The strong partisanship that pervaded nineteenth-century politics disappeared after 1900, and political campaigns evolved from intricately organized spectacles with great mass appeal into more sedate media contests limited to the candidates. Reynolds expands on the theory that election reform laws introduced during the Progressive Era account for these changes and weighs the effects of these laws against the new notions of governance and the emergence of mass communications.

Originally published in 1988.

A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the...

During the nineteenth century American political parties selected their candidates for elective offices in conventions. Around 1910 most states established a system of direct primaries whereby the voters selected their parties' nominees for public office. This book examines the transition from the indirect to the direct primary, as well as its implications for American politics. It offers a systematic analysis of the convention system in four states (New Jersey, Michigan, Colorado and California) and the legislative history of the regulation of political parties during the Progressive Era. It...

The letters in the final volume of this series document Gellert's work at the University of Leipzig, the editing of his collected writings, his contacts with clergy and students, his letters of recommendation to Saxon aristocrats, his ongoing correspondence with Christiane Caroline Lucius, and his friendships with leading late Enlightenment literary figures such as Johann Adolf Schlegel, Christian Garve, and Johann Andreas Cramer. The book also includes recovered, newly discovered, and undated letters, as well as some of Gellert's friends' writings following his death.