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First published in 1952, this work has taken its place as the standard history of the Socialist Party to 1912. The American Socialist Party, at the height of its power, had more than a hundred and fifty thousand members, published hundreds of newspapers, won almost a million votes for its presidential candidate, elected more than one thousand of its members to political office, secured passage of a considerable body of legislation, won the support of one-third of the American Federation of Labor, and was instrumental in organizing the Industrial Workers of the World. It counted in its ranks some of the most talented organizers, able thinkers, and colorful personalities of their generation, conducted an immense propaganda effort, and, for a time, multiplied its support and influence at an astounding pace. The rise and decline of the Socialist Party constitutes a most important and instructive chapter in American history. Few books have more to offer to the student of the movement than this one.
Eugene V. Debs exploded upon the national scene in 1894 as the leader of a sensational strike by his American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Parlor Car Company—a job stoppage which paralyzed the country's transportation network for nearly two weeks. On January 1, 1897, the polarizing public figure Debs declared his allegiance to international socialism, emerging as the most widely recognized socialist in America. He would thereafter tour the country relentlessly, speaking to large audiences and writing hundreds of articles on political and economic themes over the ensuing three decades. Debs almost singlehandedly established a new political party, the Social Democracy of America, in the summer of 1897, building upon the remnants of the depleted ARU. The organization advanced a double agenda, seeking to promote both electoral politics and the construction of socialist colonies on the frontier—a dual focus which led to internal tensions and a bitter split. In 1898 Debs cast his lot with Milwaukee publisher Victor L. Berger in a new organization dedicated to political action, the Social Democratic Party of America. After a split of the older and larger Socialist Labor Party of America in 1899, protracted unity discussions between the Debs group and an organized body of former SLP dissidents ensued. This unity effort was marked by Debs's first run for president of the United States on a joint Social Democratic ticket in November 1900. After heated on-again off-again negotiation between the two groups, a marriage was finally brokered in the summer of 1901 and the Socialist Party of America was launched. The party would soon grow to become the third biggest in American politics, with Debs enthusiastically heading the Socialist ticket in 1904 in the second of his five runs for the presidency.
For socialists at the turn of the last century, reading was a radical act. This interdisciplinary study looks at how American socialists used literacy in the struggle against capitalism.
Describes the rise and decline of the Socialist Party in the United States and the political influence of Eugene V. Debs, who started the Social Democratic Party in 1897.
At a time when the word "socialist" is but one of numerous political epithets that are generally divorced from the historical context of America's political history, The Socialist Party of America presents a new, mature understanding of America's most important minor political party of the twentieth century. From the party's origins in the labor and populist movements at the end of the nineteenth century, to its heyday with the charismatic Eugene V. Debs, and to its persistence through the Depression and the Second World War under the steady leadership of "America's conscience," Norman Thomas, The Socialist Party of America guides readers through the party's twilight, ultimate demise, and the successor groups that arose following its collapse. Based on archival research, Jack Ross's study challenges the orthodoxies of both sides of the historiographical debate as well as assumptions about the Socialist Party in historical memory. Ross similarly covers the related emergence of neoconservatism and other facets of contemporary American politics and assesses some of the more sensational charges from the right about contemporary liberalism and the "radicalism" of Barack Obama.