The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915

Event time: 
Tuesday, November 15, 2022 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Location: 
Henry R. Luce Hall LUCE, 202 See map
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

The Yale Center for the Study of Representative Institutions is pleased to invite you to attend a discussion with Dr. Jon Grinspan (National Museum of American History, Curator, Division of Political and Military History) about his recent book: The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915 (Bloomsbury, 2021). In it, Dr. Grinspan explores the rough-and-tumble but high-voter-turnout campaigns of the post-Civil War era United States alongside ultimately successful efforts to restrain the alleged excesses of democracy by Progressive reformers through an engaging examination of the political lives of Congressman William Kelley and his daughter Florence Kelley. Professor Beverly Gage (Yale – History and American Studies) and Professor Edward Widmer (CUNY-Macaulay Honors College) will serve as discussants. After their comments and questions for the author, the discussion will open for a general Q&A with the audience.

Description of The Age of Acrimony:
“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.”

Admission: 
Free

203-432-0061