Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: The Legacy of Southern Populism for Public Goods Provision

Abstract Why did the states of the Jim Crow South vary in both their overall level and geographic distribution of public goods? Given these states’ similar political economies, racialized barriers to political participation, and repressive single-party politics, it is surprising they varied as much as they did. I argue that an underappreciated legacy of the 1880s and 1890s helps explain this variation. During this period, southern states experienced over two decades of multiparty competition and agrarian mobilization, with the most intensive episode channeled by the People’s Party. Seeking to end threats to their rule, conservative Democrats convened state constitutional conventions throughout the 1890s to disenfranchise their opponents and entrench single-party rule. I argue for increased attention to, and the heightened importance of, authoritarian foundings in setting the terms of political conflict and resource allocation within authoritarian states. I show that a strong Populist challenge to the Democratic Party in Louisiana forced the state’s authoritarian founders to compromise on the design of the state’s newly constitutionally entrenched institutions, whereas conservative elites in South Carolina coopted agrarian discontent and avoided concessions. These contrasting foundings contributed to divergent policy legacies. By the 1920s and 1930s, Louisiana provided a greater amount of two key public goods: public highways and funding for white public schools. Louisiana also distributed a larger share of these goods to poorer whites in rural areas.