Populism in the Mountain West: A Mainstream Movement

Abstract

presented with a presidential ticket designed to please both North and South. A new political organization, the People's party, was offering voters during the 1892 election an ex-Union general for president and an ex-Confederate general for his running mate. The former was James B. Weaver of Iowa and the latter James G. Field of Virginia. But the primary objective of the new party was not to reconcile the Union, although the bitterness caused by the Civil War still lingered. Rather its major purpose was to begin the long-delayed process of solving the myriad of ignored social and economic problems that had accumulated during the nation's unprecedented industrial growth following the Civil War. Moreover, the political movement that had launched the new party had started in Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, which were located along the fringe of the wilderness when Union and Confederate armies first clashed at Bull Run. In these Middle Border states dissident and inde-