Date of Award

12-31-2025

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

First Advisor

Roberta Wollons

Second Advisor

Timothy Hacsi

Third Advisor

Nicholas Juravich

Abstract

This thesis ends with the municipal elections of 1920 in Davenport, Iowa. Amid the First Red Scare, the Socialist Party was swept into power. The party won under inauspicious national conditions thanks in part to a successful campaign on local concerns; the party had something to say. An examination of the years prior to the election, however, reveals that other factors contributed to political unalignment for the city’s large German descended population. Frustrated with Republican and Democratic parties that seemed to have no place for them, these voters had something to say as well. Ultimately the opportunity that this unalignment granted the Socialists was squandered, but the preceding process of German-Americans abandoning or being abandoned by the dominant political parties are revealing. Where previous analyses of the 1920 election have recognized the role that wartime nativism played in its outcome, this work expands the scope to include pre-war nativism and the complex local and state history of prohibition. The argument of this work is that the 1920 election results were more a reaction to nativism and Iowa’s long conflict over prohibition than they were from an admittedly positive response to a campaign focused on local economic concerns.

Comments

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