Mavericks of the Metroplex: Dallas Republicans, the Southern Strategy, and the American Right

Thesis advisor: Cynthia L. LyerlyThis dissertation explores the ultraconservative Republican and moderate conservative Republican movements in Dallas, Texas between 1952 and 1964, an essential period in which the GOP abandoned its longstanding identification as the party of President Lincoln and Reconstruction and adopted the Southern Strategy. While the first generation of scholars of American conservatism recognized the influence of ultraconservatives who embraced conspiracy theory, absolutist thinking, and apocalyptic rhetoric, the most recent scholarship has tended to downplay the impact of this ultraconservative worldview and stress moderate conservatives' upward mobility and mainstream and modern values. Through the lens of the Republican Party in Dallas, Texas--an epicenter of American conservative Republicanism in the 1950s and 1960s--this dissertation argues that while moderate conservative Republicans were important, ultraconservatives Republicans were more essential to the conservative Republican ascendancy. The dissertation shows that ultraconservative Republicans standing on the "fringe" of mainstream conservatism served not only to push many Republicans to embrace right-wing ideas, but mainstreamed and legitimated the moderate conservative Republicans in the 1950s and 1960s. In showing that ultraconservatives mattered more than historians previously thought, the dissertation suggests that the most recent scholarship has overcompensated for the first generation of historians, who tended to pathologize the Right and dismiss its staying power.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: History