American Radicals: How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation

by Holly Jackson

A dynamic, timely history of nineteenth-century activists--free-lovers and socialists, abolitionists and vigilantes--and the social revolution they sparked in the turbulent Civil War era

On July 4, 1826, as Americans lit firecrackers to celebrate the country's fiftieth birthday, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were on their deathbeds. They would leave behind a groundbreaking political system and a growing economy--as well as the glaring inequalities that had undermined the American experiment from its beginning. The young nation had outlived the men who made it, but could it survive intensifying divisions over the very meaning of the land of the free?

A new network of dissent--connecting firebrands and agitators on pastoral communes, in urban mobs, and in genteel parlors across the nation--vowed to finish the revolution they claimed the Founding Fathers had only begun. They were men and women, black and white, fiercely devoted to causes that pitted them against mainstream America even while they fought to preserve the nation's radical ideals: the brilliant heiress Frances Wright, whose shocking critiques of religion and the institution of marriage led to calls for her arrest; the radical Bostonian William Lloyd Garrison, whose commitment to nonviolence would be tested as the conflict over slavery pushed the nation to its breaking point; the Philadelphian businessman James Forten, who presided over the first mass political protest to free African Americans; Marx Lazarus, a vegan from Alabama whose calls for sexual liberation masked a dark secret; black nationalist Martin Delany, the would-be founding father of a West African colony who secretly supported John Brown's treasonous raid on Harpers Ferry--only to ally himself with Southern Confederates after the Civil War.

Though largely forgotten today, these figures were enormously influential in the pivotal period flanking the war, their lives and work entwined with reformers like Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Henry David Thoreau, as well as iconic leaders like Abraham Lincoln. Jackson writes them back into the story of the nation's most formative and perilous era in all their heroism, outlandishness, and tragic shortcomings. The result is a surprising, panoramic work of narrative history, one that offers important lessons for today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, Audiobook, 19th Century, American

400 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2019

About the author

Holly Jackson is an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and a number of scholarly venues. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Mehrsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a lot of fun! It's also a great historical response to those who say "well, back then everyone was a slaveholder/sexist/homphobe/etc." Nope. Some people were not and they tried to wake people up. The abolitionists section was just amazing. There's a lot of people who go around thinking that they would have been abolitionists and yet they make all sorts of excuses for refugees dying in oceans or on borders or people dying of preventable diseases. If you are a person who excuses modern cruelty, you would not have been an abolitionist. You would have been part of the content majority. These people were the crazy radicals of their era and as they say, history proved them right.

[Cookie M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Worst economic depression in U.S. history occurred in... the 1870's, NOT the 1930's.

The real reason the Texas War of Independence was fought? The right to own slaves!

The 1st time a president was elected by electoral college votes over popular votes was... 1824! Not 2016, for those of you who can't even remember back as far as 2000. (Oh,yeah.). Let's also not forget about 1876, 1888 and the ambiguities of the 1960 Alabama results.

Okay, the stuff about 1888 to the present I got from my own memory and Wikipedia, not "American Radicals," but these are enough tidbits to illustrate why I often had to stop reading this book, check the author's footnotes for myself, and then take a day to rearrange so much of my understanding of what actually happened in our history because of the actions of protesters, radicals, rabble trousers and "socialists." And, my gosh, how, so many of our beloved historic figures of today were lumped into those categories and reviled during their own time.

If you are ready to have your world rocked about the role of radicals, commune dwellers, abolishionists, feminists, free love proponents, etc, read this book.

If you are uncomfortable with anything that threatens your world view, do not crack the covers of, " American Radicals: How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation. "

I received this book free from Crown/Random House in exchange for an honest review on Goodreads.

[Jodi]

"{A} history of radical thought must be a history of a certain kind of failure. We have so completely metabolized the wild ideas of nineteenth-century America that succeeded--women in pants, the telephone, regular bathing--that their original implausibility is lost. Success carries with it a feeling of inevitability, as though it represents merely the inexorable march of history, not a stray Hail Mary pass miraculously, just barely caught. Only the ones that were dropped look impossible or silly to us now."--Holly Jackson

When I was in fourth grade, I decided that studying "only men and their stupid wars" in history was boring. A note sent home to my mother with my report card told her so. Reading about ancient Greece had gotten me interested in how people lived--their cooking, their clothes, their homes. That didn't make it into our history books. Neither, for the most part, did women. From that point on, I decided that when a history or literature report topic was my choice, it would be about women. Harriet Tubman and Anne Hutchinson were particular favorites of mine--I became an expert over the years. I was not permitted to do reports on Sappho ("but she's, like, the only ancient woman writer I know!") or Victoria Woodhull.

In short, I enjoyed the absolute hell out of American Radicals. Holly Jackson concentrates on radical American movements in the period between 1820 and 1880. Some figures will be unfamiliar to most former American schoolchildren, such as Fanny Wright, a scandalous Scottish feminist who cut her hair short, advocated Free Love and the abolition of slavery, supported interracial love, and dared to speak in public. Others, like Susan B. Anthony, will be more familiar. However, Jackson breathes fresh life and insight into even the best-known figures of the era.

Jackson provides extensive historical background in order to help readers understand why people would take up causes such as the abolition of slavery, Free Love (which could mean a number of things), women's suffrage, nutrition reform, and workers' rights. She also details, sometimes graphically, the backlash reformers and their disciples suffered and the high prices many of them paid in their lives. Some reformers were impractical and doomed to fail. (The account of how Nashoba, Fanny Wright's dream commune, became even worse for its black residents than the plantations they'd escaped is particularly heartbreaking and maddening.) There are prolific illustrations throughout.

American Radicals could inspire many a teenager's report or science fiction author's alternate history. It is also instructive for today's would-be worldchangers. While the reformers were often brave, even heroic, many fell victim to the same vices that plague everyone else. There are many accounts of terrible timing, lack of skill, infighting, burnout, slinking away in shame, refusal to take advice, awful food, and hideous clothing. Many of the problems facing 19th century reformers will be familiar to today's liberals. For example, the press often condemned and ridiculed them. Protests got violent. Feminists were subject to the same "ugly, slutty, and/or crazy" family of insults that we are now on social media. Intersectionality and the lack thereof was at least as much of a concern then as it is now, with white suffragettes being racist and black men being misogynist. Abolitionists in the 1840s even used the term "waked up" to describe their radicalization, a term that today's "woke" echoes.

This is not a quick read, as it is jam-packed with facts, characters, and connections. It is, however, a lively one. If you also feel there were too many gaps in your American history education, Holly Jackson will fill them in with style and wit.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review..

[Connie Lacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent history of the progressive radicals of the nineteenth century who helped drag the United States kicking and screaming toward social justice for Black Americans and women. The stories of abolitionists, both black and white, who risked their lives to challenge the terrible evil of slavery, are awe-inspiring. Stephen S. Foster, a white activist, repeatedly went to churches, challenging them for their un-Christian support of slavery until he was tossed out the door or window. Editors of some abolition newspapers were beaten or murdered, their printing presses tossed in the river. This book provides a deeper understanding of the nitty gritty of what abolitionists endured and includes many of the less famous activists and the important work they did. Readers are also exposed to the resistance of those who did everything in their power to deny Black Americans their rights.

A timely read as the US is forced to come to grips with its disgusting history of continued subjugation of minorities, and of ongoing racism.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

This begins on the 50th birthday of the USA. The Marquise de Lafayette returns to America for a victory tour where the citizens celebrate the war hero. He brought a scandalous woman along with him named Fanny Wright. She was an abolitionist, who fought for many other radical ideas. Through the web of the book we meet many other radicals like William Lloyd Garrison. He seemed to be fighting a losing battle as an abolitionist, regularly beat up by mobs, etc. Until decades later when he was applauded by Lincoln. So many other interesting characters in here, well-known thinkers like Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman, and obscure folks who I'd not heard of. Then there is John Brown. Talk about putting words into action. He created a small band and tried to free the slaves himself. Of course he was doomed and was executed by the US with Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Boothe watching him hang. So, yeah some crazy ideas in this book too, spiritual wifery, utopian communes, vegan diets (look at the weird story of the origin of the Graham Cracker), etc. A fun book of forgotten history. Thanks to the publisher for the free copy!

[saranimals · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit jumbled presentation. So many different people thrown at you, difficult to keep track. No differentiation between the counterculture and the genuine kooks.

I did enjoy the wry absurdity of the rabid abolitionists, motivated ostensibly by the desire for freedom, who simultaneously advocated for the continued subjugation of women.

[John Lesmeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this quirky history of 19th-century American counterculture a compelling read. The best thing about is how it recreates the radical context in which canonical figures from secondary school US history like Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony operated. Instead of the sanitized, liberal version of American history as a story of gradual progress and expansion of democratic rights, we get a tapestry of "pernicious" ideas and movements: abolitionism, socialism, Free Love, atheism, Transcendentalism, 'Non-Resistance" (Christian anarcho-pacifism), in all their complexity and synergy as well as contradiction. We see how these movements existed apart from, in opposition to, and often in the face of violent opposition from mainstream society, culminating in the explosion of the Civil War.

The narrative tends to jump around frequently, interweaving the lives of countless reformers and revolutionaries (some seemingly minor, others shockingly overlooked) with giants like Douglass and John Brown. The array of names is dizzying, and old characters often pop up in new and unexpected contexts, making the index a helpful reference point.

Much of the content provides needed perspective for understanding the broader history of the US left--and some of the reasons for its persistent relative weakness. For example, the problem of "allyship" and philanthropic activism that claims to work for the betterment of a community, but without the leadership or even the participation of that community, is represented here by Fanny Wright's Nashoba and especially the American Colonization Society. The conservative use of "wedge issues", here illustrated by the struggle preceding the 15th Amendment which broke the nascent solidarity between the black freedom movement and white feminists over suffrage, is also illuminating.

But what's perhaps more interesting are the aspects of these movements that have been passed down to the present day not through the activist left but through diffusion into the broader culture. Fourier and the Free Lovers, bizarre and anachronistic in some respects, appear radically ahead of their time in others: apparently vindicated by greater autonomy for women, the informality of modern dating culture, and LGBT rights, even as other of their ideas like a "sexual minimum" still seem whacky at best. The Transcendentalist approach to spirituality finds its echo not only in modern liberal Christianity (eg the Unitarian Universalists) but also in Alcoholics Anonymous, hippies, neo-paganism and a variety of "new religious movements".

My only complaint with the book was that it was sometimes difficult to follow. Some pacing decisions seemed odd--for example, the Civil War itself is almost skipped over after some 200 pages of build-up. This might have been necessary however, as this is a work of intellectual and political history, not military history (of which there is plenty out there). Overall, this was an incredibly researched, vividly described, and surprisingly fun book.

[Bo Belanger · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a well-researched book, but I struggled to get into because of all the different characters, coming and going. I would’ve loved a stronger, simpler narrative because I love the idea of this book.

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book about 19th century radicals and social protest in America. It all feel very familiar, but it's also really enlightening about the kinds of ideas people advocated for back then. Whenever people say that times were different or that people thought differently in another time you always have to remember that not everyone did- there were always people thinking ahead, seeing the truth, ahead of their time. And it's always illuminating to read history in this light because it informs SO much about the present, about what this country is, who inhabits it, who fights for it and who's always believed it could and should be more.

[ezra]

I'm on a spirit quest to learn more about American history and this was just the thing. These stories of nineteenth-century radicals are at once fascinating, challenging, inspiring, suprising, and heartbreaking. They reveal what it means to live and die according to your principles on the ridiculed fringes. They were also wild--Free Lovers who wanted to abolish marriage, villainous and good-natured commune farmers, vicious feuds between well-known activists. Anyone who wants to imagine what America could be, who wants to know how to imagine, should read this book.

[Kevin Schafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review of the larger than life personalities, weirdos and radicals who made American history in the 19th century. Most of these figures were quite well-known then and now, giving lie to the book's claim to that most are lost to history. I enjoyed this book immensely, even if it was a quick summary of AP US History. Inspired me to re-read my trusty American Reader.

[Authentikate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nutshell: so, there’s hope.

[Mikayla Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I’m not big on historical texts unless it’s historical fiction, but I had to read this for my class, and I enjoyed it! Again, it was just harder to read since it’s not a narrative.

[Relena_reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so easy to forget our progressive forebearers (and that the inability to juggle multiple mandates isn't new) that histories like this are important and Jackson does a great job writing interweaving human stories.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging, and well researched, look into the protests, causes, and social resistance of the 19th century. The book is appropriately named, for these “radicals” advanced causes that pointed America in a direction where all people enjoyed its freedoms.

[Briayna Cuffie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received this as an eARC via NetGalley in partnership with the publisher, for a fair and unbiased review.
—————————————————————————-
From the very beginning this book sucked me in like a captivating piece of fiction. My mother has always said that ‘lying by omission’ affects us all. Such a comment is generally in relation to structural racism in this country – and so – very applicable to this book.

I have so much of it highlighted, and so many notes on the side. I appreciate the deep dives into known and more unknown (the “failures”) figures who affected their thinking and level of participation in various movements. I need this in American History curricula.

I think the conclusion could’ve been stronger/just as authoritative, and I didn’t get that from it once I got to the last 2 chapters. I can imagine it was very difficult trying to wrap it up.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book via Goodreads Giveaways, so thank you to Goodreads, Holly Jackson, and the team behind American Radicals for granting me an early copy.

As someone who finished her B.A. in history a few years ago, and is preparing to soon pursue an M.A. as well, I can confirm that American Radicals is a college student's best friend. A student writing a report on social justice movements in the nineteenth-century would feel the same sense of overwhelming gratitude upon discovering Holly Jackson as I did when I was doing a report on immigrant assimilation and discovered Richmond Mayo-Smith (the fact that I even remember the guy's name speaks to that). AR profiles dozens of largely-unknown activist from the 1800s (with the occasional well-known author thrown in) who campaigned for drastic changes in regards to slavery, marriage, gender equality, and wealth distribution.

I generally support the idea that history rhymes rather than repeats, due to how the circumstances are never exactly the same at any two points in time, but either theory works in this case. Much of the language and ideas that are debated today were in use two-hundred years ago as well: intersectionality, the one-percent, the "awakening" of one's self to the world's troubles (aka wokeness), and the tendency for well-meaning white progressives to talk over minorities. The internal discovery that America is not living up to its full potential is a common motif throughout this book, much like we saw in the 1960s and continue to see today.

The activism focused on here loosely follows a certain cycle: for several years, a particular cause is passionately championed by a small group of supporters (such as with abolition or women's suffrage), slowly gaining traction, but still largely ignored by the greater American public. The movement eventually gains steam, growing until it hits a confrontational breaking point, resulting in change on the federal level. This change is never as much as the original activists had wanted, but is still considered radical by the majority of Americans. After that, the decline begins as moderate supporters lose interest. We then see activists turn on each other and start to fracture off (sound familiar?) as the remaining radicals are forced to grapple with intersectionality, and what happens when different groups of people no longer have a common goal.

Rather than having an emo phase, the people profiled in AR had commune phases: for every one "revolutionary" society that was promised to fundamentally change civilization that found a modicum of success, there were ten others that failed. Despite all the writing and convening and protesting these activists did, many of them eventually reached a point where the cause lost its luster, and they returned to a quiet, conventional life that they had previously railed against. What remained were a small coalition of true believers, who continued to make noise, but were never able to capture that same spark that had previously catapulted their movements to national prominence.

Jackson eventually concludes that while almost none of these activists ever got exactly what they wanted, they did affect the way the rest of the country approached the causes they championed. This is undoubtedly true, as we see everyday in the real world. Suffragettes and Free Lovers didn't achieve a utopian, egalitarian society where marriage was obsolete, but they did propel the fight for universal suffrage and eased some of the stigma of divorce. Abolitionists weren't able to create a color-blind America, but they were able to abolish slavery on a national level.

Last year, I read another book about American culture, Kurt Andersen's Fantasyland, which, while deeply flawed in its argument, did show a history of ideas being broached in fiery, radical glory on the left, before being toned down and implemented by an inherently more cautious right. Although the political parties in this country continue to shift and splinter, American Radicals does make a case for where both idealists and pragmatists fit in our society. Whether Jackson intended this or not, her work shows that without idealists, the world would remain stagnant, never improving. But without pragmatists, none of those ideas would ever go anywhere: the world idealists want to create would crash and burn if not for the pragmatists who figured out how to make that world manageable.

On a personal level, I have always had an uneasy relationship with radicals and progressives in my own life. I am grateful to the people who came before me for the progress they made, and can acknowledge that the activists at work now are likely going to improve the lives of generations to come. At the same time, the self-righteousness of activism can be overwhelmingly grating, both in real life and in American Radicals. (Funnily enough, Jackson hints at one point that the pretentiousness of his peers is the main reason why Ralph Waldo Emerson eventually distanced himself from progressives). That can make reading this work challenging at times, as can the sheer size of the cast. As other reviewers have mentioned, there are many figures featured in this book, and trying to keep all of them straight can be mind-numbing. Although AR is technically divided up chronologically, there is still quite a bit of jumping around, meaning that any particular character can go unmentioned for a hundred pages before popping up once again.

Ultimately, American Radicals' greatest strength doubles as its greatest weakness. Written by a college professor, this book is highly informative and, as I mentioned at the beginning of my review, will make a great resource for any student seriously pursuing history. However, that also makes it less appealing as a regular non-fiction read. American Radicals is a great choice for researchers, but if you're reading for no other reason than enjoyment, then you may walk away disappointed.

[Meg G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really excited by this book. But ultimately it lacked the evidence to support its most interesting claims and the well-supported arguments have been made in other history monographs.

[Rama Rao · Rating 4 out of 5]

The network of dissent after American Revolution

A new network of dissent appeared in the New World about fifty years after American Revolution. They were men and women, black and white, fiercely devoted to causes that pitted them against mainstream America. One of them was heiress Frances Wright, whose critiques of religion and the institution of marriage led to calls for her arrest; the radical Bostonian William Lloyd Garrison, whose commitment to nonviolence would be tested as the conflict over slavery pushed the nation to its breaking point. Henry David Thoreau, a philosopher, espoused the need to morally resist the actions of an unjust state. Thoreau was a leading figure in the movement along with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Abagail Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. They were illustrious sons and daughters of Massachusetts. One of the highlights of Alcott family including author Louisa May Alcott was their belief that all people are born equal. They were ardent abolitionists and fighters for equal rights. The future of suffrage movement that paved the way for the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that granted American women the right to vote, a right commonly known as women's suffrage was born out of passion for equality in Alcott household. Another figure which I liked in this book was about Frances Wright. In the late 1820s, Wright was the first woman to speak publicly before men and women about political and social reforms. She advocated for universal education, the emancipation of slaves, birth control, equal rights, sexual freedom, legal rights for married women, and liberal divorce laws. She expressed against organized religion and capital punishment. William Lloyd Garrison and Susan B. Anthony fought against slavery, racism, gender equality in family and labor laws. They were firebrand hippies of the 1960s era but operating in middle of 19th century America.

Socialists of early America deeply believed that the new nation was heading in the wrong direction. This part of American history with its fragile political and economic system was breaking away from its experiments of throwing British out of the country. The American dream was rapidly disappearing; only a few privileged families had this for real. Very few dared to question this as the political and economic climate was developing into a catastrophe.

Professor Manisha Sinha of UConn documents the influence of the Haitian Revolution and the centrality of slave resistance in shaping the ideology of abolition in the Unites States. Her work takes a much broader look at its impact since it was a successful anti-slavery and anti-colonial insurrection against French colonial rule. However, it was an expensive experiment since European colonists retaliated against Haiti with economic isolation.

In this book, University of Massachusetts Professor Holly Jackson walks us through these pages about liberals and antiestablishment figures who fought to change the American institution. Professor Jackson teaches American literature and antiestablishment movements in early America at UMASS, Boston has a smooth and engaging style of narrating her story. I strongly recommend this book to readers interested in American history and social movements in 1800s that was dominated by abolition, suffrage, and equality.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's said that "the past is a foreign country." But you don't get that impression from "American Radicals." Instead, Jackson presents a picture of 19th century left-wing activists that looks a lot like a mirror image of today.

Back then, they had their serious issues, slavery, women's rights, and the rights of labor. Today, we still have race, equal rights by sex and gender, and capitalism vs socialism and wealth inequality.

Back then, they also had imaginative and utopian offshoots of the above, like Free Love, Fourrierist socialism that believed class liberation could have physical effects on the Earth (ie, turning the oceans into seas of lemonade), fad diets, and spiritualism. You can draw your own parallels with points along today's spectrum of personal-identity politics.

Ironically, some of the crazier ideas of the past are now the accepted ideas of today. For example, Free Love's goal of fluid marriage with ready divorce was victorious. Also prominent today are health-food diets, women in pants, universal public education, and the eight-hour workday, leaving plenty of leisure time for people of all classes to get more education and improve themsselves.

Or not. However much extra leisure time Americans now enjoy, for most of us entertainment seems to have absorbed the time we were supposed to use to get more enlightened.

Meanwhile, while the big 19th century causes achieved the biggest part of their goals -- slavery was abolished and in the early 20th century women ultimately got the vote -- these movements failed to complete all their work.

Indeed, when it came to abolition, real gains in civil rights came during Reconstruction. But afterwards, with the northern public tiring of sectional conflict and ready to shake hands over the bloody chasm of the war with southern whites, unreconstructed Confederates were allowed to push freed people in the South back into a state of racial subjection not much different than slavery but with less protection for blacks against vigilante violence. As a result, lynch law kept many southern blacks from voting and enjoying other civil rights for another century. Today, 150 years later and after the civil rights movement, we still strive for racial justice.

Which begs the question: history has mostly forgotten 19th century activists, seeing them as failures. Were they? And if so, what does that mean for activism today, or any time really? Is activism even worth the trouble? Even when activists achieve some victories, won't reactionaries always step in to reverse any real gains, pushing you right back where you started, or even worse?

To her credit, Jackson says no. She finds something noble even in the attempt to make things better, whether it succeeds or not. And she presents 19th-century reformers, even the most kooky ones, as examples of vision, courage, and persistence that we would do well to emulate today.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The internet and modern media would have us believe that only in modern times have groups risen to combat racial equality, capitalism, and wealth inequality. Since history is written by the winners, this book focuses on the protest movements and the groups/beliefs driving them. The 19th century had some doozies as well as valid ones. The successful protest movements which led to the slavery's abolishment and voting rights for African Americans and women's voting rights are known. What I found interesting was how some in the abolitionist movement was closely tied and aligned with other groups. Women's voting rights was a stripped down goal which originally included free love, ending marriage because of women lost their rights once married, and interracial marriage. Those involved in these movements took the idea of equality really seriously and thought the founding fathers didn't go nearly far enough. Despite their eccentricities that would make a modern person's eyes roll, it's impressive what these protesters were willing to risk, even their lives, in pursuit of the promise of equality as the ideal of the young United States. That may not be surprising since if the American Revolution had turned out badly, then our founding fathers would have been hanging at the end of the rope probably much like John Brown. This book starts around 1824 - near the 50 year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. the Marquis de Lafayette, a French military hero who assisted the colonists immensely in the revolution, is visiting the states and brings an interesting female friend, Fanny Wright. She's quite the character and the book follows a chain through the 19th century. The difficult part of writing such a book is, as the author proved, this is a big topic. The Civil War is really the climax of the United States 19th century and women's voting rights didn't happen until at least 20 years in the 20th century. I thought this flowed well through the Civil War and Reconstruction and then sort of seemed rushed and disjointed past that time. I recognize that there's so much information to research, organize, and interpret for a book like this, that this is understandable. What's valuable is the reader can also pursue further those topics of particular interest that didn't get full treatment. It was also very interesting to me how some well known names Thoreau, Hawthorne, Douglass as examples are well remembered by history where others were reviled and forgotten. It's a thin edge between seizing new ideas for the greater good and going too far. I rated this as 4 stars for although I obviously liked this a lot, after Reconstruction, this seemed to be a bit rushed and disconnected. Anyone who finds history fascinating will enjoy this. I think it shows we're just not protesting enough today.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jackson's American Radicals is a very accessible work of history -- and she deserves much praise for that. The first third to half of the work is both focused and engaging as she highlights well-known and not so well-remembered men and women of radical movements in the first half of the nineteenth century United States, their beliefs and actions, as well as the language they and their critics utilized. This sense of focus and engaging narrative style wanes as the book goes on, however as much as Jackson attempts to keep it grounded on a few major issues/events/persons. Part of this is the simple reality that the radicals she follows were never a unified group, but it also seems like she chose to follow individuals (like Martin Delany) or events (John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry) that I'm not convinced played as strong a role in radical circles as she (or many others) think. This results in the problem that she only gives limited discussion to more widespread events (like protest against the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, the Free Soil movement for examples). In particular, I wanted much more about what happens to the radical movement during and after the Civil War. These sections are overshadowed again and again by a long focus on Martin Delany. Of course, many others have written about the famous radicals, and Jackson is making a point on how many of them lost their radical edge (something she seems to be grappling with trying to explain each time she returns to an individual like Delany, but cannot successfully accomplish at any time she tries - which is not meant to be a symbol of failure for her, just of the complexities of human life), but we lose the sense of excitement and intimacy with individual characters/people by the last half of the book that made the first half so engaging.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sympathetic history of 19th century activist movements mostly centered around the abolitionist and woman’s rights. Really interesting with a couple of takeaways for me:

Activist movements tend to draw in all manner of cranks and weirdos. This can have the effect of either (or both) causing internal strife and a general loss of focus within activist organizations or discrediting the activist goals in the eyes of the broader public. This, I imagine, is why activism is so hard. You must necessarily create a coalition of unorthodox and disagreeable (in the big 5 personality trait sense) people but that makes it hard to establish the sort of internal compromise and hierarchy required to execute on a practical political agenda.

Along those same lines, activist groups tend to splinter when they start to get traction so there is always the danger of a little bit of success being essentially self-defeating. One of the really interesting stories in this book which I hadn’t known before was the split that developed between the women’s suffrage movement and the anti-slavery movement in the aftermath of the Civil War. They had been ideological fellow travelers and often worked together closely in the antebellum period but in the post-way era when there was a substantive political process going on around adopting the 15th amendment, there was a bitter divide between those who wanted to prioritize voting and civil rights for black people over women’s suffrage. Making priority decisions collectively is really hard, especially for the sorts of personalities who join activist movements to begin with.

In general, it is a really rare combination to have individuals and organizations with both the moral clarity to oppose the status quo when it is morally indefensible but normalized (such as slavery in the 19th century) and the ability to actually make improvements on the margin.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is the nature of American radicalism? How is it successful? What people occupy this radicalism and who doesn't and how does this happen? What have we all gained by the activities of radicals? Are radicals correct and are their insights that others adopt the right thing to adopt? Is there some sort of healthy demand for radical behavior within the human herd that is fostered or denied by different political systems?

Such questions are evoked by Holly Jackson's very readable "American Radicals How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation". She tells stories of both white and black antebellum radicals whose radical behavior shaped the war to end slavery, its aftermath, but also women's rights, African American rights, worker's rights, and sexual and social politics. She boldly states that the ending of the institution of slavery was caused by the actions of radicals spurring the south to react against them and ennobling the north to stand with them. And she shows how rifts within the radical movement, rifts as important as racism and as petty as infidelity, cripple it's power after the war. It is a broad sweep of the story and the reader knows there are plenty of gaps to be filled elsewhere.

But proximity does not prove causation. How does it work, the desire to make thing better that leads to action for the radicals themselves, that brings ideas into the world, that people somehow choose to adopt? Could the radicals simply be riding larger currents that would, even without their heroism, inevitably over-take the rest of us? "American Radicals" is not that book. But it is necessary to read these stories to understand the question in our American context.

I hope that Jackson writes more and in more depth on these issues. The "How" of How we make this place better is of particular urgency.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holly Jackson takes a long look at the radicals (in her definition means abolitionist, socialists, suffragettes and other what we would call today left fringe groups) in the 1820s to 1870s and how they helped shaped the nation. There is truly great information in here on the abolitionists and the suffragettes and how the two groups interface with each other, including the famed split when they could not agree on whether or not to focus on black votes first or black and female votes together. This book does take a look at the history of socialism as thought out by Fourier and Owen and looks at the failure of the socialist communities they set up in the US (they did not last over disputes of who owned what property). I do wish she had taken more time to define how she is using socialism here as I think the casual reader might associate it with Marx which was very different view point than the more what we would think of as utopianisms today.
This book takes its time but establishes its case very carefully and shows how these ideals developed and worked here way (at least in the case of abolition and suffrage into the main stream and eventual passage. I do have to take off a star for her ignoring the efforts of those like Grant who were staunch supporters of enforcing reconstruction and battling the KKK (there are two sentences put in as almost a throw away) as well as others in government who were supportive of these groups and helped them triumph over time. It is important to acknowledge the efforts of those on the ground, but this book makes it seem like the government was always in opposition.
Overall though still enjoyable and lots of good information to be found here. If you are interested in how the various “liberal” movements mentioned above get started then you will enjoy this book.

[Nancy Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently, I have been immersed in the history of 19th century reformers, specifically the suffragists who won the vote for women. So, I was eager to read this book that is chock full of names that resonate with me now -- abolitionists, "free lovers," suffragists, labor organizers, social workers, health nuts and utopians.

This book took me beyond the hagiography that accompanies these historical figures. Ms. Jackson's book delves into more than the successes of the reform movements, but the failures as well. "We have so completely metabolized the wild ideas of nineteenth-century America that succeeded... that their original implausibility is lost," she says.

I appreciate the author's emphasis on the racism, classism, and elitism that relegated whole swathes of society to a less-than status. When reading about the suffragists, I at first resisted the stain on their characters stemming from racist statements and actions. But it doesn't take much work to uncover the prejudice that lived in their own hearts. The past must be rewritten, even if it muddies the neat black-and-white picture we like to keep of our heroes. They can't be forgiven simply because "the times were different back then." I also appreciated the stories of people who have been wronged and forgotten, like the escaped slave Arthur Burns, and the backstories of certain ideas, like the deportation scheme to send African Americans back to Africa to settle their own country -- an idea floated by no less than President Lincoln!

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know what point is driven home by this history of 19th century radicals? The idea that people don't get the "it was a different time" excuse when it comes to the big issues. People have been out there advocating for and giving their lives for freedom and humanity despite it "being a different time" for as long as these issus have existed. Also, the more things change, the more they stay the same....

Holly Jackson structures the chapters so that they spiral chronologically. You really get a sense of cause and effect in terms of how movements and individuals were shaped by other movements and individuals. Its interconnectedness makes the information feel even more engaging. While some of the big names (Fredrick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Susan B. Anthony) are there, she also turns her lens on people more conventional historical narratives have forgotten. It puts the history from curriculum and entertainment into better context.

Jackson is even-eyed when it comes to portraying these people and these movements. She makes sure to point out their hypocrisies and failings, such as the increasingly racist bent of the women's rights movement as helmed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

I listened to the audiobook, which was read well. This was entertaining, thought provoking, and a good foundation for understanding the radical movements of the era, and how they were shaped by their time. It's also very relevant when thinking about what side of history we want to be on in future retrospectives.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book through a Goodreads Giveaway in exchange for an honest review.

Holly Jackson's book is a thorough examination of 19th century radical thought and action. Its strengths are its simultaneous breadth, covering movements from abolitionism to free love to vegetarianism, and its depth. I was struck by how often she was able to tie together figures across decades and issues, highlighting the interconnectivity of these movements. However, I felt like this is more a narrative exploration of those movements, rather than an analysis. The subtitle, "How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation", never really feels realized. What's the significance of these movements? The conclusion, "On Radical Failure" starts to answer this question, but only in a very limited sense, and I was left feeling like the book never truly achieves a larger purpose.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting look at the 1800's in the United States and what people thought the U.S. should be and do to achieve it. Those who wanted changes in society in response to the Constitution and the ideal of the U.S. were shut out/down by the conservatives who wanted to keep the status quo.

I enjoyed this book. I liked the ideas put out by those considered radical. They made sense. Some of the people I had heard of but there were new people who had an influence on society. We are still fighting for the same things 200 years later--slavery/black lives and equality, women's suffrage, union strength. The arguments sound the same today as they did then and those arguments are still denigrated by those in power trying to keep their status quo. This is a timely book for all to read.

[Gretchen Hohmeyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one! I think part of the entire mission was to acquaint people with some lesser-known figures and movements, as well as the nuances and (dis)connections between figures and movements during this time. In that, I say it succeeded. I feel like a lot of what I've previously read about the abolitionist, feminist, socialist, and everything-in-between movements of this time often paints them as monoliths when in fact there were factions among them and lots of interlocking parts. The allusions between past and present activism were interesting to compare and contrast as well. Overall, I won't say that it blew me away but I certainly learned a lot. As an audiobook, despite the large cast of people and ideas, it was still easy to follow.