Forgotten Firebrand: James Redpath and the Making of Nineteenth-Century America - Hardcover

McKivigan, John R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801446732 ISBN 13: 9780801446733

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2008

Synopsis

The reformer James Redpath (1833–1891) was a focal figure in many of the key developments in nineteenth-century American political and cultural life. He befriended John Brown, Samuel Clemens, and Henry George and, toward the end of his life, was a ghostwriter for Jefferson Davis. He advocated for abolition, civil rights, Irish nationalism, women's suffrage, and labor unions. In Forgotten Firebrand, the first full-length biography of this fascinating American, John R. McKivigan portrays the many facets of Redpath's life, including his stint as a reporter for the New York Tribune, his involvement with the Haitian emigration movement, and his time as a Civil War correspondent.

Examining Redpath's varied career enables McKivigan to cast light on the history of journalism, public speaking, and mass entertainment in the United States. Redpath's newspaper writing is credited with popularizing the stenographic interview in the American press, and he can be studied as a prototype for later generations of newspaper writers who blended reportage with participation in reform movements. His influential biography of John Brown justified the use of violent actions in the service of abolitionism.

Redpath was an important figure in the emerging professional entertainment industry in this country. Along with his friend P. T. Barnum, Redpath popularized the figure of the "impresario" in American culture. Redpath's unique combination of interests and talents―for politics, for journalism, for public relations―brought an entrepreneurial spirit to reform that blurred traditional lines between business and social activism and helped forge modern concepts of celebrity.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Little in James Redpath's life seems to have escaped John McKivigan. This narrative biography takes the reader on a journey through Redpath's life and works, his involvement in many of the leading reform movements of the nineteenth century, and his struggles against oppression and inequality in the United States and in Ireland."--Richard Blackett, Andrew Jackson Professor of History, Vanderbilt University

"James Redpath managed to play a role in almost every meaningful reform movement of his day. Along the way he wrote, edited, organized, ran a business, worked for the governments of Haiti and the United States, went undercover among the slaves of the Old South, agitated for Irish rights, fought in Bleeding Kansas, and not only eulogized John Brown but also befriended Jefferson Davis. John R. McKivigan takes us straight through every one of those episodes in graceful prose."--Edward E. Baptist, Cornell University

About the Author:

John R. McKivigan is Mary O'Brien Gibson Professor of History at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. He is the author of Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830-1865, also from Cornell, and the coeditor of several books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0801446732
• ISBN 13: 9780801446733
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 312