Multiparty Politics in Mississippi: 1877-1902. By Stephen Cresswell.

University Press of Mississippi, 1995, hardback. ISBN number 0878057706. Includes photos, maps; 296 pages. Now out of print in hardback, but available here. Signed copies available.

New hardback book priced at $19.95, plus $2.49 shipping to U.S. street addresses.

 

Summary: While postbellum Mississippi is usually described as a one-party state, Cresswell portrays it as a place where Republicans, third-party members, and independents regularly challenged the state's Democrats for primacy.

Here for the first time the Greenback Party and Populist Party in Mississippi have their stories told. Cresswell makes sense of bewildering alliances between wealthy planters, impoverished black voters, and angry white agrarians. Ultimately he explains why even in a state where no voters had reason to be satisfied with the status quo, political challengers won only occasional victories.

Critical comments: "Thoroughly researched and well-written. Highly recommended." —Choice: Books for College Libraries.

"This well-researched and well-argued book is an important addition to the historical literature describing the transition of Mississippi politics from Reconstruction to the age of disfranchisement and one-party rule." —American Historical Review.

Keywords for this book: Mississippi, Populist Party, People's Party, Greenback Party, Greenback Labor Party, Republican, Republicans, Gold Democrats, independents, independent candidates, Prohibition Party, Anti-Monopoly Party, state politics, local elections, Frank Burkitt, Benjamin King, Putnam Darden, Farmers' Alliance, Isaiah T. Montgomery, disfranchisement, poll tax, literacy test, Constitution of 1890, James Lusk Alcorn, black domination, James R. Chalmers, Grover Cleveland, F.M.B. "Marsh" Cook, Copiah, Yazoo, Pontotoc, Webster, Choctaw, Yalobusha, Chickasaw, Panola, Tate, delta, election supervisors, farmers, agriculture, Force Bill, Lodge Elections Bill, fusion, coalitions, William D. Frazee, James Z. George, Thomas P. Gore, John E. Gore, Greenbackers, Greenback, Jackson Taylor Griffin, N.C. Scott Hathorn, James Hill, Robert A. Hill, Benjamin T. Hobbs, Albert D. Kirwan, state legislature, congressional, Congress, John R. Lynch, Robert Lowry, Marion riot, Hernando D. Money, Henry Clay Niles, Ocala Demands, Rufus K. Prewitt, primary elections, W.P. Ratliff, Sumner W. Rose, riots, bloodshed, killings, threats, John M. Stone, James K. Vardaman, Absalom M. West, Peoples Party.

History Books by Stephen Cresswell