>On Sun, 15 Jan 2006, Nathan Newman wrote:
>
>>It depends on your definition of engagement. Workers and unions
>>that existed in the 19th century were in many ways less engaged in
>>politics in the late 19th century than today.
>
>Could you expand on that? Unions were regulaly opposed by armed
>force in the 19th century, so belonging to one seems like it had to
>be pretty engaging. And workers in general -- i.e., people in
>general -- voted at higher rates then than they do now, even in the
>late 19th century, when national politics were even more venal and
>empty of content than they are now. So it's not clear at first
>sight what you're referring to. Do you mean that their horizons
>were more local?
And then there were the Populists, who, whatever their faults, consisted of ordinary folks who got deeply involved in the arcanae of monetary theory and such.
Doug