ABSTRACT
Beginning in the 1940s, students of southern reform movements generally argued that southern Progressivism was a regional by-product of the Populist revolt and its disruptive impact on the southern political system. In some of these accounts, the agrarian radicalism of the 1890s exerted a strong influence on the development of Progressivism; in others, Progressivism emerged as a mild alternative to Populism, achieving prominence after the decline of the farmers' movement. In short, Link implies that southern Progressivism was heavily reliant on national leaders, resources, and strategies but that it contributed little to the development of reform and state-building elsewhere in the nation. When analyzing the relationship between southern Progressivism and the prohibition movement, however, recent studies have tended to overstress the role of the national Anti-Saloon League (ASL) in importing Progressive methods and goals to the region. Indeed, the relative insignificance of organization to the southern prohibition movement's fate is well illustrated by the Mississippi case.
