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Waving The Bloody Newsprint: Partisan Coverage Of Populism In Ellis County, Kansas 1891-1896, Brian Gribben M.A.

History Faculty Publications

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, a new pugilist in the arena of democracy threatened traditional dual-party politics in rural America. What began as an agrarian lobby soon combined with the remnants of single-issue parties from the recent past and manifested itself in the Populist, or People's Party (both supporters and critics would use the two terms interchangeably). During its brief existence, the People's Party captured the imagination of both the downtrodden and idealist and made considerable gains on the state and federal level before imploding like a political nova after the election of 1896. How then did …