Three times the Democratic Party's nominee for president (1896, 1900, and 1908) and secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan voiced the concerns of many Americans left out of the post-Civil War economic growth.
In" A Righteous Cause: The Life of Williams Jennings Bryan," Robert W. Cherny presents Bryan's key role in the Democratic Party's transformation from the conservatism of Grover Cleveland to the progressivism of Woodrow Wilson. Cherny draws on Bryan's writings and correspondence to trace his major political crusades for a new currency policy,...

Often Gilded-Age politics has been described as devoid of content or accomplishment, a mere spectacle to divert voters from thinking about the real issues of the day. But by focusing too closely on dramatic scandals and on the foibles of prominent politicians, many historians have tended to obscure other aspects of late nineteenth-century politics that proved to be of great and long-term significance.

With the latest scholarship in mind, Professor Cherny provides a deft and highly readable analysis that is certain to help readers better understand the characteristics and important...

In 1911 as progressivism moved toward its zenith, the state of California granted women the right to vote. However, women s political involvement in California s public life did not begin with suffrage, nor did it end there. Across the state, women had been deeply involved in politics long before suffrage, and although their tactics and objectives changed they remained deeply involved thereafter. California Women and Politics examines the wide array of women s public activism from the 1850s to 1929 including the temperance movement, moral reform, conservation, trade unionism,...

Victor Arnautoff reigned as San Francisco's leading mural painter during the New Deal era. Yet that was only part of an astonishing life journey from Tsarist officer to leftist painter. Robert W. Cherny's masterful biography of Arnautoff braids the artist's work with his increasingly leftist politics and the tenor of his times. Delving into sources on Russian emigres and San Francisco's arts communities, Cherny traces Arnautoff's life from refugee art student and assistant to Diego Rivera to prominence in the New Deal's art projects and a faculty position at Stanford University. As...

Victor Arnautoff reigned as San Francisco's leading mural painter during the New Deal era. Yet that was only part of an astonishing life journey from Tsarist officer to leftist painter. Robert W. Cherny's masterful biography of Arnautoff braids the artist's work with his increasingly leftist politics and the tenor of his times. Delving into sources on Russian emigres and San Francisco's arts communities, Cherny traces Arnautoff's life from refugee art student and assistant to Diego Rivera to prominence in the New Deal's art projects and a faculty position at Stanford University. As...