Project Questions

1. Campaign speeches and cartoons are a different form of historical evidence from a party platform, which is different still from song lyrics and letters to the editor. In this unit’s documents, what can we learn from each of these types of historical sources?
2. Political movements are sometimes grounded in what people do not like or do not want. When a political party (or an individual voter) identifies a particular group of people as enemies or obstacles to the implementation of its (or his or her) political vision, scholars have a term for that: a “negative reference group.” Based on the sources in this unit, who served as the Populists’ negative reference groups? How exactly did the Populists see these groups as problems?
3. Consider the tools that Populists used to affirm their beliefs and invite others to join. What do the documents in this unit tell us about the values and assumptions that Populists shared? What additional documents might tell us more?
4. Central Question: How did Populist leaders try to persuade others to join them, and who was attracted by their appeals?