Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 1884. Democratic Governor Grover Cleveland of New York narrowly defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. It was set apart by mudslinging and personal allegations that eclipsed substantive issues, such as civil administration change. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected president of the United States since James Buchanan in 1856, the first to hold office since Andrew Johnson left the White House in 1869, and the last to hold office until Woodrow Wilson, who began his first term in 1913. For this reason, 1884 is a significant election in U.S. political history, marking an interruption in the era when Republicans largely controlled the presidency between Reconstruction and the Great Depression.
The People's Party, usually known as the populist party or simply the Populists, was an agrarian populist political party in the United States in the late 19th century. The Populist Party emerged in the early 1890s as an important force in the Southern and Western United States, but declined rapidly after the 1896 United States presidential election in which most of its natural constituency was absorbed by the Bryan wing of the Democratic Party. A rump faction of the party continued to operate into the first decade of the 20th century, but never matched the popularity of the party in the early 1890s.
The Farmers' Alliance was an organized agrarian economic movement among American farmers that developed and flourished ca. 1875. The movement included several parallel but independent political organizations — the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union among the white farmers of the South, the National Farmers' Alliance among the white and black farmers of the Midwest and High Plains, where the Granger movement had been strong, and the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union, consisting of the African American farmers of the South.
The farmers' movement was, in American political history, the general name for a movement between 1867 and 1896. In this movement, there were three periods, popularly known as the Grange, Alliance and Populist movements.
The Ocala Demands was a platform for economic and political reform that was later adopted by the People's Party. In December, 1890, the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, more commonly known as the Southern Farmers' Alliance, its affiliate the Colored Farmers' Alliance, and the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association met jointly in the Marion Opera House in Ocala, Florida, where they adopted the Ocala Demands.
Qui pluribus is an encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius IX on 9 November 1846. It was the first encyclical of his reign and written to urge the prelates to be on guard against the dangers posed by rationalism, pantheism, socialism, communism and other popular philosophies. It was a commentary on the widespread civil unrest spreading across Italy, as nationalists with a variety of beliefs and methods sought the unification of Italy.
Elizabeth Williams Champney was an American author of novels and juvenile literature, as well as travel writing, most of which featured foreign locations. Champney's observations and experiences during her European travels were published in Harper's Magazine, and also in The Century Magazine. She published eighty or more articles in Harper's and Century, including a series on Portugal, and papers entitled "A Neglected Corner of Europe", and "In the Footsteps of Futuney and Regnault". After her return to the United States, Champney wrote fifteen books; novels, stories for juveniles, and historical works under cover of stories, mostly adapted to young people. Her novels were originally directed mainly at young girls, including the Witch Winnie series and the Vassar Girls Abroad series, but she later wrote romantic semi-fictional fables of castles, such as The Romance of the Feudal Chäteaux (1899). The novels included, Bourbon Lilies, and Romany and Rue. Of the juveniles, All Around a Palette, and Howling Wolf and His Trick Pony were the most popular. The historical series included Great Grandmother Girls in New France and in Mexico. Her husband, James Wells Champney, was an artist. Their summer home was in Deerfield, Massachusetts, while the winter residence was in New York.
The Omaha Platform was the party program adopted at the formative convention of the Populist Party held in Omaha, Nebraska on July 4, 1892.
The American Society of Equity or Farmers Equity was an American agricultural cooperative and political organization, founded in 1902, which aimed to organize farmers as a "Third Power" in the United States, able to compete with capital and organized labor on equal terms. Equity inspired the creation of many farmers' cooperatives still in existence. Equity forces became involved in the politics of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, leading in the latter state to the eventual rise of the Nonpartisan League. Leaders of Equity were elected to numerous local political offices.
Annie Le Porte Diggs was a Canadian-born American activist, journalist, author, and librarian. She was the chairman of the delegation from Washington, D.C. for the National People's Party Convention, in Omaha, in 1892. It was the first time a woman ever led a delegation at a national political convention. She was a speaker for the People's Party in nearly every state and territory. She served as state librarian of Kansas, 1898–1902. A writer, Diggs served as the associate editor of The Advocate, Topeka, Kansas, and was the author of Little Brown Brothers and the Story of Jerry Simpson. Diggs died in 1916 in Michigan.
Emma Pike Ewing was an American author and educator on housekeeping and cooking. Ewing hailed from New York. After the American Civil War, she served as dean, Chautauqua Assembly Cooking School; professor domestic economy, Iowa Agricultural College; director Model School of Household Economics; and affiliated with Marietta College, Ohio, Model Home School of Household Economics. Her contemporaries included, Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln, Marion Harland, Fannie Merritt Farmer, Sarah Tyson Rorer, Maria Parloa, Gesine Lemcke, Ella Morris Kretschmar, and Linda Hull Larned. Ewing was the author of several cookbooks such as Cooking and Castle-building (1880), Soup and Soup Making (1882), Bread and Bread Making (1883), Salad and Salad Making (1884), A Text-book of Cookery, for Use in Schools (1899), Cookery Manuals (1890), and The Art of Cookery: A Manual for Homes and Schools (1896). She died in 1917.
Barzillai Gray was an American judge. He graduated at the University of Michigan in 1845, A. B., and was admitted to the bar in 1853. He settled in Wyandotte, Kansas, but later moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was elected judge of the criminal court. In 1876, he was appointed private secretary to Governor George T. Anthony, of Kansas. At the close of Governor Anthony's office, Judge Gray moved once more to Wyandotte, where he held many offices among them that of probate judge. He was, however, best known for his real estate and development plans. He was instrumental in planning several additions and laying out roads and took great interest in the future of that portion of the city known as "Riverview", where an effort was made to establish a market and grain exchange. As territorial attorney for Wyandotte district, Gray was the first man in Kansas to prosecute liquor cases.
Lydia Hoyt Farmer was a 19th-century American author and women's rights activist. For many years, Farmer contributed to the leading newspapers and magazines, on various lines: poems, essays, juvenile stories, historical sketches and novels. She was of a deeply religious nature, and endeavored to tinge all her writings with a moral as well as an amusing sentiment. She edited What America Owes to Women, for the Woman's Department of the World's Columbian Exposition. Her works included: Aunt Belindy's Point of View; The Doom of the Holy City; A Story Book of Science; A Knight of Faith; Short History of the French Revolution; Girls' Book of Famous Queens; What America Owes to Women; and others. Farmer died in 1903.
Emma May Alexander Reinertsen was a pseudonymous American writer of prose sketches, and articles on social reform issues. As "Gale Forest", she was the author of Five Cousins in California. She also wrote about temperance and various customs such as wearing hats in theaters, and spitting in street cars and on sidewalks.
Deborah Knox Livingston was a Scottish-born American lecturer associated with temperance and suffrage movements. She spent much of her life in service to the National and World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), as well as the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), Federation of Women's Clubs, League of Women Voters, and World League Against Alcoholism (WLAA). In Maine, she served as the chair of the state's Suffrage Campaign Committee, while in Rhode Island, she was President of the state's WCTU. In addition to the textbook, Studies in Government (1921), Livingston was the author of several treatises and articles.
National Christian Association was an American organization opposed to secret societies. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, it consisted mostly of Protestant ministers of various denominations. It was the only society in the U.S. which has for its avowed object to "expose, withstand, and remove secret societies." It was organized in 1868, soon after the close of the Civil War, when such Protestant leaders as Jonathan Blanchard, Philo Carpenter, Joseph Goodwin (J.G.) Terrill, Ezra A. Cook, Alexander McLeod Milligan, D. McDill, and others saw with alarm that "the convicted enemy of State and Church was creeping back into favor and power."
American Protestant Association was the oldest American, exclusively anti-Roman Catholic secret society. It is believed to have been the prototype of the American Protective Association. It was established at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and had five degrees, which, according to the Cyclopedia of Fraternities, "in connection with the personnel of its earlier membership, point to Orange sympathies." It is probable that American Protestant associations existed as long ago as the 1844, but it is also probable that the American Protestant Association was founded in 1849, because the "forty-fifth annual convention" of the Pennsylvania State Lodge was held at its natal city in 1895. The Association was active mainly in Pennsylvania. Its members were noted for their anti-Catholic tendencies. A schism, in 1884, gave rise to the "Order of American Freeman". The "Junior American Protestant Association", modelled probably after the original "junior order," that of the Sons of America, was founded in 1864, and like the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, afterwards declared its independence of the parent society, even going so far as to change its name, in 1890, to "Loyal Knights of America". A schismatic African-American branch of the American Protestant Association was formed in Pennsylvania, in 1849, and was still in existence in 1907.
Knights of the Globe was an American social, military, charitable, and patriotic secret organization organized in Freeport, Illinois in 1889. Its originator and founder was a dentist, Dr. William W. Krape, of Freeport, Illinois. The KG secured the death benefit feature to its members through the Knights of the Globe Mutual Benefit Association (KGMBA), a non-secret, cooperative insurance company. The KGMBA was later called the Cosmopolitan Life Insurance Company.
