Social Democratic Party (United States)
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Social Democratic Party of America
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| Founded | June 11, 1898 |
| Dissolved | July 28, 1901 |
| Preceded by | Social Democracy of America |
| Succeeded by | Socialist Party of America |
| Ideology |
Social democracy Democratic socialism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
The Social Democratic Party of America (SDP) was a short-lived political party in the United States, established in 1898. The group was formed out of elements of the Social Democracy of America (SDA), and was a predecessor to the Socialist Party of America, established in 1901.
Following the defeat of the 1894 American Railway Union (ARU) strike, the former populist Eugene V. Debs exhaustively read socialist literature provided to him by Milwaukee publisher Victor L. Berger and other independent Socialists. Debs converted to the Socialist cause, believing in the aftermath of the suppression of the ARU strike by federal troops that trade union action alone was insufficient to bring about the liberation of the working class.
In this same summer, smarting from a failed effort at establishing a socialist community near Tennessee City, Tennessee, publisher Julius Wayland established in Kansas City a new socialist weekly newspaper, Appeal to Reason, eventually moving the operation for financial reasons to a small town in southeastern Kansas called Girard. This paper was a major success, quickly gaining a paid subscribership of 80,000 and invigorating the Socialist movement. A new colonization project was conceived through this paper, the Brotherhood of the Cooperative Commonwealth, which aimed to seed an undecided western state with socialist colonies and to electorally take over the government of that state, thus establishing a foothold for socialism in America. Eugene V. Debs was named the head of this project and the planets were thus aligned for the formation of a new national political organization. A convention of the remnant of the American Railway Union was called for June 15, 1897 in Chicago.
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