Overview

"There was a time when young people were the most passionate participants in American democracy. In the second half of the nineteenth century-as voter turnout reached unprecedented peaks-young people led the way, hollering, fighting, and flirting at massive midnight rallies. Parents trained their children to be """"violent little partisans,"""" while politicians lobbied twenty-one-year-olds for their """"virgin votes""""-the first ballot cast upon reaching adulthood. In schoolhouses, saloons, and squares, young men and women proved that democracy is social and politics is personal, earning their adulthood by participating in public life. Drawing on hundreds of diaries and letters of diverse young Americans-from barmaids to belles, sharecroppers to cowboys-this book explores how exuberant young people and scheming party bosses relied on each other from the 1840s to the turn of the twentieth century. It also explains why this era ended so dramatically and asks if aspects of that strange period might be useful today. In a vivid evocation of this formative but forgotten world, Jon Grinspan recalls a time when struggling young citizens found identity and maturity in democracy."

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9781469627342

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Reviews

A useful historical look at how strong the youth demographic can be.-- Kirkus Reviews

As a study of the excitement and larger significance of political engagement in the party period, this is the most thoughtful and indeed the best book written in at least a generation. It is also quite a lot of fun. What could improve on an afterword beginning, 'Twelve-year-olds can't hold their liquor like they used to'?...This book is a must-read.--Mark Wahlgren Summers, in The Journal of the Civil War Era In this energetic account of the rise and fall of youthful political engagement in the nineteenth century, Jon Grinspan embraces the narrative zeal of his subjects with his own fast-paced and exuberant writing style.--Journal of Southern History This important book makes clear that we need a modern version of the Wide Awake movement.--Vox Correlates changes in youthful political socialization with the widely lamented decline from high nineteenth-century young voter turnout to today's low participation rates. . . . Makes an original and compelling argument that youth's changing role was a critical factor.--Journal of American History Readers will learn about some of the forces that brought Abraham Lincoln to office and shaped the United States' post-Civil War political scene.--Civil War News [A] pithy and thought-provoking work. . . . Offer[s] a sensitive and illuminating overview of the vital role of young voters in America's nascent political party system.--Civil War Book Review An imaginative and suggestive study that places American political history in a broad social context.--American Historical Review Provid[es] new insight into the history of politics and that of youth. . . . Engagingly written, peopled with varied archival voices, and would work well in classrooms at the undergraduate or graduate level.--Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era [A] period chronicled in vivid and loving detail. . . . Plunges readers into a pulsating political culture long vanished.--Wall Street Journal Will be informative for historians and political scientists and enjoyable for the general reader. . . . Reveals important aspects of American political life from that 'foreign country' that is the past.--North Carolina Historical Review Mining the diaries and letters of young Americans, the author creates revealing vignettes of 19th century politics and American youth. Recommended.--CHOICE A useful historical look at how strong the youth demographic can be.--Kirkus Reviews

A useful historical look at how strong the youth demographic can be.--<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>

Author Information

Jon Grinspan is a historian of American democracy, youth, and popular culture. He is a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and a frequent contributor to the New York Times.

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