respond directly to the rhetoric and history of the populist movement. These writers integrated populist political concerns with the conventions of women's domestic literature. America: History and Life, 35:15447

Grant, H. Roger. "Populists and Utopia: A Neglected Connection." Red River Valley Historical Review 1975 2(4): 481-494.  Sees a correlation between the Populist Movement and the authors of Utopian novels. America: History and Life, 15A:7427

Inge, M. Thomas, ed. Agrarianism in American Literature. 388 p. New York: Odyssey, 1969.   

Keeler, Clinton. "Children of Innocence: The Agrarian Crusade in Fiction." Western Humanities Review. 6:636-76. Autumn 1952.   

_____. "The Grass Roots of Utopia: A Study of the Literature of the Agrarian Revolt in America, 1880-1902." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1954.  DAI, 14, no. 06, (1954): 0973. 

Koch, William E. "Verse and Song from the Populist Era." Kansas Quarterly. 1(4):123-25. Fall 1969.  

Littlefield, Henry M. "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism." American Quarterly 1964 16(1): 47-71.  The original Oz story was a parable on Populism.  Dorothy was the common American.  The wicked witch of the East represented the Eastern industrialists and bankers who controlled the people (Munchkins).  The Scarecrow without brains who eventually proves to be smart represents farmers.  The heartless Tin Woodman represents brutalized urban laborers.  The Cowardly Lion is Bryan.  The Wizard, who turns out to be a humbug, is the average Gilded Age politician.  Dorothy's slippers in the original story are silver, and are her means of returning home.  America: History and Life, 1:2502

Margon, Arthur. "Urbanization in Fiction: Changing Models of Heroism in Popular American Novels, 1880-1920." American Studies 1976 17(2): 71-86.  Ignatius Donnelly and other utopians noted the "impossibility of heroism in urban culture." Novelists of all persuasions found that individualism and public welfare were not compatible in an urban age.  America: History and Life, 15A:4293

Martin, Quentin Ellis. "The Forgotten Radical: Hamlin Garland and the Populist Revolt." Ph.D. dissertation (Literature), Ohio State University, 1994.  DAI, 55, no. 06A, (1994): 1561.  Concentrates on Garland's early Populist fiction (Main-Travelled Roads, Jason Edwards, A Member of the Third House, A Spoil of Office, Prairie Folks), his rarely discussed Dakota fiction (The Rise of Boomtown, A Little Norsk, "The Land of the Straddle-Bug"), and his four-volume autobiographical sequence beginning with A Son of the Middle Border.  Garland provides a crucial demystification of the Western settlement process.  Garland's work is the "Uncle Tom's Cabin of Populism."  

_____. "Hamlin Garland's 'The Return of a Private' and 'Under the Lion's Paw' and the Monopoly of Money in Post-Civil War America." American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 1996 29(1): 62-77.  Describes the origins of the Populist movement in reaction to monetary policies implemented between 1865 and the 1890's and explores how Hamlin Garland's works, both published in 1891, take up Populist themes.  America: History and Life, 36:1396

McHugh, Christine. "Edward Bellamy and the Populists: The Agrarian Response to Utopia, 1888-1898." 431 p. Ph.D. dissertation, U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1977.   DAI 1977 38(1):439-A.   

_____. "Midwestern Populist Leadership and Edward Bellamy: 'Looking Backward' Into the Future." American Studies.  19(2):57-74. 1978.  Bellamy's ideas permeated the Midwestern Populist heartland.  America: History and Life, 17A:4106

Moore, Charles W. "Paradise at Topolobampo." Journal of Arizona History 1975 16(1): 1-28. America: History and Life, 12A:5695.  This is the 1945 reminiscence of a former participant of the Populist commune of Topolobambo on Mexico's west coast.

Parker, David B. "The Rise and Fall of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a 'Parable on Populism.'" Journal of the Georgia Association of Historians 1994 15: 49-63.  In 1964, Henry M. Littlefield in the American Quarterly introduced a number of parallels between the tale and the populist movement. Other scholars elaborated and even used the story as a means to teach populism. In the early 1990s, William R. Leach saw the tale differently, emphasizing the rise of a new industrial ethic and the value of urban abundance. Baum's Oz thus is not anti-establishment, but actually celebrates American capitalism.  America: History and Life, 34:5690

Patterson, John. "Alliance and Antipathy: Ignatius Donnelly's Ambivalent Vision in Doctor Huguet." American Quarterly 1970 22(4): 824-845.  Analyzes Ignatius Donnelly's views of race relations as seen in his novel Doctor Huguet (1891).  A sympathetic analysis of the plight of blacks in America, but is flawed by Donnelly's own racial attitudes, but revealed in his mechanisms to keep blacks firmly in "their place" subordinate to whites. Hope for "upbuilding" tends to be equated with increasing whiteness. America: History and Life, 13A:773

_____. "From Yeoman to Beast: Images of Blackness in Caesar's Column." American Studies 1971 12(2): 21-31.  Examines the place of prejudice in Ignatius Donnelly's Caesar's Column.  Donnelly long remained interested in possibilities for black-white cooperation amid continued repression. But his images of black revolt connect the book with the appeals of southern white supremacists in the Gilded Age. America: History and Life, 14A:832

Pollack, Norman. "Ignatius Donnelly on Human Rights: A Study of Two Novels." Mid-America 1965 47(2): 99-112.  Donnelly's novels Doctor Huguet (1891) and The Golden Bottle (1892) testify that he had a dream not of the denial but of the affirmation of man, whether Negro or white, Christian or Jew; not a society based on authoritarian principles but its very opposite, the realization of human dignity and human rights. America: History and Life, 2:2377

Potter, Richard Harold. "Rural Life in Populist America: A Study of Short Fiction as Historical Evidence." Ph.D. dissertation, U of Maryland, 1971.  Dissertation Abstracts, 32:5718-A.  Mary Wilkins, Kate Chopin, and Hamlin Garland, 1882-1902.  

Quick, Herbert. The Hawkeye. 477 p. Indianapolis: Bobbs, 1923.  Novel.  A view of Populist movement.  

Rockoff, Hugh. "The 'Wizard of Oz' as a Monetary Allegory." Journal of Political Economy 1990 98(4): 739-760.  Interprets the allegory for economists and economic historians, illuminating a number of elements left unexplained by critics concerned with the politics of the allegory. It also reexamines Bryan and the case for free silver. Far from being monetary cranks, the advocates of free silver had a strong argument on both theoretical and empirical grounds. America: History and Life, 28:9708

Roemer, Kenneth M. The Obsolete Necessity: America in Utopian Writings, 1888-1900. Kent: Kent State UP, 1976.  Most utopian novels of this era can be associated with Populism.  Includes excellent bibliography with short synopses of about 200 novels.  

Saxton, Alexander. "'Caesar's Column': The Dialogue of Utopia and Catastrophy." American Quarterly 1967 19(2, pt. 1): 224-238.  Compares Ignatius Donnelly, Caesar's Column (1891) with Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (1888).  Donnelly's work is actually a more complex elaboration of the thesis originally presented by Bellamy. Donnelly goes beyond Bellamy by counterbalancing utopian and antiutopian.  He comes closer to synthesis. Both positive and negative elements are combined and "warning" and "prophesy" stress the underside of Bellamy's more simplistic utopian progressivism. America: History and Life, 6:194

Schweninger, Lee. "The Building of the City Beautiful: The Motif of the Jeremiad in Three Utopian Novels." American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 1985 18(1-2): 107-119.  Compares three Utopian novels: Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, Ignatius Donnelly's Caesar's Column, A Story of the Twentieth Century, and William Dean Howells's A Traveler from Altruria, discussing their common theme of the jeremiad, a sermon quoting the Bible to warn of punishment for sins. America: History and Life, 24A:3645

Simms, L. Moody, Jr. "A Note on Sidney Lanier's Attitude Toward the Negro and Toward Populism." Georgia Historical Quarterly 1968 52(3): 305-307.  Traces the Southern Populist attitude toward the Negro to an essay by Sidney Lanier entitled "The New South" (1880).  Lanier's essay advocated that the political unity of the small farmers of the South, black and white alike, was more important than maintaining the tradition of racial antagonism. America: History and Life, 6:1159

Tarr, Joel A. "Goldfinger, the Gold Conspiracy and the Populists." Midcontinent American Studies Journal 1966 7(2): 49-52.  Presents parallels and similarities between Ian Fleming's "Goldfinger" and the Populist literature of the 1890's. The author draws numerous comparisons, such as populism's fear of the "Goldbug" conspiracy to demonetize silver, and "Goldfinger's" plot to rob Fort Knox. America: History and Life, 4:2700

Thomas, John L. Alternative America: Henry George, Edward Bellamy, Henry Demarest Lloyd and the Adversary Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983.  Places the political economy of these writers (Bellamy and Lloyd were Populists) within the American tradition of republicanism. 

_____. "Utopia for an Urban Age: Henry George, Henry Demarest Lloyd, Edward Bellamy." Perspectives in American History 1972 6: 135-163.  Examines the ideological legacy which Henry George, Henry Demarest Lloyd, and Edward Bellamy gave to urbanized America. None of them wished to restructure the existing social framework, only to restrict its extension and develop regional patterns of expansion. America: History and Life, 12A:2574

Trimble, Steven and Winters, Donald E. "Warnings From the Past: Caesar's Column and Nineteen-Eighty Four." Minnesota History 1984 49(3): 109-114.  A comparison of Ignatius Donnelly, Caesar's Column (1891) and George Orwell, 1984 (1948). These two antiutopian novels portraying worlds gone wrong show many similarities in the lives and views of their authors.  America: History and Life, 22A:5266

Welsch, Roger L. "Populism and Folklore." Kansas Quarterly. 1(4):114-120. Fall 1969. Reflection of Populism in music and tales.