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Full Description
The definitive biography of Sidney J. Catts—Florida's fiery governor who fused pulpit rhetoric with populist politics in the early twentieth century.
Cracker Messiah by Wayne Flynt is a riveting portrait of Sidney J. Catts, one of the most controversial figures in Southern political history. Catts rose from Baptist pulpits and Chautauqua stages to Florida's governor's mansion in 1916, riding a wave of rural populism, prohibition fervor, and anti-Catholic rhetoric. His fiery oratory and outsider persona electrified "Florida crackers" at a time when industrial and urban forces were reshaping the South. Yet Catts was more than a demagogue. His administration championed progressive reforms—good roads, penal improvements, vocational education, and even women's political participation—while his career oscillated between idealism and opportunism.
Wayne Flynt's meticulously documented biography illuminates this complicated politician, tracing Catts's battles with the Democratic establishment, his failed Senate bid, and his later flirtations with gambling and real estate during Florida's boom years. Drawing on interviews, archival sources, and legislative records, Cracker Messiah illuminates the tensions between nativism and reform, faith and hypocrisy, populism and progressivism in the early twentieth-century South. This new edition will appeal to readers of Southern history, political biography, and Progressive Era studies, as well as anyone interested in the roots of American populism and the enduring complexities of cultural and political identity in the Deep South.
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1. Sitting Like Frogs Waiting for the Rain
Chapter 2. Peddling God, Insurance, and Sidney J.
Chapter 3. Protestant Rednecks and Catholic Fishermen
Chapter 4. The Crackers' Three Friends
Chapter 5. Taking Care of Friends
Chapter 6. Stirring up Dry Bones
Chapter 7. Waging War and Peace in Florida
Chapter 8. Failures of the Mind, Successes of the Heart
Chapter 9. The Politics of Disquietude
Chapter 10. The Eulogies of a Tomcat
Chapter 11. Let Old Acquaintance Be Forgot
Chapter 12. From Messiah to Pariah
Chapter 13. The Failure and the Hope
Critical Essay on Authorities
Index
Illustrations
Governor Sidney Catts in inaugural parade
Governor Catts reads inaugural address
Florida state Chautauqua headquarters
The Catts home in DeFuniak Springs
Governor Sidney Johnston Catts
Joe L. Earman
J.B. Hodges
Maps
1916 General Election
1916 Democratic Primary
1920 Senatorial Primary
1924 Gubernatorial Primary
1928 Gubernatorial Primary
1928 Presidential Primary
