Tillmanism
TILLMANISM
TILLMANISM. Tillmanism, which was strongest during the years 1890 through 1918, was an agrarian movement in South Carolina led by "Pitchfork Ben" Till-man (1847–1918) and characterized by violent white supremacy, the lionization of farmers, and hostility toward northern business interests and the aristocratic southern leadership. The traditional interpretation claims that the movement embraced a legitimate populism that helped the rural poor (Tillman helped found Clemson University, for example), even if it was marred by racism. Recent scholarship, however, argues that Tillman's agrarian rhetoric was a crass tactic to gain control of Democratic Party machinery. In the current view farmers received little material benefit from Tillman's policies and suffered from the backward social system that white supremacy created.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kantrowitz, Stephen D. Ben Tillman & the Reconstruction of White Supremacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
JeremyDerfner