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From Bloody Shirt to Full Dinner Pail: The Transformation of Politics and Governance in the Gilded Age
In the wake of civil war, American politics were racially charged and intensely sectionalist, with politicians waving the proverbial bloody shirt and encouraging their constituents, as Republicans did in 1868, to “vote as you shot.” By the close of the century, however, burgeoning industrial development and the roller-coaster economy of the post-war decades had shifted the agenda to pocketbook concerns—the tariff, monetary policy, business regulation. In From Bloody Shirt to Full Dinner-Pail , the historian Charles W. Calhoun provides a brief, elegant overview of the transformation in national governance and its concerns in the Gilded Age. Sweeping from the election of Grant to the death of McKinley in 1901, this narrative history broadly sketches the intense and divided political universe of the period, as well as the colorful characters who inhabited the enigmatic and tragic Ulysses Grant; the flawed visionary James G. Blaine, at once the Plumed Knight and the Tattooed Man of American politics; Samuel J. “Slick Sammy” Tilden; the self-absorbed, self-righteous, and ultimately self-destructive Grover Cleveland; William Jennings Bryan, boy orator and godly tribune; and the genial but crafty William McKinley, who forged a national majority and launched the nation onto the world stage. From Bloody Shirt to Full Dinner-Pail also considers how the changes at the close of the nineteenth century opened the way for the transformations of the Progressive Era and the twentieth century.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published August 3, 2010
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About the author
Charles W. Calhoun
11 books12 followersCharles W. Calhoun is an American historian and professor at East Carolina University. He holds a BA from Yale University and a PhD from Columbia University. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and resides in Greenville, North Carolina.
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July 31, 2017
A general overview of "high politics" in the US from the election of Ulysses Grant in 1868 to the re-election of William McKinley in 1900. The author's main contention is that during this period, the electorate was deeply engaged in the issues of the time (as demonstrated by high turn-out figures for elections). It's telling that in connection with the claim of the Populist Party (a third-party) that the issues about which the Democrats and Republicans disputed were just a sham "to gull the people while the politicians struggled for 'power and plunder'" that "Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans accepted the Populists' notion that their tariff differences represented a sham battle. Nor it seems did Americans generally, as evinced by the high turn out rate in elections…" (p. 140). The counterclaim that people were worked up about these issues does not in itself bely the claim that the issues were contrived. In fact, I've often wondered to what extent the constant liberal/conservative political divides that characterize all nineteenth-century democratic systems, whether in the UK, the US or, say, Romania, aren't just artificial constructs. At any rate, the economic and foreign-policy actions of contemporary Democrats and Republicans in the US for the past two decades seem hardly distinguishable, and the rise of Donald Trump can be taken as a reflection of a wide-spread dissatisfaction among a large proportion of the electorate with the self-serving policies of the "managerial class" that guides the two parties, whatever their ostensible differences.
Anyway, the three big issues for Calhoun's analysis of later nineteenth-century politics are:
a) monetary policy;
b) trade policy;
c) treatment of the recently defeated Southern states and the defense of the civil rights of Southern blacks.
For monetary policy, the main issue was whether to adhere to a strict gold standard or to allow for limited or free coinage of supposedly inflation-inducing silver. Manufacturing interests in the East favored "sound" money, while more indebted agricultural states to the west preferred a laxer monetary policy as a way out of their debts. For trade, the Easterners wanted high tariffs to keep out foreign competition for the burgeoning industrial sector, while less industrialized areas wanted low tariffs, since the opposite simply meant that they would have to pay higher prices for the manufactured goods they got in return for their produce. Finally, Southern whites were disinclined to allow the newly freed blacks to exercise their electoral rights, and the question was whether the Federal government should step in to prevent blacks from being kept from voting.
The book doesn't really examine the underlying issues, and the way that it merely considers way the two parties reacted to the issues leads to some confusion in that to some extent there were elements of each party that adhered to one or the other of the binary opposition that these issues played themselves out. The Democrats at this time were advocates of a limited view of the role of government in economic life, and their most enduring support came from the South, where the Republican was naturally associated with the suppression of the Southern rebellion during the civil war and with support for the freed slaves. The Democrats tended to support inflationary silver coinage, though Democrats from the East took a more pro-gold view. To some extent, the issue of silver coinage was tied up with the earlier issue of the eventual resumption of gold payment for the green-back currency of the Civil War, which was associated with the Republican administration that initiated it. The tariff issue was again a mainly sectional one, with the industrial regions of the North supporting protective tariffs, which were not beneficial to the non-industrial South. Here, the Republicans were the advocates of state intervention, which in practice meant the promotion of tariffs for the benefit of particular sectors of society, whereas the Democrats were averse to the use of tariffs as anything but generators of revenue for the limited purposes of the Federal government. Finally, the Republicans initially wished to support the voting rights of the freed slaves, who would naturally be expected to support Republican candidates, while the Democrats of the South stood for the suppression of the black vote.
The upshot of this dynamic between the two parties is that they are the opposite of their contemporary image. The Republicans are more "leftist" in terms of modern conceptions, supporting the use of state power for social ends, while the Democrats are more "conservative" in advocating limited government (though one might object that the modern Republican Party is hardly an advocate of limited government). The book is mostly an examination of how the two parties dealt with these issues in their national political campaigns, with a particular emphasis on presidential elections. The upshot is that by the time of McKinley's victory in 1896, a general Republican hegemony was established that was to last until the onset of the Great Depression of the 1930s. This hegemony consisted of a) a complete victory of the gold standard with the effective abandonment of the coinage of silver, b) high protectionist tariffs, and c) an eventual abandonment of any attempt to enforce the ability of blacks to vote in the South (in effect, the North gave up on the issue in the face of white intransigence).
The author is a standard leftist academic, which means that his interpretation is colored by the way in which these nineteenth-century issues pattern onto modern ones. Basically, he's in favor of state intervention in the economy for social purposes, which leads to a preference for protectionist tariffs, even though modern politics is in favor of free trade and the reduction of tariffs. Similarly, statists generally prefer the gold standard for this period, as it was associated with the "progressive" forces of the East, even though modern fiat money has more in common with the free coinage than the gold standard (which is actually derided in most contemporary academic thought). The actual substance of the economic pros and cons of the two positions is never discussed, since the author is really only interested in the way the issues were debated in politics and not in the substantive issues themselves. As for the issue of the black vote in the South, it's taken for granted that the Southern position is wrong, and the Republicans were right.
The book is written without much actual analysis, and it operates by the disingenuous principles of journal of using adjectives to show who the good and the bad guys are and to quote someone from the past to say what the author feels, as if the fact that somebody made a given statement ipso facto makes it have some objective validity. The book is a okay as a breezy overview of the issues and personalities in the presidential elections from 1868 to 1900, but has no intellectual depth.
As for the physical book, it makes a poor impression. It's printed on low-grade paper and the graphic design is puerile. The illustrations are spread throughout the book, with one per page, and they frequently don't fit the page well and are clumsily positioned. The book has headers written in some old-fashioned "fat face" typeface that presumably is meant to give a "victorian" feel to the book but is just annoyingly hard to read.
Anyway, the three big issues for Calhoun's analysis of later nineteenth-century politics are:
a) monetary policy;
b) trade policy;
c) treatment of the recently defeated Southern states and the defense of the civil rights of Southern blacks.
For monetary policy, the main issue was whether to adhere to a strict gold standard or to allow for limited or free coinage of supposedly inflation-inducing silver. Manufacturing interests in the East favored "sound" money, while more indebted agricultural states to the west preferred a laxer monetary policy as a way out of their debts. For trade, the Easterners wanted high tariffs to keep out foreign competition for the burgeoning industrial sector, while less industrialized areas wanted low tariffs, since the opposite simply meant that they would have to pay higher prices for the manufactured goods they got in return for their produce. Finally, Southern whites were disinclined to allow the newly freed blacks to exercise their electoral rights, and the question was whether the Federal government should step in to prevent blacks from being kept from voting.
The book doesn't really examine the underlying issues, and the way that it merely considers way the two parties reacted to the issues leads to some confusion in that to some extent there were elements of each party that adhered to one or the other of the binary opposition that these issues played themselves out. The Democrats at this time were advocates of a limited view of the role of government in economic life, and their most enduring support came from the South, where the Republican was naturally associated with the suppression of the Southern rebellion during the civil war and with support for the freed slaves. The Democrats tended to support inflationary silver coinage, though Democrats from the East took a more pro-gold view. To some extent, the issue of silver coinage was tied up with the earlier issue of the eventual resumption of gold payment for the green-back currency of the Civil War, which was associated with the Republican administration that initiated it. The tariff issue was again a mainly sectional one, with the industrial regions of the North supporting protective tariffs, which were not beneficial to the non-industrial South. Here, the Republicans were the advocates of state intervention, which in practice meant the promotion of tariffs for the benefit of particular sectors of society, whereas the Democrats were averse to the use of tariffs as anything but generators of revenue for the limited purposes of the Federal government. Finally, the Republicans initially wished to support the voting rights of the freed slaves, who would naturally be expected to support Republican candidates, while the Democrats of the South stood for the suppression of the black vote.
The upshot of this dynamic between the two parties is that they are the opposite of their contemporary image. The Republicans are more "leftist" in terms of modern conceptions, supporting the use of state power for social ends, while the Democrats are more "conservative" in advocating limited government (though one might object that the modern Republican Party is hardly an advocate of limited government). The book is mostly an examination of how the two parties dealt with these issues in their national political campaigns, with a particular emphasis on presidential elections. The upshot is that by the time of McKinley's victory in 1896, a general Republican hegemony was established that was to last until the onset of the Great Depression of the 1930s. This hegemony consisted of a) a complete victory of the gold standard with the effective abandonment of the coinage of silver, b) high protectionist tariffs, and c) an eventual abandonment of any attempt to enforce the ability of blacks to vote in the South (in effect, the North gave up on the issue in the face of white intransigence).
The author is a standard leftist academic, which means that his interpretation is colored by the way in which these nineteenth-century issues pattern onto modern ones. Basically, he's in favor of state intervention in the economy for social purposes, which leads to a preference for protectionist tariffs, even though modern politics is in favor of free trade and the reduction of tariffs. Similarly, statists generally prefer the gold standard for this period, as it was associated with the "progressive" forces of the East, even though modern fiat money has more in common with the free coinage than the gold standard (which is actually derided in most contemporary academic thought). The actual substance of the economic pros and cons of the two positions is never discussed, since the author is really only interested in the way the issues were debated in politics and not in the substantive issues themselves. As for the issue of the black vote in the South, it's taken for granted that the Southern position is wrong, and the Republicans were right.
The book is written without much actual analysis, and it operates by the disingenuous principles of journal of using adjectives to show who the good and the bad guys are and to quote someone from the past to say what the author feels, as if the fact that somebody made a given statement ipso facto makes it have some objective validity. The book is a okay as a breezy overview of the issues and personalities in the presidential elections from 1868 to 1900, but has no intellectual depth.
As for the physical book, it makes a poor impression. It's printed on low-grade paper and the graphic design is puerile. The illustrations are spread throughout the book, with one per page, and they frequently don't fit the page well and are clumsily positioned. The book has headers written in some old-fashioned "fat face" typeface that presumably is meant to give a "victorian" feel to the book but is just annoyingly hard to read.
April 15, 2015
For most Americans, the political history of the Gilded Age is a period where the country was governed by a succession of indistinguishably bearded presidents who did nothing. Sandwiched as it is between the drama of the Civil War period and the revolution in government brought about during the Progressive Era, it often tends to be overshadowed and overlooked, a period where the dominance of laissez-faire attitudes meant that little of significance took place. In this short little book, Charles W. Calhoun demolishes such misconceptions, showing the period to be one that both wrestled with important questions left over from the Civil War and set the stage for many of the transformations that were to follow.
Calhoun begins his study with the 1868 presidential election. Though this was the first presidential election after the Civil War, the issues created by the conflict dominated the campaign, particularly the issue of black suffrage. Republicans proved effective at rallying voters outside the South by “waving the bloody shirt,” or rallying voters to defending the results against the efforts by Democrats to reverse them. Calhoun sees this as reflective of the political philosophies that characterized the political parties in this period, with the Republicans believing that the federal government could play a positive role in national government, while the Democrats argued for greater deference to state and local governments.
This clash of philosophical approaches was reflected not just in contrasting views on the issue of black suffrage, but in economic policy as well. Calhoun sees the Republicans in the 1870s as facing the question of whether to emphasize the efforts to preserve black suffrage or their use of tariffs and other policies to encourage national economic development. The economic depression of the period helped fuel an emphasis on the latter issue, and protecting the rights of African Americans to vote receded as an issue for the party as the century came to an end. Calhoun emphasizes the role of African American voter suppression as key to both the Democratic dominance of the South during this period and the narrowness of voting totals in national elections. By the 1890s, however, the Republicans use of such issues as the gold standard cemented a political dominance that would last for a generation, enshrining a more active role for the federal government in national life as a result.
Concise and insightful, Calhoun’s book offers a stimulating introduction to American politics in the Gilded Age. Though his focus is on the presidency, his inclusion of Congressional and gubernatorial elections offers a broad overall portrait of the ebbs and flows of party fortunes and how they reflected the broader attitudes of the electorate. The result is a superb overview that serves as an excellent starting point for anyone seeking to learn more about this underappreciated era in American political history.
Calhoun begins his study with the 1868 presidential election. Though this was the first presidential election after the Civil War, the issues created by the conflict dominated the campaign, particularly the issue of black suffrage. Republicans proved effective at rallying voters outside the South by “waving the bloody shirt,” or rallying voters to defending the results against the efforts by Democrats to reverse them. Calhoun sees this as reflective of the political philosophies that characterized the political parties in this period, with the Republicans believing that the federal government could play a positive role in national government, while the Democrats argued for greater deference to state and local governments.
This clash of philosophical approaches was reflected not just in contrasting views on the issue of black suffrage, but in economic policy as well. Calhoun sees the Republicans in the 1870s as facing the question of whether to emphasize the efforts to preserve black suffrage or their use of tariffs and other policies to encourage national economic development. The economic depression of the period helped fuel an emphasis on the latter issue, and protecting the rights of African Americans to vote receded as an issue for the party as the century came to an end. Calhoun emphasizes the role of African American voter suppression as key to both the Democratic dominance of the South during this period and the narrowness of voting totals in national elections. By the 1890s, however, the Republicans use of such issues as the gold standard cemented a political dominance that would last for a generation, enshrining a more active role for the federal government in national life as a result.
Concise and insightful, Calhoun’s book offers a stimulating introduction to American politics in the Gilded Age. Though his focus is on the presidency, his inclusion of Congressional and gubernatorial elections offers a broad overall portrait of the ebbs and flows of party fortunes and how they reflected the broader attitudes of the electorate. The result is a superb overview that serves as an excellent starting point for anyone seeking to learn more about this underappreciated era in American political history.
September 20, 2011
A little dry and sort of read like a book report of presidents during the Gilded Age.
January 21, 2023
Charles Calhoun discusses the changes in government from the Presidency of Ulysses Grant in 1868 to the re-election of William McKinley in 1900
Calhoun is a believer in an activist government and state intervention in the economy for social purposes. He not only makes this obvious in his telling of the story, but lets it color his narrative and even misrepresent facts by quoting statistics out of context that mislead the reader.
Remember that in the “Gilded Age” the political parties were the reverse of today’s. Democrats were more conservative fiscally and in their view of government’s limits. Republicans were more liberal and expansive.
The major issues that the parties differed on were monetary policy (gold / silver), trade policy / tariffs and federal involvement in the defeated Southern states and the defense of the rights, especially the voting rights, of the freed slaves.
You can clearly tell the author’s opinion of what transpired. He filters it through the lens of today’s world. not that of the 1800s. He uses adjectives that in the words of another reviewer “show who the good and the bad guys are” ...in his opinion. I have no issue with facts - the Democratic party at the time absolutely was remiss in allowing the south to disenfranchise the freedman and embark on oppression.
But Calhoun misstates much about President Grover Cleveland - and twists facts and statistics. (and made heavy use of his thesaurus to find negative adjectives. I’d just read the excellent:
A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland by Troy Senik
I had to reborrow the book to get details on some of the things Calhoun twists.
Calhoun’s book casts Cleveland very negatively as obstructionist because in his first term as President he issued 414 vetoes, more than all Presidents before him combined. He ignores what the bills were and why they were vetoed. At the time Civil War Veteran’s pensions were the 2nd largest expenditure of the Federal government. (behind only interest payments of the National Debt). The initial pensions were for widows, orphans and sometimes mothers and underage siblings of those killed. In 1879 President Benjamin Hayes signed the Arrears Act, allowing pensions to be awarded retroactive to the date of injury, allowing windfall payments. In 1878 37,000 pension applications were filed. The year after the Act, 110,000were filed (despite a diminishing number of veterans),. If the Pension Claims board rejected an application, the applicant could ask Congress to pass a bill awarding the pension. This soon became common - a pork barrel type bill, endorsed for politics rather than true disability.. Cleveland approved 90% of those Pension Bills that crossed his desk, but vetoed 228 55% of the 414 vetoes that author Calhoun paints as obstructionist. Many of the remaining were grants of Federal land to the railroads. He also vilifies Cleveland’s “mocking language”. Sometimes Clevelnd would veto with harsh language. One instance was a vet who claimed he had “sore eyes caused by diarrhea he suffered during the war, Another was a vet who broke his leg 14 years after the war while picking flowers in a ditch. He claimed he helped more slowly because of a gunshot wound suffered during the war. Not only was there no record of the wound, but he was home on leave on the date he climbed he was shot!
Perhaps most egregious is Calhoun’s saying the 1887 Dependents Pension Bill was to “clarify those rules and broaden their application” and condemning Cleveland for vetoing it. The bill provided pensions to any veteran who served more than 90 days. Benefits would be paid if they had a disability that hampered ability to work EVEN IF THE DISABILITY WAS NOT RELATED TO MILITARY SERVICE and happened after that service. Three years later the 1890 Dependents Pension Bill was passed. Pensions in the following 3 years Civil War pensions went from 456,000to 935,00. Payments went from $89 million to $157 million - 40% of the national budget.
The book also portrays all the issues with the south as the result of Democrats. It was Republican President Hayes who withdrew the last of the troops during Reconstruction.The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court during Chester Arthur’s term.
Disappointing book poor history (non-history)
Calhoun is a believer in an activist government and state intervention in the economy for social purposes. He not only makes this obvious in his telling of the story, but lets it color his narrative and even misrepresent facts by quoting statistics out of context that mislead the reader.
Remember that in the “Gilded Age” the political parties were the reverse of today’s. Democrats were more conservative fiscally and in their view of government’s limits. Republicans were more liberal and expansive.
The major issues that the parties differed on were monetary policy (gold / silver), trade policy / tariffs and federal involvement in the defeated Southern states and the defense of the rights, especially the voting rights, of the freed slaves.
You can clearly tell the author’s opinion of what transpired. He filters it through the lens of today’s world. not that of the 1800s. He uses adjectives that in the words of another reviewer “show who the good and the bad guys are” ...in his opinion. I have no issue with facts - the Democratic party at the time absolutely was remiss in allowing the south to disenfranchise the freedman and embark on oppression.
But Calhoun misstates much about President Grover Cleveland - and twists facts and statistics. (and made heavy use of his thesaurus to find negative adjectives. I’d just read the excellent:
A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland by Troy SenikI had to reborrow the book to get details on some of the things Calhoun twists.
Calhoun’s book casts Cleveland very negatively as obstructionist because in his first term as President he issued 414 vetoes, more than all Presidents before him combined. He ignores what the bills were and why they were vetoed. At the time Civil War Veteran’s pensions were the 2nd largest expenditure of the Federal government. (behind only interest payments of the National Debt). The initial pensions were for widows, orphans and sometimes mothers and underage siblings of those killed. In 1879 President Benjamin Hayes signed the Arrears Act, allowing pensions to be awarded retroactive to the date of injury, allowing windfall payments. In 1878 37,000 pension applications were filed. The year after the Act, 110,000were filed (despite a diminishing number of veterans),. If the Pension Claims board rejected an application, the applicant could ask Congress to pass a bill awarding the pension. This soon became common - a pork barrel type bill, endorsed for politics rather than true disability.. Cleveland approved 90% of those Pension Bills that crossed his desk, but vetoed 228 55% of the 414 vetoes that author Calhoun paints as obstructionist. Many of the remaining were grants of Federal land to the railroads. He also vilifies Cleveland’s “mocking language”. Sometimes Clevelnd would veto with harsh language. One instance was a vet who claimed he had “sore eyes caused by diarrhea he suffered during the war, Another was a vet who broke his leg 14 years after the war while picking flowers in a ditch. He claimed he helped more slowly because of a gunshot wound suffered during the war. Not only was there no record of the wound, but he was home on leave on the date he climbed he was shot!
Perhaps most egregious is Calhoun’s saying the 1887 Dependents Pension Bill was to “clarify those rules and broaden their application” and condemning Cleveland for vetoing it. The bill provided pensions to any veteran who served more than 90 days. Benefits would be paid if they had a disability that hampered ability to work EVEN IF THE DISABILITY WAS NOT RELATED TO MILITARY SERVICE and happened after that service. Three years later the 1890 Dependents Pension Bill was passed. Pensions in the following 3 years Civil War pensions went from 456,000to 935,00. Payments went from $89 million to $157 million - 40% of the national budget.
The book also portrays all the issues with the south as the result of Democrats. It was Republican President Hayes who withdrew the last of the troops during Reconstruction.The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court during Chester Arthur’s term.
Disappointing book poor history (non-history)
June 4, 2021
For history lovers who need a respite from the insane politics of our own time I highly recommend Charles Calhoun’s tour de force concise account of American politics in the Gilded Age of the late 19th Century. In many respects the policies of the Democrats and Republicans were roughly the opposite of what they are now. It was the Republicans in those days who sought to protect voting rights against discriminatory suppression and who advocated public spending on education and infrastructure as well as an interventionist management of the economy. Democratic President Grover Cleveland on the other hand said that Americans should not seek support from the Federal government and advocated the view that spending for the general welfare was unconstitutional. The book’s account of the narrow defeat of comprehensive legislation in 1890 to protect African American voting rights in the South is chilling given our subsequent history. With McKinley the issue sadly was abandoned altogether in favor of economic appeal to enfranchised voters on pocketbook issues as the nation transitioned into the Progressive Era. Hence the book’s title.
October 20, 2023
A kinda summary, cursory look, but it's pretty good for what it is I think. Calhoun is a fairly engaging author (I thoroughly enjoyed his Harrison biography, and it's clear you can see he has tons and tons of love for the Harrison era through this book), and he does a relatively solid job here tracing the fundamental shift in Gilded Age politics towards currency issues. I appreciated his consistent tracking of the public perception, and political perception, of economic issues throughout the years-he does a generally solid job tracing that development that I could relatively follow. The book is itself kinda short and a little bit shallow, but I think that's the point it's more about that economic shift. Overall, a solid book and I'm glad to have read it; I'd recommend it as a very good primer on gilded age politics.
One line I found impactful that I think really summed up the great tragedy of the Gilded Age -
"What if we gain the tariff and many other good things if in doing it the soul of the party and nation is lost?" - Frederick Douglass
One line I found impactful that I think really summed up the great tragedy of the Gilded Age -
"What if we gain the tariff and many other good things if in doing it the soul of the party and nation is lost?" - Frederick Douglass
September 7, 2023
While other books such as Richard White’s “the republic for which it stands” are much more detailed, comprehensive accounts of American society from after the civil war to the turn of the twentieth century, Calhoun manages to provide a concise and very readable account of Gilded Age politics. His overarching theme: that gradually the sectional issues of the civil war were supplanted by economic issues affecting the entire nation, is argued well. A very good introduction to this time period, particularly for those who may find books such as the aforementioned history by Richard White intimidating.
July 28, 2024
Interesting but a bit erudite. I would argue that a little less dense language would hold the reader's attention while delivering on the marketing plan for this book. Monetary policy aside, I was interested in the Gilded Age and the transition from a war focus.
November 2, 2010
The Gilded Age is never anyone's favorite time period to study in American history. The political figures of the time were not as charismatic as those before the Civil War or those of the 20th Century. It was an era when political parties were far stronger than they were today. Calhoun is an expert in this field. He presents a concise history of the era, going over the major themes of the time (tariffs, government spending, party loyalty, the gold standard, and civil rights) without belaboring them.
The Gilded Age started out with the Republicans dominant after the Civil War. Then the Republicans barely held on to the White House for eight years. Then the Democrats regained the White House with Grover Cleveland. But the Democrats couldn't hold on to power and the Republicans came back in with Benjamin Harrison, only to suffer one of the biggest midyear Congressional wipeouts in 1890. Cleveland regained the White House, the economy tanked, and the Republicans returned the favor of the wipeout in 1894.
The Gilded Age: a time when Republicans stood for big government, protective tariffs, and civil rights. The Democrats stood for small government, free trade and weren't adverse to suppressing the black vote.
It would change
The Gilded Age started out with the Republicans dominant after the Civil War. Then the Republicans barely held on to the White House for eight years. Then the Democrats regained the White House with Grover Cleveland. But the Democrats couldn't hold on to power and the Republicans came back in with Benjamin Harrison, only to suffer one of the biggest midyear Congressional wipeouts in 1890. Cleveland regained the White House, the economy tanked, and the Republicans returned the favor of the wipeout in 1894.
The Gilded Age: a time when Republicans stood for big government, protective tariffs, and civil rights. The Democrats stood for small government, free trade and weren't adverse to suppressing the black vote.
It would change
August 6, 2011
This book covers politics from Grant to McKinley. Issues range from issues of Reconstruction (issues which seem to cut across geographic lines such as the Tariff) to monetary standards. The book is relatively short and would be a good resource for anyone researching Gilded Age politics. It fell a little out of my range of interest though, so it was on the my back burner for a while. There was still plenty of interesting facts and I'm glad I read it.
June 5, 2015
This book does a terrific job of telling the basics of the political situation in the USA from 1868 until 1900. It gives us all the key players, the differences between the two main parties, significant third parties, and how the main issues developed. It is an easy book to read and understand. It is a great starting point to understand what was going on politically in the USA during this period.
January 2, 2012
This was an easy and, once I actually got going on it, quick read. I think that the author gave a bit too much attention to the tariff and currency issues, but that is simply a matter of taste. The discussions of elections and quarrels between, among, and within the political parties were quite interesting.
August 22, 2014
In his Introduction Mr Calhoun tells us that: A, this is a Political History; and B, that he has studied and taught the history of the Gilded Age for many a year now. So if you feel that this book reads like a class syllabus you may be on to something. At least at the end of the, um, course, you will know who the presidents were from Andrew Johnson to Theodore Roosevelt.
September 15, 2010
Good overview of Politics of the period.
August 31, 2011
Got very tedius to read but good for the information.
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