Cracker Messiah: Governor Sidney J. Catts of Florida

The definitive biography of Sidney J. Catts-Florida's fiery governor who fused pulpit rhetoric with populist politics in the early twentieth century.Cracker Messiah by Wayne Flynt is a riveting portrait of Sidney J.Catts, one of the most controversial figures in Southern political history.Catts rose from Baptist pulpits and Chautauqua stages to Florida's governor's mansion in 1916, riding a wave of rural populism, prohibition fervor, and anti-Catholic rhetoric.His fiery oratory and outsider persona electrified "Florida crackers" at a time when industrial and urban forces were reshaping the South.Yet Catts was more than a demagogue. His administration championed progressive reforms-good roads, penal improvements, vocational education, and even women's political participation-while his career oscillated between idealism and opportunism. Wayne Flynt's meticulously documented biography illuminates this complicated politician, tracing Catts's battles with the Democratic establishment, his f