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

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

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

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

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

Jon Grinspan is curator of political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. He holds a PhD in American history from the University of Virginia. Grinspan is the author of the award-winning The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the 19th Century. He also frequently contributes to the New York Times, the Atlantic, and other publications, and has been featured in the New Yorker, the Washington Post, NPR programs, PBS, and NBC. He lives in Washington, D.C.