Wide Awake is available for purchase at Bookshop.org
We’ve all heard the complaint: do we need yet another book about the American Civil War? Thank goodness Jon Grinspan paid no heed to the grumbling and wrote the first detailed study of one of the war’s most fascinating subjects: the Wide Awakes, a grassroots political club that helped propel Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in one of the most consequential elections in American history.
In his vivid and beautifully written study, Grinspan takes readers to textile shops, where young working-class men sewed cloaks and stored stolen torches, and to city streets, where they marched against the Slave Power and protected Republican campaign speakers. Bringing to bear his expertise in material culture, Grinspan deftly interweaves the Wide Awakes’ personal stories with a broader narrative of political power in an era of sectional rancor and violence. He shows us that the work of ordinary people was vital to the coming of the Civil War, and reminds us of the power of performative politics. Charting the history of the Wide Awakes, he asks, “Where, exactly, is the line between symbol and meaning, free speech and public menace, politics and violence?”
Original in its topic and riveting in its narrative style, Wide Awake represents the best of today’s historical writing.
Jon Grinspan in the Curator of Political History at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. His three books, and many New York Times articles, explore the deep history of American democracy, focusing on campaign spectacles, forgotten youth movements, and dirty tricks. At the Smithsonian, he collects artifacts from historic moments and contemporary political events to preserve America's past, and present, for museum-goers of the future.