Reform Party (19th-century Wisconsin)

The Reform Party, also called Liberal Reform Party or People's Reform Party was a short-lived coalition of Democrats, reform and Liberal Republicans, and Grangers formed in 1873 in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, which secured the election for two years of William Robert Taylor as Governor of Wisconsin,[1] as well as electing a number of state legislators.

By 1875, with Taylor having lost his bid for re-election, the coalition had begun to dissolve; Greenbackers, who advocated some of the same policies, began to run their own candidates in 1876.[2] The last edition of the Wisconsin Blue Book listing a legislator as "Reform" was that of 1878, in which Francis Steffen is described as a "Reform Democrat" (but had defeated a Greenback opponent in 1877).[3]

References

1. William Robert Taylor, Wisconsin Historical Society
2. Bashford, R. M., ed. The Legislative Manual of the State of Wisconsin: Comprising the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of Wisconsin, Jefferson's Manual, Forms and Laws for the Regulation of Business; also, lists and tables for reference, etc. Sixteenth Annual Edition. Madison: E. B. Bolens, State Printer, 1877; p. 462
3. Bashford, R. M., ed. The Legislative Manual of the State of Wisconsin: Comprising the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of Wisconsin, Jefferson's Manual, Forms and Laws for the Regulation of Business; also, lists and tables for reference, etc. Seventeenth Annual Edition. Madison: David Atwood, Printer and Stereotyper, 1878; p. 478