The Election of 1860, Lincoln and the Wide Awakes

The Lincoln Group welcomes Jon Grinspan to present his new book on the creation and significance of the Wide Awakes, and their effect on the election of 1860 and the beginning of the Civil War. This is a special "Zoom only" meeting at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 19.  

Jon Grinspan is a historian of American democracy, youth, and popular culture. He is a curator of political history at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He describes this work as a 17-year project on a subject that has otherwise evaded broad academic interest. Grinspan cites many previous authors' references to the need for more research by "some future historian." The time has finally come and Jon is that "future historian."

At the start of the 1860 presidential campaign, a handful of fired-up young Northerners appeared as bodyguards to defend anti-slavery stump speakers from frequent attacks. The group called themselves the Wide Awakes. Soon, hundreds of thousands of young white and black men and a number of women were organizing boisterous, uniformed, torch-bearing brigades of their own. In the recently published, Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War, Grinspan examines exactly how the nation crossed the threshold from a political campaign into a war.

He traces how the Wide Awakes became one of the largest, most spectacular, and most influential political movements in our history. To some, it demonstrated the power of a rising majority to push back against slavery. To others, it looked like a paramilitary force training to invade the South. Within a year, the nation would be at war with itself—and many on both sides would point to the Wide Awakes as the mechanism that got them there.

Schedule now to be with us on Zoom, June 19 at 7 p.m (eastern time).  Copy and paste this link: 

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88961601667?pwd%3DcN7G6XV3yiHT5G8IvI904nkC5TBwv9.1&sa=D&source=calendar&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw1bBprTNKSZ7CBZWNkH-1s1

Password: 147719