Rural Democracy
Subtitle: Family Farmers and Politics in Western Washington, 1890-1925
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: January 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9780801430732
Subjects: Demonstrations & protest movements; Local history; Politics/International Relations; History; Social Movements; Washington - Local History; Washington (State); History - General History; Politics and government; USA; Anthropology - Cultural; General; Women's Studies - History; Agriculture and politics; 19th century; 20th century; Family farms; Lewis County; Lewis County (Wash.)
Description: 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.