THE POPULIST CHALLENGE ★^655
The Populist movement also engaged the energies of thousands of reform-
minded women from farm and labor backgrounds. Some, like Mary Eliz-
abeth Lease, a former homesteader and one of the first female lawyers in
Kansas, became prominent organizers, campaigners, and strategists. Lease
was famous for her speeches urging farmers to “raise less corn and more hell”
(although she apparently never actually uttered those exact words, which
would have been considered inappropriate for a woman in public). “We
fought England for our liberty,” Lease declared, “and put chains on four mil-
lion blacks. We wiped out slavery and... began a system of white wage slavery
worse than the first.” During the 1890s, referendums in Colorado and Idaho
approved extending the vote to women, while in Kansas and California the
proposal went down in defeat. Populists in all these states endorsed women’s
suffrage.
Populist presidential candidate James Weaver received more than 1 million
votes in 1892. The party carried five western states, with twenty- two electoral
votes, and elected three governors and fifteen members of Congress. In his
inaugural address in 1893, Lorenzo Lewelling, the new Populist governor of
Kansas, anticipated a phrase made famous seventy years later by Martin Luther
King Jr.: “I have a dream.... In the beautiful vision of a coming time I behold
the abolition of poverty. A time is foreshadowed when... liberty, equality, and
justice shall have permanent abiding places in the republic.”
WASHINGTON
OREGON
IDAHO
MONTANA
WYOMING
NEVADA
CALIFORNIA
TERRITUTAHORY
TERRITARIZONAORY NEW MEXICO
TERRITORY
COLORADO
OKLAHOMATERRITORY
TEXAS LOUISIANA
ARKANSAS
NEBRASKA
KANSAS
DASOUTHKOTA
DANORKOTHTA
MINNESOTA
WISCONSIN
IOWA
MISSOURI
ILLINOIS
INDIANA
MICHIGAN
MISSISSIPPI
ALABAMAGEORGIA
FLORIDA
CARSOUTHOLINA
CARNOROLINATH
TENNESSEE
KENTUCKY VIRGINIA
VIRWESTGINIA
OHIO
PENNSYLVANIA
YORKNEW
VERMONT
HAMPSHIRENEW
MASSACHUSETTS
MAINE
RHODEISLAND
CONNECTICUT
NEW JERSEY
DELAWARE
MARYLAND
CANADA
MEXICO 0
0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers
presidential vPopulist share of theote, 1892
(percentage)
Ov30–48er 48
15–305–1 5
0–5
Not voting
POPULIST STRENGTH, 1892
What were the origins and the significance of Populism?