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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Yatron, Michael. "The Influence of
Populism on Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsay, and Carl Sandburg."
Ph.D. dissertation (Language and Literature), Temple University, 1957. |