Honors Theses
Date of Award
2005
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Journalism
First Advisor
Joseph Atkins
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
The American Populist movement of the 1800s, politically represented by the People’s Party, was the largest third party movement in the history of America. It is a movement that many authors have tried to reevaluate to better understand how grassroots movements, like Populism, begin and to discover what the Populist movement brought to the political scene that did not previously exist. In his book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas? How the Conservatives Won the Heart of America,” Thomas Frank analyzes the Populist movement of the late 1800s and compares it to the new populism of today. According to Frank, this new populism began in the 1960s and has achieved momentum over the last four decades. It is a conservative movement driven by what has become known as values politics. Frank seeks to find the source of the new populism movement, which he calls “The Great Backlash,” by focusing on his home state of Kansas, an historical home to many leftist reform movements, including the Populist movement of the 1800s, that is now one of the most fundamentally conservative states in America. The purpose of my thesis is to find the answer to Frank’s question. What’s the Matter with Kansas? It is the same question that journalist William Allen White asked in his editorial criticism of the Populist movement in 1896. In my opinion, the best way to find the answer to this question is by asking the American people. So, in my research I conducted six interviews. V The interviewees consist of: three men, three women; two Republicans, three Democrats and one Independent. The states represented include: Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Tennessee. I asked each person the same four questions, which appear as the chapter titles. Each chapter includes commentaiy from my interviewees, Frank and several other scholars. Thus, the thesis is a journalistic piece on Populism and American political life that seeks to answer a question that was first asked in 1896 and has yet to be answered. What I found and what you will see is that there is not just one problem, there are many. Therefore, there is not only one solution.
Recommended Citation
Reyenga, Rebecca Ruth, "Six Middle Americans Respond to Thomas Frank's Question, 'What's the Matter With Kansas?' An Analytical Commentary on Populism and American Political Life" (2005). Honors Theses. 2100.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2100
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