Coxey's Army

A colorful study of the nineteenth century march on Washington, the man who led it, and the national sensation that prefigured the New Deal.

In 1893, America was suffering a serious economic depression. Fed up with government inactivity, Populist agitator Jacob S. Coxey led hundreds of unemployed laborers on a march from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. Their intention was to present a “petition in boots” for government-financed jobs building and repairing the nation’s roads.

On May 1, the Coxeyites descended on the center of government, where a melee ensued between them and the police. Soon, other Coxey-inspired contingents were on their way east from places as far away as San Francisco and Portland. Some even hijacked trains along the way.

In Coxey’s Army, Benjamin F. Alexander brings Coxey and his fellow leaders to life, along with the reporters and spies who traveled with them and the captivated readers who followed the story in the newspapers. Alexander explains how the Coxeyite demands fit into a larger history of economic theory and the labor movement. Despite running a gauntlet of ridicule, the marchers laid down a rough outline of what emerged decades later as the New Deal.