Second Founding: New York City, Reconstruction, and the Making of American Democracy - Hardcover

David Quigley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809085143 ISBN 13: 9780809085149

Publisher: Hill and Wang, 2003

Synopsis

A striking new assessment of New York's place in our nation's political history

At the close of the Civil War, Americans found themselves drawn into a new conflict, one in which the basic shape of the nation's government had to be rethought and new rules for the democratic game had to be established. In this superb new study, David Quigley argues that New York City's politics and politicians lay at the heart of Reconstruction's intense, conflicted drama. In ways that we understand all too well today, New York history became national history.

The establishment of a postwar interracial democracy required the tearing down and rebuilding of many basic tenets of American government, yet, as Quigley shows in dramatic detail, the white supremacist traditions of the nation's leading city militated against a genuine revision of America's racial order, for New York politicians placed limits on the possibilities of true Reconstruction at every turn. Still, change did occur and a new America did take shape. Ironically, it was in New York City that new languages and practices for public life were developing which left an indelible mark on progressive national politics. Quigley's signal accomplishment is to show that the innovative work of New York's black activists, Tammany Democrats, bourgeois reformers, suffragettes, liberal publicists, and trade unionists resulted in a radical redefinition of reform in urban America.

About this title

About the Author:

David Quigley, a graduate of Amherst College and New York University, teaches history at Boston College. This is his first book.

From Booklist:

This scholarly examination provides an illuminating window into the Reconstruction era, an era the author refers to as the "second founding of American democracy." Using post-Civil War New York City as a microcosm of the more heterogeneous, pluralistic, and decentralized democracy introduced during Reconstruction, Quigley paints a portrait of a deeply conflicted city, a metropolis that reflected, above all others, the whirlwind changes that were sweeping the nation. As fundamental questions of equality and freedom were being reconsidered, radical economic changes, rapid urbanization, and racial revolution were the hallmarks of the day. Forced to confront these changes head on, New York was at the center of a political and social revolution that permanently altered the fabric of American life, ushering in a new type of democratic politics. This original analysis firmly ties the history of Reconstruction-era New York City to the contemporary American political landscape. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0809085143
• ISBN 13: 9780809085149
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256