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The Southern Farmers’ Alliance, Populists, and lynching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2022

Adam Chamberlain Open the ORCID record for Adam Chamberlain [Opens in a new window]  and
Alixandra B. Yanus
Adam Chamberlain*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina, USA
Alixandra B. Yanus
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, High Point University, High Point, North Carolina, USA
*
*Email: achamber@coastal.edu
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Abstract

The lynching literature often considers how the Populist Party affected lynching, yet the Southern Farmers’ Alliance—a short-lived but influential voluntary association that mobilized large numbers of white farmers—is overlooked. We argue that this is a critical oversight, as the Alliance was the origin of populism in the South. Specifically, we hypothesize that where the Alliance had more local organizations, the greater the likelihood of lynching from 1888 to 1895, the peak period of populism. To test this, we focus on two states with different experiences with the Alliance: North Carolina, in which the state’s Alliance was a strong supporter of the Populist Party, and South Carolina, where the Democrats sought to court Alliancemen and deter the creation of, and voting for, the Populist Party. Our empirical findings reveal that lynchings were more common in counties where the Farmers’ Alliance had more organizations in South Carolina, but no similar connection exists in North Carolina. These findings suggest that the Southern Farmers’ Alliance is, at times, pivotal to understanding populism’s connection to lynching in the late-nineteenth century American South.

Keywords

Southern Farmers’ AlliancePopulist PartylynchingNorth Carolina
Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , Spring 2023 , pp. 121 - 144
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association

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