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Populist Cartoons: An Illustrated History of the Third-Party Movement in the 1890s by Robert Worth Miller (review)

This illustrated history of the Populist Party, and the Third-Party movement more broadly, provides a gentle introduction to a sometimes radical, sometimes traditional political coalition that, as its eloquent author Robert Worth Miller notes, put a finishing touch on the strange period in American history dubbed the “Gilded Age” by Mark Twain. Drawing on scholarship—but mostly putting forward his own summary of the origins, history, and afterlife of Populism—Miller proposes that Populist cartoons, published in newspapers and magazines, can furnish powerful ways of understanding a political movement that “brought forth the greatest electoral participation of poor people in American political history,” among other singular achievements (185). This historical methodology will probably not suffer much challenge from humor scholars, but it is worth noting how quietly and persuasively Miller makes his case for the value of cartoons as a means to understand history and as productive moments of history themselves. The book is notably timid when it comes to providing interpretations of what for many scholars today would be necessary issues to address in some depth, most obviously that of the relationship between race, humor, economics, and party politics. This is not to say that Miller avoids these issues, just to say that readers looking for a challenging reinterpretation of Populism will find themselves bereft. Instead, what they will find is a subtly rigorous, notably pleasant, and very well-informed introduction to a political movement, and its cartoons, that tells us a lot about the 1890s and even a little about today. One of the best parts of the book is the way it explains the complex politics of silver and gold in the 1890s. This pivotal debate over economic policy was important to everyone in the period, especially to the rich and the poor, but it can be a very confusing subject. Miller manages to explain in clear terms, with some detail, exactly what constituted the debate over gold and silver monetary standards and how high the stakes were. I take from this two points: