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Entertaining the Forgotten

Southern Governors and the Performance of Populism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2021

Abstract

During the late 1920s and ’30s, performative populism played a major role in the politics of the American Deep South. In the gubernatorial campaigns of three of the most prominent populist politicians of the era—Huey Long, Theodore Bilbo, and Eugene Talmadge—performance skills and entertainment were key strategies for gaining voter support and crafting personas within a popular imaginary.

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Article
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© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press for Tisch School of the Arts/NYU

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References

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TDReading

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