The extent and intensity of electoral and voter fraud that took place during the U.S. Gilded Age is properly infamous. This paper explores a form of voter intimidation that has garnered comparatively little scholarly attention: economic coercion. Absent secrecy at the polls and security at work, bosses forced workingmen to choose between their job or their vote. Economic voter intimidation provoked both a real and rhetorical crisis in the 1870s and 1880s. In real terms, it disrupted hundreds of elections and damaged thousands of workers’ livelihoods. It became a nationwide crisis after 1873, however, because for the first time, employers were coercing white workingmen on a widespread basis. Reports of employers coercing their employees at the polls throughout the nation confirmed the worst fears of many labor leaders and politicians: white wage-workers were insecure possessors of the franchise whose precariousness might threaten democracy itself. Mining previously overlooked accounts of economic voter intimidation in contested congressional election case records, congressional investigations, corporate records, and newspapers, this article argues that employers’ politicized layoff threats and observation of workers at the polls undermined the political equality of even those men whose whiteness had seemingly secured their privilege.

中文翻译：

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“为你的面包和黄油投票”：镀金时代选民的经济恐吓

在美国镀金时代发生的选举和选民欺诈的程度和强度是臭名昭著的。本文探讨了一种在学术上相对较少关注的恐吓选民的形式：经济胁迫。投票时缺乏保密性和工作中的安全性，老板们迫使工人在工作或投票之间做出选择。经济上的选民恐吓在 1870 年代和 1880 年代引发了一场真实的和言辞上的危机。实际上，它扰乱了数百次选举，损害了数千名工人的生计。然而，在 1873 年之后，它变成了一场全国性的危机，因为雇主第一次在广泛的基础上强迫白人工人。雇主在全国民意调查中强迫雇员的报道证实了许多劳工领袖和政治家最担心的事情：白人雇佣工人是选举权的不安全拥有者，他们的不稳定可能威胁到民主本身。在有争议的国会选举案件记录、国会调查、公司记录和报纸中挖掘先前被忽视的经济选民恐吓记录，本文认为，雇主的政治化裁员威胁和在民意调查中对工人的观察破坏了即使是那些白人男性的政治平等似乎获得了他们的特权。