Differing significantly from previous studies, McFarland's approach to the Mugwumps provides a balanced portrait of these Yankee reformers and their campaigns against boss rule in cities, corruption in national affairs, and American imperialism abroad. The conventional approach has been to concentrate on only a dozen or so of the best known Mugwumps and to trace their careers no further than 1900. In contrast, McFarland greatly extends the number of individuals whose activities must be considered reflections of the movement, discussing a sample of hundreds of active Mugwumps, and traces their careers well into the twentieth century. Mugwump orthodoxy is demonstrated by an examination of their largely negative goals in the anti-Blaine bolt of 1884, their narrow political program during the late 1880s, and their politically disastrous loyalty to Grover Cleveland. But their innovative side is also highlighted by a searching analysis of their successes, including their participation in the movement to professionalize such occupations as law, medicine, and higher education, and their contributions to urban, political, and social reform.

Differing significantly from previous studies, McFarland's approach to the Mugwumps provides a balanced portrait of these Yankee reformers and their campaigns against boss rule in cities, corruption in national affairs, and American imperialism abroad. The conventional approach has been to concentrate on only a dozen or so of the best known Mugwumps and to trace their careers no further than 1900. In contrast, McFarland greatly extends the number of individuals whose activities must be considered reflections of the movement, discussing a sample of hundreds of active Mugwumps, and traces their careers well into the twentieth century. Mugwump orthodoxy is demonstrated by an examination of their largely negative goals in the anti-Blaine bolt of 1884, their narrow political program during the late 1880s, and their politically disastrous loyalty to Grover Cleveland. But their innovative side is also highlighted by a searching analysis of their successes, including their participation in the movement to professionalize such occupations as law, medicine, and higher education, and their contributions to urban, political, and social reform.

A spirited reevaluation of the public moralists who shaped public policy in nineteenth-century America, Mugwumps: Public Moralists of the Gilded Age provides a refreshing look at a group of Americans whose importance to the history of our country has commonly been dismissed. A public interest group that labeled the generation following the American Civil War as the "Gilded Age," Mugwumps were college-educated individuals who lived the lessons of their moral philosophy--Christian values, republican virtue, and classical liberalism. Tracing Mugwump values back before the term was commonly used, Tucker defines these liberals as benevolent and altruistic, active campaigners against slavery and imperialism, and for sound money, lower tariffs, and civil service reform. The earliest Mugwumps took on the self- assigned task of advocating public principles over private interests. Evaluations of these public moralists during the 1950s and 1960s, however, did not paint the Mugwumps in so positive a light. Awash in the popular New Deal public policies that advocated positive government intervention and regulation in the economy, these studies dismissed Mugwump liberalism as outdated. More specifically, the reformers were criticized as being self-interested failures. Tucker obliges readers to look beyond such dismissals to the history and accomplishments of Mugwumps as a whole. Unlike previous historians, Tucker examines the antebellum roots of the Mugwumps and follows their ever-increasing participation in American government throughout the nineteenth century. Tucker portrays Mugwumps not as selfish agents of the middle class but as fascinating practitioners of eighteenth-century public virtue and nineteenth-century social science. This book forcefully challenges previous studies on the Mugwumps and restores these public moralists to the mainstream of nineteenth-century American history. Their concerns for morality and free-market economics are again fashionable in contemporary politics and deserving of fresh attention from both the general reader and the scholar.

Includes chapters on moral reform, the YMCA, Sunday Schools, and parks and playgrounds.

This three-volume set explores the multiple roles that parties and interest groups have played in American politics from the nation's beginnings to the present. This set serves as an essential resource for analyzing the emergence and impact of parties and interest groups in the American political system and for understanding the systematic and structural bases for interest group and party behavior. Volume One opens with an introduction by the editors that provides a general overview of the eras and identifies important themes and events, laying a foundation on which the subsequent essays and primary documents for each interest group or political party builds. Narrative essays focus on how specific parties or interest groups have shaped or reflect a particular set of events or general themes in each of the eras in American political history. Topical entries reflect key themes developed throughout the volumes. Entries range from important founding groups and parties to contemporary political action committees and policy advocacy groups. The set also includes primary source documents (e.g., letters, platform documents, court decisions, flyers, etc.) that reveal important dimensions of the corresponding group's political influence.

Annotation st1\: · {behavior:url(£ieooui) } Unparalleled coverage of U.S. political development through a unique chronological frameworkEncyclopedia of U.S. Political History explores the events, policies, activities, institutions, groups, people, and movements that have created and shaped political life in the United States. With contributions from scholars in the fields of history and political science, this seven-volume set provides students, researchers, and scholars the opportunity to examine the political evolution of the United States from the 1500s to the present day. With greater coverage than any other resource, the Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History identifies and illuminates patterns and interrelations that will expand the reader & BAD:rsquo;s understanding of American political institutions, culture, behavior, and change. Focusing on both government and history, the Encyclopedia brings exceptional breadth and depth to the topic with more than 100 essays for each of the critical time periods covered. With each volume covering one of seven time periods that correspond to key eras in American history, the essays and articles in this authoritative encyclopedia focus on thefollowing themes of political history:The three branches of governmentElections and political partiesLegal and constitutional historiesPolitical movements and philosophies, and key political figuresEconomicsMilitary politicsInternational relations, treaties, and alliancesRegional historiesKey FeaturesOrganized chronologically by political erasReader & BAD:rsquo;s guide for easy-topic searching across volumesMaps, photographs, and tables enhance the textSigned entries by a stellar group of contributorsVOLUME 1Colonial Beginnings through Revolution1500 & BAD:ndash;1783Volume Editor: Andrew Robertson, Herbert H. Lehman CollegeThe colonial period witnessed the transformation of thirteen distinct colonies into an independent federated republic. This volume discusses the diversity of the colonial political experience & BAD:mdash;a diversity that modern scholars have found defies easy synthesis & BAD:mdash;as well as the long-term conflicts, policies, and events that led to revolution, and the ideas underlying independence. VOLUME 2The Early Republic1784 & BAD:ndash;1840Volume Editor: Michael A. Morrison, Purdue UniversityNo period in the history of the United States was more critical to the foundation and shaping of American politics than the early American republic. This volume discusses the era of Confederation, the shaping of the U.S. Constitution, and the development of the party system.

How "virtual adulthood"--children's role play in simulated cities, states, and nations--helped construct a new kind of "sheltered" childhood for American young people. A number of curious communities sprang up across the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century: simulated cities, states, and nations in which children played the roles of legislators, police officers, bankers, journalists, shopkeepers, and other adults. They performed real work--passing laws, growing food, and constructing buildings, among other tasks--inside virtual worlds. In this book, Jennifer Light examines the phenomena of "junior republics" and argues that they marked the transition to a new kind of "sheltered" childhood for American youth. Banished from the labor force and public life, children inhabited worlds that mirrored the one they had left. Light describes the invention of junior republics as independent institutions and how they were later established at schools, on playgrounds, in housing projects, and on city streets, as public officials discovered children's role playing helped their bottom line. The junior republic movement aligned with cutting-edge developmental psychology and educational philosophy, and complemented the era’s fascination with models and miniatures, shaping educational and recreational programs across the nation. Light’s account of how earlier generations distinguished "real life" from role playing reveals a hidden history of child labor in America and offers insights into the deep roots of such contemporary concepts as gamification, play labor, and virtuality.