Woodward, Watson, and White Supremacy: Examining Race in the Histories of Thomas E. Watson, 1899-1912

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Tandy, H. (2021). Woodward, Watson, and White Supremacy: Examining Race in the Histories of Thomas E. Watson, 1899-1912. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

This study asked if there was evidence of Thomas E. Watson’s (1856-1922) shifting racial views in the histories he published between 1899 and 1912. Watson is famous for his integrated populist campaigns of the early to mid-1890s, and infamous for his subsequent call for black disenfranchisement in Georgia in 1904. Although scholars since the 1970s have identified that Watson held white supremacist beliefs throughout the entirety his career—overturning one of C. Vann Woodward’s key assertions in his 1938 biography Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel—these scholars have primarily focused on Watson’s political career between 1890 and 1896 and have done little to revisit Watson’s literary career or his political activities after 1904. Examining Watson’s essays, his private correspondence with his publishers, and his books reviews, this study contextualized why Watson decided to write history after the defeat of the People’s Party in the 1896 election, supplementing the analysis Woodward provided in Agrarian Rebel. After providing this context, this study examined how Watson discussed race in six of the histories he published between 1899 and 1912. Finding evidence of Watson’s shifting racial views in these histories, this study provides a clearer and more nuanced picture of how Watson’s racial ideology shifted between the late 1890s and into the first decade of the twentieth century.

Details
Author

Tandy, Hannah

Title

Woodward, Watson, and White Supremacy: Examining Race in the Histories of Thomas E. Watson, 1899-1912

Physical Description

1 online resource (211 pages) : PDF

Date

2021

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

This study asked if there was evidence of Thomas E. Watson’s (1856-1922) shifting racial views in the histories he published between 1899 and 1912. Watson is famous for his integrated populist campaigns of the early to mid-1890s, and infamous for his subsequent call for black disenfranchisement in Georgia in 1904. Although scholars since the 1970s have identified that Watson held white supremacist beliefs throughout the entirety his career—overturning one of C. Vann Woodward’s key assertions in his 1938 biography Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel—these scholars have primarily focused on Watson’s political career between 1890 and 1896 and have done little to revisit Watson’s literary career or his political activities after 1904. Examining Watson’s essays, his private correspondence with his publishers, and his books reviews, this study contextualized why Watson decided to write history after the defeat of the People’s Party in the 1896 election, supplementing the analysis Woodward provided in Agrarian Rebel. After providing this context, this study examined how Watson discussed race in six of the histories he published between 1899 and 1912. Finding evidence of Watson’s shifting racial views in these histories, this study provides a clearer and more nuanced picture of how Watson’s racial ideology shifted between the late 1890s and into the first decade of the twentieth century.

Genre

masters theses

Subjects--Topics

History
American literature

Subjects--Places

America

Degree

M.A.

Keywords

Biography
France
Histories
Literature
Thomas
Watson

Subject Area

History

Advisor(s)

Goldfield, David

Committee Members

Smith, John David
Mixon, Gregory

Degree Note

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2021.

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Tandy_uncc_0694N_12998

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:2683