that perspective. >> on the c-span family. >> american history tv, history of as her jeffrey johnson talks about the rise and decline of socialism's popularity in america. c-span tv interviewed him at the annual meeting of the american association of historians in providence, rhode island. this is about 12 minutes. host: your study of socialism focuses on the late 19th-century-early 20th century. in that period, define socialism for us. dr. johnson: there were a lot of socialists talking about a socialism broadly. they were wrestling with, how to we come up with systems where distribution could be more fair. more equal.

a lot of folks talking about that idea in the 19th century. it was really crow marx who came -- carl marx who came along in the 19th century looking at it historically and said there is this march of capitalism and ultimately he believed capitalism had gone awry and was exploitive. thinking about it in terms of the march of history, he really believed class struggle would bring about a revolution. for him, it was a revolutionary, immediate kind of socialism than theorists who talked about it earlier. this was in response to the industrial revolution and these ideas from europe started to come to the united states and really start to change the political landscape. that was socialism. to think about a classless society with a more fair, equal distribution of wealth devoid of capitalism. these were ideas that took a lot of traction in the 19th century

and through immigrants and others coming to the united states in the late 19th century, it gained some traction. host: how did this manifest itself in american politics? professor johnson: that is a good question. it is unique. it started because of the american political landscape. it was in 1877. the socialist labor party. 1877, it was almost exclusively german immigrants. that would not surprise us given this context of european socialism in the 19th century. bohemian radical marxists who had read marx and brought those ideas to the united states. so the socialist labor party was on the scene in the late 19th century, and what is interesting, having done a little bit of research, they held all of their meetings in german so if you did not speak german, you could not really go to an slp meeting and get a lot from that. they were very dogmatic and in

line with marxist radical teaching. a revolution and probably unarmed one was inevitable. -- an armed one was inevitable. the slp was on the scene. there was political socialism on the scene. the social democracy of america one was called. the real moment came in 1901 with the establishment of the socialist party of america, which really became the kind of permanent socialist party and more inclusive. did not have meetings in german. anybody could join. they were established in indianapolis in 1901. something called the unity convention which they thought believed would bring together all of the factions of socialist. socialism took a lot of different forms. unifying as one political party was really important. that was in 1901. the socialist party of america became a legitimate third-party

alternative to the democrats and republicans as a party for labor, as a times radical party and was on the scene in 1901 with fair success. we can talk about that a little more in the next 15 or 20 years. host: were there any particular areas of the country where socialism was more appealing than others? prof. johnson: my research is focused on the pacific northwest. i focused on washington and oregon on and ohio and western montana. what struck me when i started to poke around was eugene debs, the famous face of american socialism. the socialist party of america's candidate for president five times. once from jail, which is interesting. eugene debs got steadily increasing electoral results with the kind of common aiding culminating moment being in 1912 , where nationally he got about

6% of the vote, just shy of one million votes. that is interesting and remarkable in itself. what struck me was in the northwest, he got almost 10% of the vote so clearly something was happening where regionally there was more interest and more emphasis. i argued in my book that really it was the boom and bust economic cycles of the northwest. it was the power of being involved in the extractive industries like timber and mining, which could be very exploitive labor. socialists found an attentive audience because these were workers who had it there he pretty tough. long hours, low wages and often very dangerous work conditions , so all of that culminated in higher support in that region in the northwest and that is when i what i maintain. not to say socialism didn't pop up in other pockets.

oklahoma, the southwest, milwaukee, wisconsin, which was a hotbed for socialist politics. there were great in the northwest. host: what set eugene debs apart as a candidate? what was appealing about his message? prof. johnson: he appealed to labor. scholars have written a little bit about him in this way. debs could give a great speech , and i think he knew how to play to the audience. in some ways, socialism at the time might have meant simple answers for complex problems. you did not have to read marks marx that closely. you can find a lot in that message rea. debs himself was a democrat and then went to jail and was radicalized there. he found himself radicalized and was drawn to social politics but what set him apart was being a great oratory.

-- orator. really spreading this message of revelation and socialism, which was attractive if you are down and out and a laborer having a hard time. he ultimately emerged as one of the voices of labor. that is not to say others were not important. but he had a great rivalry with those kind of folks, courting labor and the labor vote. host: what was the high point of the socialist movement? prof. johnson: probably 1912, when debs garnered about 12%. -- 6% nationally. the was striking in important. so, 1912 was probably the high point, and i will say there was always this sense for the socialist party, if you read pamphlets and newspapers, they always believed the next election would be the big one , and they would bring about the

final march of socialist a la politics in the united states. of course, that never happened but the high point was 1912. host: was there any lasting influence or impact on the american political system? prof. johnson: that's an interesting question. i think it was one of the first and most important third-party successes, but in terms of great reform successes, i do not think we can point to the debs candidacy because he did not win as a result. had he won, i suspect things might have been different it my my sense is probably, not a , great, lasting impact other than the fact there could be dissenting voices and those dissenting voices were important. i have always maintained tell us a lot about the broad american narrative. i think there was some good that came out of it for the political system. we have such an entrenched two-party system and always have. we talked about this yesterday

on our panel. it focused on new perspectives and american socialism and that is one of the nice things that comes out of this. challenging the two-party system. host: in addition to eugene debs, who were the other major figures in the socialist party? prof. johnson: depends on who you ask. if you have to me someone like me someone asked , like victor berger, from milwaukee, wisconsin, a working-class town. he served in congress. was later denied his seat because of world war i and objections to u.s. involvement in world war i. another person i think is really interesting and closer to my research and heart was a man called lewis duncan, the mayor of butte, montana, from 1911 to 1914. it does not seem like a huge electoral victory, but it was the quintessential mining town , and he was able to capitalize

on the labor vote and win that election and serve as a pretty productive mayor for those three years representing the socialist party and labor. so there are those kind of figures that won important elections and served as an example of the possibility of what socialist politics could do. host: your research focuses on late 19th century-early 20th century. what happens between then and the present day? prof. johnson: great question and an important one because ultimately i have always argued that world war i helped ring bring about a pretty quick and end to the socialist party's prominence and that is because the socialist party had argued emphatically against involvement in world war i and to do that would be to be perceived as disloyal so i think that cost the socialist party a lot and those objections were based in

marxist thought that all wars were capitalist wars and how could we support those wars when the working class would do the fighting? that came at a great political cost. with the sedition act and the x espionage act known as the red scare, it became a unpopular to way itcialist in the might have been in 1910 or 1920's and to answer the question, that is something that continues after the russian revolution. if you were red, a socialist or communist, this was not look ed on favorably. this helps explain why socialism enters this time of unpopularity. it is not politically expedient to be a socialist or economist, and it has grave consequences. host: how does bernie sanders fit into this history? prof. johnson: this is such a good question.

nobody was talking about socialism before this and my arele in my profession happy about this. i am not a political scientist, but bernie sanders is talking about socialism. he calls himself a socialist. if we put senator sanders up against some of the people of the early 20th century, he is in a different camp. in the early 20th century, the party was divided between dogmatic, revolutionaries, at the time they would call them "reds." there were tempered moderate "yellows."alled he is talking about other things, places like in europe that we might consider socialist but he is certainly not the kind of socialist in the way, i think, and who knows if i ask

we asked him but i do not think , you would be one in the way of eugene debs or some of the ardent marxist of the early 20th century. host: thank you very much. prof. johnson: thank you very much. american history tv on c-span3 starting at 1:00 p.m. eastern today, we are live from gettysburg college in gettysburg, pennsylvania, for the annual civil war institute summer conference as authors come in the and professors examine topics such as refugee camps for reconstruction in the north, and the post-civil war career of ulysses s. grant. hear conversations about the return of a confederate veteran and the lost cause. with the approach of the 40th anniversary of the national air and space museum in july, railamerica will showcase films. reporter: science suited for space. >> a couple of earlier models. here we have the al

shepherd suit. after this suit, it is the gemini. >> looks familiar. >> this is a suit similar to this. in fact, identical to this was worn by white in his vehicular excursions. >> looks quite a bit different than the gemini suit. >> it does. this is one of our earlier models of the apollo suit. >> tracing the development of spacesuits to the apollo mission. sunday evening at 6:00 on american artifacts, jeremy takes us on a tour of the museum to show some of the museum's one-of-a-kind artifacts and the quest to go higher, further, faster during the first half century of aviation. 3600 miles inlew 33.5 hours from new york to paris. the pilot's goal to win the

prize of $25,000 for the first nonstop flight from new york to paris. so that was the impetus for this flight, but when represents in partistory of aviation is of the selling of the airplane and transformation of the airplane from what the right brothers created and how it transition over the 1920's and 1930's to the modern airplane. >> for the complete american history tv weekend schedule, go to c-span.org. next, a panel of scholars discusses the evolution of american liberal political philosophy through the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. they concentrate on the ideologies of john stuart mill, david hume, john dewey, and jane adams. the discussion was part of a day-long symposium at grand valley state university in grand rapids, michigan. it's about an hour.