Rural Democracy: Family Farmers and Politics in Western Washington, 1890-1925 - Hardcover

Watkins, Marilyn P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801430739 ISBN 13: 9780801430732

Publisher: NCROL, 1996

Synopsis

What happens to social movements in rural settings when they do not face the divisive issues of race and class? Marilyn Watkins examines the stable political climate built by successive waves of Populism, socialism, the farmer-labor movement, and the Grange in turn-of-the-century western Washington. She shows how all of these movements drew on the same community base, empowered farmers, and encouraged them in the belief that democracy, independence, and prosperity were realizable goals. Indeed they were - in a setting where agriculture was diversified, farmers were debt-free, and - critically - women enjoyed equal status as activists in social movements.
Rural Democracy illuminates the problems that undermined Populism and other forms of rural radicalism in the South and the Midwest by demonstrating the political success of those movements where such problems were notably absent: in Lewis county, Washington. By so doing, Watkins convincingly demonstrates the continuing value of local community studies in understanding the large-scale transformations that continue to sweep over rural America.

About this title

About the Author

Marilyn P. Watkins is a Historian at the Institute of the NorthAmerican West in Seattle, Washington.

Edition details

• Publisher: NCROL
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801430739
• ISBN 13: 9780801430732
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 239