Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • The Federal Elections Bill of 1890: The Continuation of Reconstruction in America

  • Colin McConarty
  • Journal:
    The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era / Volume 19 / Issue 3 / July 2020
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    03 June 2020, pp. 390-405
    Print publication:
    July 2020

  • Between May 1890 and January 1891, members of Congress debated a bill whose sponsors claimed it would shore up voting rights throughout the nation, especially in the South. The Federal Elections Bill of 1890 never became law, but the debate over it drew Americans’ beliefs about voting, race, and the South back to the forefront of U.S. politics. Historians have relied mostly on two types of sources in their explorations of how Americans viewed the bill: newspapers and the words of political leaders. But 202 letters that individuals around the nation sent to Senator George Frisbie Hoar (R-MA) during the bill's nine-month life in Congress open a new window into the debate. These letters challenge the traditional history of the Federal Elections Bill and the late nineteenth century by revealing that issues historians traditionally have limited to the Reconstruction Era, in fact, still mattered profoundly to Americans in 1890.