From his arrival in New York City in 1831 as a young printer from New Hampshire to his death in 1872 after losing the presidential election to General Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley (b. 1811) was a quintessential New Yorker. He thrived on the city’s ceaseless energy, with his New York Tribune at the forefront of a national revolution in reporting and transmitting news. Greeley devoured ideas, books, fads, and current events as quickly as he developed his own interests and causes, all of which revolved around the concept of freedom. While he adored his work as a New York editor, Greeley’s lifelong quest for universal freedom took him to the edge of the American frontier and beyond to Europe. A major figure in nineteenth-century American politics and reform movements, Greeley was also a key actor in a worldwide debate about the meaning of freedom that involved progressive thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Karl Marx. Greeley was first and foremost an ardent nationalist who devoted his life to ensuring that America live up to its promises of liberty and freedom for all of its members. Robert C. Williams places Greeley’s relentless political ambitions, bold reform agenda, and complex personal life into the broader context of freedom. Horace Greeley is as rigorous and vast as Greeley himself, and as America itself in the long nineteenth century. In the first comprehensive biography of Greeley to be published in nearly half a century, Williams captures Greeley from all sides: editor, reformer, political candidate, eccentric, and trans-Atlantic public intellectual; examining headlining news issues of the day, including slavery, westward expansion, European revolutions, the Civil War, the demise of the Whig and the birth of the Republican parties, transcendentalism, and other intellectual currents of the era.
Robert C. Williams is Vail Professor of History Emeritus at Davidson College and lecturer in history at Bates College. His books include Klaus Fuchs: Atom Spy; Russian Art and American Money, 1900-1940; and The American Atom: A Documentary History of Nuclear Energy (with Philip Cantelon). He lives in Center Lovell, Maine.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Preface: “Going West” Introduction: From Liberty to Freedom 1 Yankee Apprentice 2 Whig Politico 3 Tribune of the People 4 Freedom Fighter 5 Trans-Atlantic Republican 6 American Republican 7 Anti-Slavery Man 8 Civil Warrior 9 Unionist 10 Liberal Republican 11 Conclusion: Freedom’s Champion Notes Selected Bibliography Index About the Author
What People are Saying About This
From the Publisher
“From James Patron’s 1855 Life of Horace Greeley through Greeley's 1868 autobiography Recollections of a Busy Life, and down to the present, dozens of voices have told the story and legend of Horace Greeley. Williams’s rich and well-presented account of his ideological and political legacy is a welcome addition to that chorus. It is certainly worth hearing.” -The Journal of American History
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“Williams’s work is an essential one for those wanting to understand the social and political climate in the United States during the time between some have called the two American revolutions- ones that was fought for liberty and one that was pursued for freedom.” -Civil War Book Review
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“A splendid telling of a story that couldn't be more timely now that we are in another difficult and controversial war.” -The Wall Street Journal
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“Williams gives a straightforward account . . . [and] argues that Greeley unswervingly devoted himself to a single ideal—American freedom—and was, in turn, crucial to its development.” -The New Yorker
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“In Mr. Williams’ hands, Greeley comes through as a warm-hearted eccentric whose influence was greater than that of any editor today.” -Washington Times
