The idea that the parties "switched places" is one of the most irksome ideas to me. The reality is much more complicated and you need to know the historical contexts of the eras in question. I think this simplistic idea comes from the guilt modern Democrats feel knowing that our party once had a large faction dedicated to preserving slavery and objecting to civil rights.
Sincerely,
A high school history teacher.
You and me both NerdyBohemian.
The ignorance particularly on labor and economic issues is quite telling. The assumption seems to be that because Cleveland was a "Bourbon Democrat" which historians generally call a "conservative" that the party as a whole was very conservative and the Republicans were liberals and left wingers. What generally gets missed is that Cleveland was a Democrat elected in an era of Republican dominance in the White House and was able to get as much success as he did because he had a wide appeal to *shocker* Republican voters who were both pro-gold and in favor of reform politics. He was Bill Clinton, not Ronald Reagan.
Compare and contrast that with the agrarian radicals, silverite westerners, labor radicals, Georgists, Fenian Nationalists, and other assorted very liberal elements of the Democratic coalition. No way in flip you could describe a lot of these people as "conservative", particularly for the times.
Teddy Roosevelt seems like a "liberal" until you actually read up on the times and what the opposition was selling by that point. As it is, even Alton Parker was arguing in favor of an eight hour work day.
Relevant article:
http://www.city-journal.org/story.php?id=1464
Roosevelt seems very liberal until you consider that his rhetoric about cooperation between business and labor in 1904 was being pushed for by "old fashioned Jackson Democrats" in the 1880s. Also, even Thomas Jefferson supported anti-monopoly legislation. So yeah, I guess supporting something a Democratic Republican supported in 1797 suddenly makes him an amazing liberal Republican.. . . . sheesh.
The Cleaveland/Clinton comparison is a terrific analogy that I will use in my higher classes.
I always stress that the Republicans started off as a single issue party made up of different factions very early in their history. As they became a national party their platform began to be defined by pro-business policies and "big government" corporate welfare, a standard currency issued by a national bank, tariffs (which hurt rural farmers, but helped American manufacturing), public education (to have workers who knew how to read, write etc and able to supervise) etc
Meanwhile the Democrats were fixated on this antiquated idea that the country should remain agrarian, and the states should keep to themselves since there's no reason to have such a large government overreach which favored the wealthy and hurt farmers.
