Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-w79xw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-16T23:03:03.269Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The 1896 Election and Congressional Modernization: An Appraisal of the Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Joel Budgor ,
Elizabeth A. Capell ,
David A. Flanders ,
Nelson W. Polsby ,
Mark C. Westlye  and
John Zaller
Joel Budgor
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Elizabeth A. Capell
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
David A. Flanders
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Nelson W. Polsby
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Mark C. Westlye
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
John Zaller
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This essay will explore the relationship between the modernization of Congress and one of the main forces that is alleged to have produced it, the critical election of 1896. This is the election in which William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska ran for President on the Democratic ticket on a platform urging currency reform and bimetallic coinage. He was opposed on the Republican side by William McKinley of Ohio.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , Winter 1981 , pp. 53 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1981 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Authors’ Note: We would like to acknowledge, with thanks, the help of Debra Zaller, Margaret Baker, Steven Rosenstone, Kathy Janes, John McCarthy, and the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

References

Atkinson, C. R. (1911) The Committee on Rules and the Overthrow of Speaker Cannon. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Binkley, W. E. (1962) American Political Parties. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774–1961 (1961). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Bolles, B. (1951) Tyrant from Illinois: Uncle Joe Cannon’s Experiment with Personal Power. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Brady, D. W. (1973) Congressional Voting in a Partisan Era. Lawrence, KS: Univ. of Kansas Press.Google Scholar
Brown, G. R. (1922) The Leadership of Congress. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Burnham, W. D. (1967) “Party systems and the political process,” pp. 277–307 in Chambers, W. N. and Burnham, W. D. (eds.) The American Party Systems. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Clark, C. (1920) My Quarter Century of American Politics I. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Degler, C. (1964) “American political parties and the rise of the city.” J. of Amer. History 51 (June): 41–59.Google Scholar
Dunn, A. W. (1922) From Harrison to Harding II. New York: Putnam.Google Scholar
Ewing, C.A.M. (1949) “Primaries as real elections.” Southwestern Social Sci. Q. 29 (March): 293–298.Google Scholar
Fiorina, M. P., Rohde, D. W., and Wissel, P. (1975) “Historical change in House turnover,” pp. 24–49 in Ornstein, N. (ed.) Congress in Change. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Fite, G. C. (1972) “The election of 1896,” pp. 225–263 in Schlesinger, A. M. Jr. (ed.), The Coming to Power: Critical Presidential Elections in American History. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Glad, P. W. (1964) McKinley, Bryan and the People. Philadelphia: Lippincott.Google Scholar
Goodman, W. (1964) The Two-Party System in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.Google Scholar
Hechler, K. (1940) Insurgency: Personalities and Politics of the Taft Era. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Holt, J. (1967) Congressional Insurgents and the Party System, 1909-1916. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Jones, C. O. (1968) “Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith: an essay on the limits of leadership in the House of Representatives.” J. of Politics 30 (August): 617–646.Google Scholar
Jones, S. L. (1964) The Presidential Election of 1896. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Kelley, R. (1977) “Ideology and political culture from Jefferson to Nixon.” Amer. Historical Rev. 82 (June): 531–582.Google Scholar
Key, V. O. (1955) “A theory of critical elections.” J. of Politics 17 (February): 3–18.Google Scholar
Kleppner, P. (1964) The Cross of Culture. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Literary Digest (1910) “Topics of the Day: The Uprising Against Cannon” (26 March): 573.Google Scholar
MacRae, D. Jr, and Meldrum, J. A. (1960) Critical elections in Illinois: 1888-1958. American Pol. Sci. Rev. 44 (September): 669–683.Google Scholar
McSeveney, S. T. (1972) The Politics of Depression: Political Behavior in the Northeast, 1893-1896. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, P. L. [ed.] (1974) Political Parties in American History 3. New York: Putnam.Google Scholar
Norris, G. W. (1945) Fighting Liberal: The Autobiography of George W. Norris. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Peck, H. T. (1906) Twenty Years of the Republic. New York: Dodd, Mead.Google Scholar
Polsby, N. W. (1975) “Legislatures,” pp. 257–319 in Greenstein, F. I. and Polsby, N. W. (eds.) Handbook of Political Science 5. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Polsby, N. W. (1968) “The institutionalization of the U.S. House of Representatives.” Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev. 62 (March): 144–168.Google Scholar
Pomper, G. M. (1971) Elections in America. New York: Dodd, Mead.Google Scholar
Price, H. D. (1977) “Careers and committees in the American Congress: the problems of structural change,” pp. 28–62 in Aydelotte, W. O. (ed.) The History of Parliamentary Behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Price, H. D. (1975) “Congress and the evolution of legislative professionalism,” pp. 2–23 in Ornstein, N. (ed.) Congress in Change. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. (1960) The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. (1956) “The United States: the functional approach to party government,” pp. 194–215 in Neumann, S. (ed.) Modern Political Parties. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Starek, F. (1906) “J. Warren Keifer,” pp. 330–333 in Stealey, O. O. (ed.) Twenty Years in the Press Gallery. New York: O. O. Stealey.Google Scholar
Tarr, J. A. (1971) A Study in Boss Politics: William Lorimer of Chicago. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Turner, F. J. (1932) The Significance of Sections in American History. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Turner, J. T. (1953) “Primary Elections as the Safe Alternative to Party Competition in ‘Safe’ Districts.” J. of Politics 15 (May): 197–210.Google Scholar
Witmer, T. R. (1964) “The Aging of the House.” Pol. Sci. Q. 79 (December): 526–541.Google Scholar
Wolfinger, R. W. and Heifetz, J. (1965) “Safe Seats, Seniority and Power in Congress.” Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev. 59 (June): 337–349.Google Scholar