TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the Author
Michael O'Malley received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988. He taught at New York University and Vassar College and now teaches at George Mason University where he is Associate Professor of History and Associate Director of the Center for History and New Media.
Huey Long
Secondary Sources
Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, & the Great Depression. New York: Vintage, 1983. Brinkley does an excellent job situating Long against other New Deal "dissenters" like the ubiquitous Townsend and Coughlin as well as lesser known figures like Norman Thomas and the American Socialist Party.
Kazin, Michael. The Populist Persuasion: An American History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1998. Kazin's overview places Long's childhood in context: the context of an America that had much more room for different political voices. Kazin treats Long as part of a phenomenon dating back into the 19th century and ahead into the present.
Warren, Robert Penn. All the King’s Men. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1946. Long's legacy has long suffered under the shadow of Robert Penn Warren's novel All the King's Men which, even though Warren emphatically denied it, is still widely described as "based on the life of Huey Long." Warren's book is fiction; the general similarities—southern governor, anti-elite message—have done more to obscure than to illuminate. It might be useful in class if Long's career and ideas were being examined in detail.
Williams, T. Harry. Huey Long. New York: Vintage, 1981. The first definitive biography of Long won a Pulitzer prize and a National Book Award in 1969. Still excellent, although consistently critical.
WETA. "Huey Long: For Educators." Ken Burns' American Stories: Huey Long. This PBS website, based around a Ken Burns series, has some limited resources for teachers, including lesson plans and excerpts from the Burns film.