Lee and Cox, When Sunflowers Bloomed Red: Kansas and the Rise of Socialism in America

Abstract

Reviewed by: When Sunflowers Bloomed Red: Kansas and the Rise of Socialism in America by R. Alton Lee and Steven Cox Erik Loomis When Sunflowers Bloomed Red: Kansas and the Rise of Socialism in America By R. Alton Lee and Steven Cox (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020. Pp. ix, 324. Notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.) R. Alton Lee and Steven Cox, two veteran historians of social movements in the Midwest, have published a highly useful volume on the history of socialism in Kansas and the Midwest more broadly. While not a completely groundbreaking study, When Sunflowers Bloomed Red is a valuable addition to the literature. It is almost shocking for students to hear today that the rural Midwest was once a hotbed of American socialism. This book is a great reminder not only of that forgotten reality, but also of the amazing variety within the socialist movement. Lee and Cox’s primary contribution is teasing out these strains and exploring each in separate chapters. I particularly appreciate how they begin by discussing “capitalistic socialists”—not a type contemporary readers might expect, but one which describes the followers of both Populism and Eugene Debs. The empathetic socialists remind readers of the social feeling that went into so much of the movement. [End Page 232] The chapter on the miners of southeastern Kansas provides an example of the more urban-industrial socialism that became the hallmark of the movement in the United States. “Successful socialists” are not an ideological type, but it is easy to forget that socialists could and did win elections during the early twentieth century. One of the most successful campaign issues for socialist candidates, including those in Kansas, was public ownership of utilities. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) organized itinerant workers in oil and wheat, providing a direct challenge to capital in the state. The authors take corporate and newspaper reports on the IWW too literally, as the literature on the IWW nationwide demonstrates that the authorities exaggerated Wobbly violence for their own purposes. Finally, the authors close with a chapter on the decline of the socialists in the reaction of the 1920s, and the revival of the movement during the Great Depression. My reservation regarding Lee’s and Cox’s characterizations of midwestern socialists is their placement of all women in the chapter “The Female Socialists,” which dismisses this large group’s ideological variations. Socialist women would fit into the authors’ interpretive categories; Lee and Cox should have avoided placing all socialist women in one chapter and leaving the rest of the book to men. I also wish that the authors had provided a further explanation for socialism’s decline in the Midwest. They correctly point out that the movement was far from universally popular, but that was as true in 1915 as it was in the 1940s. Why did it thrive in the face of hostility and then decline at a time when socialism retained a significant following in the urban organized labor movement? Moreover, given the region’s contributions to the far right in the present, more theoretical discussion about the trajectory of both the politics of the region and socialism more broadly would have great value. Nevertheless, this is a strong book that will be of great interest to readers of this journal. [End Page 233] Erik Loomis University of Rhode Island Copyright © 2022 Trustees of Indiana University