Seth's basic point is exactly right. And Doug's summation of Hofstadter is how I remember "The Age of Reform." Which is why I thought Doug could answer my more general questions.
If a person gains his/her impression of the Populist movement only from the historians of the 1940s and 50s (not only Hofstadter) then the impression will be of a nativist movement, infused with racism, and the worse aspects of localism. Those historians who gave populism any credit (from a liberal point of view) would also show how the best parts of populism were incorporated into the Democratic party and eventually were carried out (responsibly) by the New Deal. This is the point of view of the responsible historians.
To be fair I remember the Whiggishness of this New Deal narrative as being more balanced in Hofstadter than in other historians of his time period. He was one of the best of his time, as far as I am concerned. But history changed over the course of the 1960s and it changed for the better for the most part. In Classical studies, for instance, it was for once possible to look at the "responsible" men of the Roman Republic (Cicero especially) as if they were politicians concerned with the power of their class. More importantly it was possible to look at the "Populares" from the Gracchi to Catiline as if they were not evil demagogues simply catering to the mob, but just possibly "legitimate" reformers with serious ideas of their own.
Seth mentions Steven Hahn's _The Roots of Southern Populism_ and I look forward to reading this book someday. But I think the turning point in ways of looking at the Populists was _Democratic Promise: The Populist Movement in America_ by Lawrence Goodwyn, written in 1976. (Goodwyn later wrote a shorter version of his book _The Populist Moment_, which I haven't read). Goodwyn does not ignore the nativism and racism of populism. But neither does he ignore the fights over racism, the socialist currents in populism, the intellectual ferment of small farmers and workers going to educational meetings to discuss farmers and consumers cooperatives, credit and the money supply, etc.
The view of Populism given by Hofstadter and the view of Populism given by Goodwyn are different, and this is because Goodwyn cared about Populism and the people in the movement, which is its own kind of Whigishness. Goodwyn looked at the Populists as serious reformers with serious ideas and not as a movement who could only lead to responsible politics when properly tamed or to the KKK when left to themselves. But Hofstadter cared about other currents in U.S. political and intellectual history. He cared about where the undercurrents of popular paranoia came from and when you look at the Populist movement from that point of view you ( in part correctly ) will find that _that_ paranoid style of politics and rhetoric was nascent in Populism. But this is precisely what I mean by Whigishness.
I would recommend Hofstadter's _Age of Reform_ to all of you, (but especially to a hungary, historically inclined sixteen year old ) and then I would recommend Goodwyn's _Democratic Promise_ as a matter of perspective and as an example of a different kind of history.
By the way on the issue of antisemitism and racism and its relation to Populism, the following should be made clear. The main party of white supremacist racism at the time was not the Populist party but the Southern based Democratic party. If anything indicates the racism of the Populist movement and its leaders it is that they catered to and merged into the Democratic party. I would also venture to say that virulent antisemitism was probably more likely to be found in the Republican party at the time than in the Populist party. But to point this out is not to say very much. It is only to say that the Populists were part of their time and place. A question that is ignored by most historians of Hofstadter's generation are the occasional fights against racial divisions (for black-white political unity) inside the Populist movement. Were there analogous fights inside the Democratic party of the time? No, not that I know of. But there were a few inside the Republican party and this too is usually ignored.
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