Three times the Democratic Party's nominee for president (1896, 1900, and 1908) and secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan voiced the concerns of many Americans left out of the post-Civil War economic growth.

In A Righteous Cause: The Life of Williams Jennings Bryan, Robert W. Cherny presents Bryan's key role in the Democratic Party's transformation from the conservatism of Grover Cleveland to the progressivism of Woodrow Wilson. Cherny draws on Bryan's writings and correspondence to trace his major political crusades for a new currency policy, prohibition, and women's suffrage, and against colonialism, monopolies, America's entry into World War I, and the teaching of evolution in the public schools.