Research Catalog

Title

Baptism of fire : the Republican Party in Iowa, 1838-1878 / Robert Cook.

Author

Cook, Robert J., 1958-

Publication

Ames : Iowa State University Press, [1994], ©1994.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xiii, 310 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

• The birth of the Republican party in the mid-1850s was one of the most remarkable political developments in U.S. history, for it resulted in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Baptism of Fire charts the party's progress in early Iowa, where its supporters battled hard (if not always consistently) for the rights of African-Americans and the prosperity of the trans-Mississippi West.
• Chronological in framework and analytical in content, this book examines the origins and maturation of the virulently anti-Southern organization and emphasizes the significance of ethnocultural and economic issues to Iowans. It illustrates in absorbing detail how the Republicans were able to defeat the ruling Jacksonian Democratic party and take power before fighting a bloody and Internecine war against Southern whites and then hold off a new Democratic challenge during Reconstruction.
• Baptism of Fire recreates the determined individuals who steered Iowa's antislavery coalition through the vicissitudes of a turbulent era. It also reviews some of the key themes of nineteenth-century American history, most notably the political and social impact of commercial growth, anti-Southern sectionalism, racial prejudice, evangelical religion, corruption, and factionalism.
• Based on extensive archival research and a quantitative analysis of the Iowa state legislature, Baptism of Fire confirms that the GOP was the party of progress and humanity in early American politics.

Subjects

• Antislavery movements > Iowa > History > 19th century
• Republican Party (Iowa) History > 19th century

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

1. Republicanism in the Civil War Era: Iowa as a Test Case -- 2. The Second Party System on the Frontier, 1838-1846 -- 3. Defeat of the Democracy, 1846-1854 -- 4. Formation of the Republican Party in Iowa, 1854-1856 -- 5. The Race Question in the Campaign of 1857 -- 6. The Impact of Recession on Local Politics, 1858-1859 -- 7. Iowa and the Coming of the Civil War, 1859-1861 -- 8. The Union in Peril, 1861-1865 -- 9. Black Suffrage and the Intraparty Crisis of 1865-1866 -- 10. The Waning of Reconstruction, 1867-1872 -- 11. The Railroad Question during the 1870s -- 12. End of an Era, 1876-1877 -- 13. The Party of Progress and Humanity.

ISBN

0813819385 (acid-free paper)

LCCN

93031825

OCLC

• 28723176
• ocm28723176

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries