Rebecca Edwards | Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.4

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Rebecca Edwards | Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Rum, Romanism, & Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884. By Mark Wahlgren Summers. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. xviii, 377 pp. Cloth, $55.00, ISBN 0-8078-2524-7. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 0-8078-4849-2.)

This is a well-researched history of the presidential campaign between James G. Blaine and Grover Cleveland, with tours through various related events and movements from the rise of Virginia's Readjusters to the disputed election of 1876, Kansas prohibition, and Irish nationalism in the United States. Mark Wahlgren Summers emphasizes conflicts within and among state-level party organizations, often in detail, as in his thirty-eight-page treatment of maneuvers at the national conventions. He also provides brief portraits of dozens of candidates, officials, and party operators. 1

Summers argues, rightly, that the campaign featured real issues that mattered to voters, who turned out in droves. At the same time, he warns that historians should not be "seduced by the outward attractiveness of Gilded Age politics" but must remember "backroom needs and deeds." Without romanticizing high turnout rates, this approach usefully counteracts the old notion that Gilded Age campaigns were empty of meaning. Summers offers a judicious assessment of the Mugwumps as minor players in 1884, "one force among many." He takes the long view, noting that the gradual resurgence of a Democratic South was the most important factor in Cleveland's victory. . . .

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