page_title: Nationalist Clubs
section_title: Politicization (1890–1892)
hierarchical_section_title: Nationalist Clubs / Organizational history / Politicization (1890–1892)
caption_attribution_description: English: The Independent People's Party (Populist) Convention at w:Columbus, Nebraska, where w:Omer Kem was nominated for Congress, July 15, 1890. This version digitally edited by Tim Davenport for Wikipedia to restore burned out detail, crop extraneous material, and colorization to "warm" the image. No copyright claimed.
context_page_description: Nationalist Clubs were an organized network of socialist political groups which emerged at the end of the 1880s in the United States of America in an effort to make real the ideas advanced by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel Looking Backward. At least 165 Nationalist Clubs were formed by so-called "Bellamyites," who sought to remake the economy and society through the nationalization of industry. One of the last issues of The Nationalist noted that "over 500" had been formed. Owing to the growth of the Populist movement and the financial and physical difficulties suffered by Bellamy, the Bellamyite Nationalist Clubs began to dissipate in 1892, lost their national magazine in 1894, and vanished from the scene entirely circa 1896.
context_section_description: First steps were taken into politics in the fall of 1890, with a Nationalist state ticket put forward in the state of Rhode Island and at least one candidate running for office under the Nationalist banner in California. The possible emergency of a Nationalist Party was undercut by the birth of a new political organization in the field, however, with the People's Party ("Populists") immediately gaining the support of a broad segment of American farmers across the Midwest, South, and West. The violent Homestead Strike of 1892 also served as a catalyst for oppositional politics in the United States. These events served to politicize not only the Nationalist Clubs but Bellamy himself and he entered the political fray.
  With The Nationalist magazine clearly headed for the financial rocks by the end of 1890, Edward Bellamy launched a new monthly magazine of his own in an effort to transform the Nationalist movement from a contemplative propaganda society into a hard-nosed political movement. This new publication was known as The New Nation, and it first rolled off the presses on January 31, 1891. Bellamy provided the finances for the new venture and sat as publisher and editor. Mason Green, a veteran journalist who was a graduate of Amherst College joined Bellamy as managing editor, with Henry R. Legate, organizer of the politically oriented Second Nationalist Club of Boston, aiding as assistant editor.
  For the next three years the Nationalist movement's earlier largely hands-off approach to the dirty grind of daily politics was replaced by dedicated effort to achieve practical results through immediate political action. The logic of the situation made the upstart reform movement around the Nationalist Clubs the natural ally of the upstart movement emerging around the People's Party, and the two organizations intermingled. Nationalist Club members joined their local People's Party organizations en masse while Bellamy attempted to consolidate this alliance by molding his new publication into one of the most important voices of the Populist movement in the Eastern United States.
  Bellamy and the active members of the Nationalist Clubs were strongly supportive of provisions of the People's Party platform which called for the nationalization of the nation's railroads and telegraph system. The Nationalist Clubs remained primarily propaganda organizations even after Bellamy's entry into politics in 1891, although local clubs did occasionally nominate candidates after that date, although most commonly the Nationalists worked in tandem with the People's Party and its candidates.
  The move of the Nationalist Clubs and their members from propaganda societies to political entities acting in alliance with the People's Party created a situation whereby the organizations fulfilled duplicate functions, to the detriment of the Bellamy organization. In the assessment of one historian:
  
  By 1892 Populism had sapped the Nationalist movement of any real vigor it still had. The People's Party had a prospect for immediate success entirely lacking in Nationalism. Hundreds of Nationalists joined the Populists, leaving the clubs virtually hollow shells.
caption: The Nationalist Clubs made common cause with the Midwestern agrarian reformers of the People's Party, shown here in an 1890 convention photo made in Nebraska.
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