Age of Acrimony How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy 1865 1915

A raucous history of American democracy at its wildest--and a bold rethinking of the relationship between the people and their politics.

Democracy was broken. Or so many Americans believed in the decades after the Civil War. Shaken by economic and technological disruption, they found safety in tribal partisanship defined by race, class, and ethnicity. The results were the loudest, closest, and most violent elections in U.S. history. Yet paradoxically, these elections shaped a thrilling public culture of campaigning by ordinary citizens and drew our highest-ever voter turnouts. Then, at the century's end, a movement to tame democracy calmed the era's wild politics and crafted our modern norms and voting laws. But in restraining their savage system, reformers traded away participation for civility. This is the origin story for the "normal" politics today's Americans grew up with.

The Age of Acrimony offers a revelatory account of 19th-century democracy's unruly spectacle--and what it cost to cool the republic. At its center is the captivating drama of a remarkable father-daughter dynasty: William "Pig Iron" Kelley, a radical, working class congressman, and Florence Kelley, a fiery intellectual who defied him and went on to become a leader of the Progressive movement. Through Will and Florie's personal struggles-and their friendships and feuds with a lively cast of characters--historian Jon Grinspan traces a narrative of American democracy in crisis, revealing our divisive political system's enduring capacity to heal itself.

A penetrating, character-filled history "in the manner of David McCullough" (WSJ), revealing the deep roots of our tormented present-day politics.

Democracy was broken. Or that was what many Americans believed in the decades after the Civil War. Shaken by economic and technological disruption, they sought safety in aggressive, tribal partisanship. The results were the loudest, closest, most violent elections in U.S. history, driven by vibrant campaigns that drew our highest-ever voter turnouts. At the century's end, reformers finally restrained this wild system, trading away participation for civility in the process. They built a calmer, cleaner democracy, but also a more distant one. Americans' voting rates crashed and never fully recovered.

This is the origin story of the "normal" politics of the 20th century. Only by exploring where that civility and restraint came from can we understand what is happening to our democracy today.

The Age of Acrimony charts the rise and fall of 19th-century America's unruly politics through the lives of a remarkable father-daughter dynasty. The radical congressman William "Pig Iron" Kelley and his fiery, Progressive daughter Florence Kelley led lives packed with drama, intimately tied to their nation's politics. Through their friendships and feuds, campaigns and crusades, Will and Florie trace the narrative of a democracy in crisis. In telling the tale of what it cost to cool our republic, historian Jon Grinspan reveals our divisive political system's enduring capacity to reinvent itself.