Post-Civil War to World War I

The history of Connecticut for the period between the close of the Civil War and America's entry into World War I is the least well published of all the eras under discussion in this book. In 1969 Samuel McSeveney published "Opportunities for Research in Connecticut History: The Late Nineteenth Century," CHS Bulletin 34 (October, 1969) 4:79-100, in which he pointed to a number of biographies and political studies that could and should be written. So far none has been published.

Since the second half of the nineteenth century was the era most prolific in town and city histories, much can be learned of the state's history through that genre. The period was also one of rapid industrial growth, and many entries in the "Industry” section of this bibliography will be helpful.

One will have to begin the study of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era with relevant chapters in Bingham or Van Dusen. Some Connecticut elections are very closely analyzed in Samuel McSeveney, The Politics of Depression: Political Behavior in the Northeast, 1893-1896 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972) McSeveney’s, work based on a University of Iowa dissertation (1965), is a quantified study which includes numerous tables of statistics relating to voting patterns. See also David Alvarez and Edmund J. True, "Critical Elections and Partisan Realignment: An Urban Test Case," Polity 5 (1973) :569-76 This is a ward-by-ward analysis of elections in Hartford from 1896 to 1940.

Useful articles are:

Anon. "The Election Controversy in Connecticut" The New Englander and Yale Review 18 (April, 1881). The gubernatorial vote in 1890 was contested. The controversy is discussed by two Republicans and a Democrat.

Buenker, John D. "Progressivism in Connecticut: The Thrust of Urban New Stock Democrats. CHS Bulletin 95 (October, 1970) 4:97-109. Buenker says that historians looking for a reformist impulse in Connecticut have missed it because they have looked for it only among the articulate middle class. But in Connecticut, Beunker claims, "the major thrust for change emanated from the representatives of the urban, new-stock populace, operating through the Democratic Party, while the principal defense of the status quo was made by the state's Yankee Republicans." (p. 97) See also the dissertation by Bruce Fraser, below.

Duffy, Joseph W. "Congregational Clergy and the A.P.A.: The Growth of Religious Toleration in Connecticut," CHS Bulletin 48 (Winter, 1983) 1:10-23. Anti-immigration agitation of the A.P.A. brought a reaction that fostered alliances between the Congregational clergy and Catholic leaders.

Janick, Herbert. "The Progressive Party at the Election of 1912 in Connecticut," and "Odyssey of a Progressive: Samuel Vincent's Search for Order," which tells the story of a country boy from Sherman who makes good in big-city Bridgeport. These are in CHS Bulletin 30 (July, 1965) 9:65-72 and 35 (July, 1970) 3:86-94. Vincent was a wealthy Bridgeport merchant and Progressive Party candidate for Congress in 1912. Janick shows that Vincent's political career supports the thesis of Robert Wiebe that the years between the Civil War and World War I were not split into a materialist Gilded Age and an idealistic Progressive Period, but rather were a time of continuous "search for order."

--"The Mind of the Connecticut Progressive." Mid-America 52 (April, 1970) 2:83-101. Joseph Alsop, Herbert Knox Smith, Willard Fisher, Vandell Henderson, Horace Hoadley, Flarel Luther, and Gutzon Borglum. Substantiates the view that sees the Progressive leadership as middle-class Protestant. Based on Janick's dissertation, annotated below.

McFarland, Gerald. "The Breakdown of Deadlock: The Cleveland Democracy in Connecticut, 1884-1894." Historian 31 (May, 1969) 3:381+. Democrats and Republicans were stalemated till 1884, when mugwumpery tilted the balance toward the Democrats. The Democratic revival peaked, 1890-92, but then depression and the "specter of Bryanism" closed off the Democratic surge.

Niven, John. "Connecticut: 'Poor Progress' in the Land of Steady Habits," in James C. Mohr, ed., Radical Republicans in the North: State Politics During Reconstruction. Baltimore, 1976.

See also John Hooker, Some Reminiscences of a Long Life (Hartford: Belknap and Warfield, 1899). This posthumous autobiographical work includes many letters. A study that focuses on a single town, which can be used as illustrative of many other Connecticut places, is Estelle Florence Feinstein's Stamford in the Gilded Age: The Political Life of a Connecticut Town, 1868-1893 (Stamford: Stamford Historical Society, 1973). It is based on her dissertation (Columbia, 1971), supervised by John A. Garraty, who calls the work "both a fascinating picture of a bygone era and a way of looking at that era that enables us better to understand our own." Feinstein's book transcends local history in that it is a model of its genre: a scholarly, well-written analysis of Stamford's growing pains as it changed from a small village to a bustling city.

There are four very useful unpublished dissertations, as well:

Heath, Frederick Morrison. "Politics and Steady Habits, 1894-1914" (Columbia, 1965). "This dissertation presents a description and an analysis of Connecticut politics...by discussing elections, national events, legislation, reform movements, and intra-party battles.... There is some evidence that tariffs and other national legislation, patronage problems, movements for state reform, and other events and conditions which politicians attempted to use did influence some voters, but compared with depression and national party wars, their effects appear relatively small." (from the abstract) Heath also deals with the American Protective Association, the Irish Catholic influence, constitutional reformers, gold Democrats, and others.

Janick, Herbert F., Jr. "Government for the People: The Leadership of the Progressive Party in Connecticut" (Fordham, 1968). This is a study of eight Connecticut political leaders. "Although they were strangers to one another before 1912, they demonstrated surprising unity in their approach to reform. Apprehensive about the evils of modern society, they nevertheless welcomed the efficiency of large scale industrial production. They championed collective action and centralized government as earnestly as they deplored the loss of individual freedom and dignity. In the end they took refuge in an elite of character and technical competence to resolve these conflicting pressures. The inadequacy of the Progressives' social philosophy was apparent even in their own time. Their belief in the inevitability of progress was not matched by an accurate comprehension of the problems of society." (from the abstract)

Mazza, David Lawrence. "Homer S. Cummings and Progressive Politics From Bryan through Wilson, 1896-1925"(St.Johns University, 1978). This is a study of a leading politician from Stamford who became F.D.R.'s attorney general in the years after Mazza's coverage. Mazza attempts to explain why Cummings broke with his Republican background to join the Bryan campaign of 1896. Cummings remained within the progressive wing of the Democratic party, gaining national stature, and served also as a national party harmonizer. See "Biographies" section below.

Smith, Edwina Carol. "Conservatism in the Gilded Age: The Senatorial Career of Orville H. Platt" (University of North Carolina, 1976). Platt was a Republican U.S. Senator from 1879 till his death in 1905. "This study is an analysis of political conservatism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as exemplified by a leading Republican Senator.... It examines...Platt's approach to the important issues of his age such as the currency question, the protective tariff, the problems of industrialization and government regulation of an expanding economy,...reform and protest movements, and foreign expansion. By elucidating the senator's thought...the study brings together themes and emphases that formed his conservatism." (from the abstract)

See also biographies of Simeon E. Baldwin, P.T. Barnum, Wilbur Cross, Homer Cummings, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Emma Hart Willard, which will throw light on the era. Of special relevance is the biography of Orville Platt by Louis Coolidge. Topical sections of this bibliography ought also to be consulted. See "Agriculture," "Education," "Government," "Immigration," "Industry," "Transportation," and "Urban History."