Gerald J. Boileau and the Progressive-Farmer-Labor Alliance

by James J. Lorence

In this important study, James Lorence traces the political career of Gerald J. Boileau, the prominent Wisconsin Progressive who served in the House of Representatives from 1930 to 1938. In addition, he sheds new light on the promise and ultimate failure of the liberal Left in the 1930s - which many believed would revolutionize the two-party system. Lorence closely examines the collaboration in Congress between the Wisconsin Progressives and the Minnesota Farmer-Laborites, revealing the influence of midwestern farmer-laborism on the national political developments of the New Deal era. Focusing on the congressional debates of the 1930s, Lorence demonstrates that third-party politics played a more active role in the House than previous studies have acknowledged. Because of Boileau's role as Progressive Group floor leader in the Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth congresses, he was an important figure in the effort to move the Roosevelt administration in a leftward direction. Lorence's exam