North Carolina

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Beckel, Deborah. "Roots of Reform: The Origins of Populism and Progressivism as Manifest in Relationships Among Reformers in Raleigh, North Carolina, 1850-1905." Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1998.  DAI, 59, no. 08A, (1998): 3166.  Recounts the lives of John Nichols (1834-1917), James Henry Harris (1832-1891), Leonidas LaFayette Polk (1837-1892), and Fannie Exile Scudder Heck (1862-1915).  Polk was president of the Southern Farmers Alliance.  Their reform efforts were rooted in the past, cross-class, and long-lived.  Each suffered from powerful retaliation by North Carolina's conservative white male elite.  This, plus differences between reformers, prevented their building the strong coalitions necessary for lasting reform. 

Beeby, James M. "Populism in North Carolina: A Response to the Socio-Political Hegemony of the Bourbon Democratic Elites." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1995. 

Beeby, James Matthew. "Revolt of the Tar Heelers: A socio-political history of the North Carolina Populist Party, 1892-1901." Ph.D. dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 1999.  DAI, 60, no. 11A (1999): 4147.  Populists fused with Republicans and defeated the  Democrats in 1894.  They subsequently passed a series of reforms that changed the North Carolina politics and political culture.  Democrats responded with a white supremacy campaign in 1898 using the interlocking themes of increased black power and the threat to white womanhood.  Once back in office, Democrats repealed the reforms and disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites. 

Billings, Dwight B., Jr. Planters and the Making of a 'New South': Class, Politics, and Development in North Carolina, 1865-1900. 284 p. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1979. 

Bode, Frederick A. Protestantism and the New South: North Carolina Baptists and Methodists in Political Crisis, 1894-1903. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 1975.   

_____. "Religion and Class Hegemony: A Populist Critique in North Carolina." Journal of Southern History. 37(3):417‑38. August 1971.  Populists' battles with traditional southern Protestant religion and its role as defender of the status quo.  

Bromberg, Alan B. "The Worst Muddle Ever Seen in N. C. Politics: The Farmers' Alliance, the Subtreasury, and Zeb Vance." North Carolina Historical Review. 56(1):19-40. 1979. 

Carlson, Andrew James. "White Man's Revolution: North Carolina and the American Way of Race Politics, 1896-1901." Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1993.  DAI, 54, no. 10A, (1993): 3854.  In 1896 North Carolina fulfilled many of the best possibilities of Gilded Age politics.  Governed by the most liberal election laws in the South, a Fusion coalition of Republicans and Populists elected 8 of 9 United States Representatives to the Congress, the nation's only African-American congressman, and the state's first Republican Governor since 1877.  In 1897 and 1898 Democrats used their domination of the daily newspapers to make the case that the Fusionists had brought an "Era of Scandal" and "Negro domination" on the state.  The Spanish-American War became the background for a violent white supremacy campaign and a massacre of innocent African-Americans.  

Crow, Jeffrey J. "'Fusion, Confusion, and Negroism': Schisms Among Negro Republicans in the North Carolina Election of 1896." North Carolina Historical Review 1976 53(4): 364-384.  Black Republicans were divided over the gubernatorial candidacy of Daniel L. Russell in 1896. Conservatives opposed Russell feared loss of status within the Republican Party and disliked his public racial insults.  Fusionists favored Russell as a means of defeating the Democrats.  Democratic racism and good Republican organization caused a majority of blacks to vote for Russell on election day. America: History and Life, 15A:2428

_____. "'Populism to Progressivism' in North Carolina: Governor Daniel Russell and His War on the Southern Railway Company." Historian 1975 37(4): 649-667.  Unlike Alabama Populists, North Carolina's Populists were reformers.  Although progressive Democrats failed to support Governor Russell on railroad regulation in the 1890s, they supported the issue after the turn of the century. America: History and Life, 14A:8408

_____. and Robert F. Durden. Maverick Republican in the Old North State: A Political Biography of Daniel L. Russell. 202 p. Southern Biography Series. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1977. 

Delap, Simeon Alexander. "The Populist Party in North Carolina." Trinity College Historical Society, Durham N.C. Historical Papers. 14:40-74. 1922.  

Durden, Robert F. "The Battle of the Standards in 1896 and North Carolina's Place in the Mainstream." South Atlantic Quarterly 1964 63(3): 336-350.  Emphasizes fusion. America: History and Life, 1:2510

Faulkner, Ronnie W. "North Carolina Democrats and Silver Fusion Politics, 1892-1896." North Carolina Historical Review 1982 59(3): 230-251.  North Carolina Democrats opposed Grover Cleveland's nomination for president in 1892 because he supported the gold standard.  With the Panic of 1893 and Populist-Republican fusion of 1894, Democrats went into decline.  Both Democrats and Populists supported William Jennings Bryan's bid for president in 1896, but ran separate gubernatorial candidates, giving the Republicans a victory.  Afterward, Populists abandoned fusion with Republicans in favor of reform from within the Democratic Party. America: History and Life, 20A:5464

Ferguson, James S. "An Era of Educational Change." North Carolina Historical Review. 46(2):130‑141. Spring 1969.  Farmers' Alliance and education to 1900.  

Gilmore, Glenda G. "Agrarian Unrest and Urban Remedies: The Progressive Solution in North Carolina." Master's thesis, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1985.  106 pp. 

Hicks, John D. "The Farmers' Alliance in North Carolina." in American Historical Association Annual Report for the Year 1922. p. 331-32. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1926.  Farmers' Alliance dominates Democratic Party until Alliances fuses with Populists.   

_____. "The Farmers' Alliance in North Carolina." North Carolina Historical Review. 2:162-187. 1925. 

Hunt, James L. "The Making of a Populist: Marion Butler, 1863-1895." North Carolina Historical Review 1985 62(1): 53-77.  In Sampson County, Butler's early life was comfortable and religious as he worked on the family farm. He presented orations at the University of North Carolina (1881-85) on racist and Southern themes.  After graduation, Butler taught school, purchased a local newspaper, The Caucasian, and soon became a leader in the newly formed Southern Alliance. America: History and Life, 23A:6796

_____. Marion Butler and American Populism. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.  A revision of "Marion Butler and the Populist Ideal, 1863-1938." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1990.  DAI, 51, no. 04A, (1990).  A detailed factual account of Butler's life.  Butler served as national chairman of the Populist Party (1896-1904).  Membership in the Farmers Alliance caused Butler to develop a comprehensive reform ideology, which included a demand for government control of natural monopolies.  Butler directed the 1894 Populist victory in North Carolina.  After Populism, Butler became a Roosevelt Republican.  Hunt contradicts Lawrence Goodwyn and C. Vann Woodward, contending Butler understood and supported the Omaha platform.  He advocated coalition politics for practical purposes. 

Ingle, H. Larry. "A Southern Democrat at Large: William Hodge Kitchin and the Populist Party." North Carolina Historical Review 1968 45(2): 178-194.  Ex-Confederate William Hodge Kitchin attacked the established white ruling class in North Carolina, using the rhetoric of democracy in the service of white supremacy.  But, as a Populist, he attempted to preserve conservative principles.  He was on the right wing of the party. America: History and Life, 6:2651

Kimmel, Bruce Ira. "The Political Sociology of Third Parties in the United States: A Comparative Study of the People's Party in North Carolina, Georgia and Minnesota." Ph.D. Dissertation (Sociology), Columbia University, 1981.  Focuses on the reactions of major parties to the instability created by a third party.  In the 1890's, North Carolina and Minnesota had relatively stable two-party systems. A single party dominated in Georgia. North Carolina and Georgia politics in this period were undemocratic, while Minnesota politics were as democratic as any in the nation.  The instability is attributed to the social strains generated by rapid industrialization.   

Kirshenbaum, Andrea Meryl. "'The Vampire That Hovers Over North Carolina': Gender, White Supremacy, and the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898." Southern Cultures 1998 4(3): 6-30.  Democrats manipulated race and gender in order to destroy the Populist-Republican coalition in 1898.  Democratic newspapers blamed "negro domination" and black males' alleged threat to white women's virtue to inflame passions against Populists and republicans.  Fusionists responded in kind, but in order to maintain their coalition also defended black rights.  In the wake of the 1898 Democratic victory, Wilmington whites rioted, killing many blacks and running Fusionist politicians out of town. America: History and Life, 36:10919

McMath, Robert C., Jr. "Agrarian Protest at the Forks of the Creek: Three Subordinate Farmers' Alliances in North Carolina." North Carolina Historical Review 1974 51(1): 41-63.  Farmers and rural professionals were attracted by a program of economic relief, cooperative enterprise, and fraternal organization. Statewide decline of the Alliance in 1891 was associated with increased political activity.  America: History and Life, 13A:6547

Muller, Philip Roy. "New South Populism: North Carolina, 1884-1900." Ph.D. dissertation, U of North Carolina, 1971. Dissertation Abstracts, 32:6902-A.  

Noblin, Stuart. Leonidas La Fayette Polk, Agrarian Crusader. 325 pp. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1949.  One of the better accounts of the Alliance in North Carolina.   

_____. "Leonidas Lafayette Polk and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture." North Carolina Historical Review. 20:103-21. April 1942. Part Ii, 20:197‑218. July 1943. 

Redding, Kent Thomas. "Making Power: Elites in the Constitution of Disfranchisement in North Carolina, 1880-1900." PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995. 

Redding, Kent Thomas. "Making Power: Elites in the Constitution of Disfranchisement in North Carolina, 1880-1900." Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995.  DAI, 56, no. 07A, (1995).  The struggle over the franchise was essentially a political struggle and cannot be understood as a simple outcome of underlying racial and/or class forces.  Disfranchisement resulted from the actions of movements and parties across different levels of the polity.  The Farmers' Alliance and Populist Party used innovative tactics to challenge the economics and politics of the "New" South and, with Republicans, gain control of state government from 1894 to 1898.  Democrats responded with a virulent white supremacy campaign and disfranchisement.   

_____. "Failed Populism: Movement-Party Disjuncture in North Carolina, 1890 to 1900." American Sociological Review June 1992 57(3): 340-352.  The author used county-level data on North Carolina Farmers' Alliance membership and People's Party votes to gauge the relationship between them.  He found a "striking disjuncture" between Alliance membership and People's Party support. America: History and Life, 30:13727

Ritter, Gretchen. Goldbugs and Greenbacks: The Antimonopoly Tradition and the Politics of Finance in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19977. Derived from the author's 1992 MIT Political Science Ph.D. dissertation, "Parties and the Politics of Money: The Antimonopoly Tradition and American Political Development, 1865-1896."  Various movements from the National Labor Union to the Populists were involved in the antimonopoly movement had an alternative political economy tradition rooted in the republican persuasion of Jeffersonians and Jacksonians.  They sought to preserve economic opportunity and political participation for all classes in all regions of the country.  Antimonopolists were particularly concerned with reforming the monetary and banking systems, in order to mitigate economic inequality and political corruption.  The author uses three case studies to consider the impact of geography - North Carolina, Illinois, and Massachusetts.  Antimonopolism was a strong, coherent tradition which offered an intellectually reasonable alternative to corporate liberalism.  They failed because of the combined constraints of the party system, the political culture, economic institutions, and poor strategic choices.  

Schlup, Leonard. "Adlai E. Stevenson and the 1892 Campaign in North Carolina: A Bourbon Response to Southern Populism." Southern Studies 1991 2(2): 131-149.  1892 Democratic vice presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson stumped North Carolina in 1892 assuring listeners that Democrats would defeat the Federal Elections Bill and continue economic benefits to the South.  Stevenson's North Carolina family background gave him credibility.  He saved North Carolina for the Democrats.  America: History and Life, 30:10034

Smith, Robert Wayne. "A Rhetorical Analysis of the Populist Movement in North Carolina." Ph.D. dissertation, U of Wisconsin, 1957.   Dissertation Abstracts, 17:11:2709.  

Smith, Florence Emeline. "The Populist Movement and Its Influence in North Carolina." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1919.  ADD, S0330, (1919): 0140. 

Steelman, Lala Carr, The North Carolina Farmers' Alliance: A Political History, 1887-1893. 295 p. East Carolina U Publications in History no. 6. Greenville, NC: East Carolina U Publications, 1985.   

_____. "The Role of Elias Carr in the North Carolina Farmers' Alliance." North Carolina Historical Review 1980 57(2): 133-158.  Carr was president of the North Carolina Farmers' State Association when the Southern Farmers Alliance absorbed it in 1888.  Despite his upper class standing, Carr became a leader in the militant and powerful farm protest movement, as executive committee chairman (1887-89) and then as Alliance president (1889-91).  he attempted to steer the Alliance away from partisan politics. America: History and Life, 19A:2637

Steelman, Joseph Flake. "The Progressive Era in North Carolina, 1884-1917." Ph.D. dissertation, U of North Carolina, 1955.   

_____. "Republican Party Strategists and the Issue of Fusion with Populists in North Carolina, 1893-1894." North Carolina Historical Review 1970 47(3): 244-269.  Credits John Baxter Eaves, chairman of the Republican State Executive Committee, "with the reorganization of a rejuvenated, white Republican Party in North Carolina and Rutherford County" in 1893-1894. He opposed fusion with Populists on ideological grounds. America: History and Life, 12A:4494

Terry, Robert Lewis. "The North Carolina Populists: A Study of Attitudes in the Light of Historiographic Issues." M.A. thesis, history, U of Utah, 1967.   

Tilley, Nannie May. "Agitation Against the American Tobacco Company in North Carolina, 1890‑1911." North Carolina Historical Review. 24:207-23. April 1947. 

Thurtell, Craig Martin. "The Fusion Insurgency in North Carolina: Origins to Ascendancy, 1876-1896." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1998.  DAI, 59, no. 05A, (1998): 1741.  After 1876, Democratic Party political economy promoted the interests of eastern North Carolina planters.  Alliance and Populist activities promoted a successful anti-planter coalition with Republicans and Independents.  Populists were a party of small to middling farm owners who showed little sympathy for blacks.  They shared only a desire for election reform with Republicans.  In 1894, Populists combined with the pro-black wing of the GOP.   This coalition reformed election laws, county government, stock law reversals, and others.  Democrats responded with a violent white supremacy campaign in 1898.   

Trelease, Allen W. "The Fusion Legislatures of 1895 and 1897: A Roll-Call Analysis of the North Carolina House of Representatives." North Carolina Historical Review 1980 57(3): 280-309.  The Populist-Republican coalitions of 1894 and 1896 ultimately disintegrated over such large issues as business regulation, the gold standard, and race relations as well as over specific state issues, including local government, patronage, education, taxes, lynching, and railroads.  Republicans supported election and government reform.  Populists supported public education, business regulation, and liquor and cigarette control. America: History and Life, 19A:2639

Weaver, Philip Johnson. "The Gubernatorial Election of 1896 in North Carolina." M.A. thesis, U of North Carolina, 1937.