A biography of the “influential and engaging character” who courted Congress with food, wine, and gifts in the post-Civil War era (The Washington Post Book World).
King of the Lobby tells the story of how one man harnessed delicious food, fine wine, and good conversation to become the most influential lobbyist of the Gilded Age.
Scion of an old and honorable family, best friend of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and charming man-about-town, Sam Ward held his own in an era crowded with larger-than-life personalities. Living by the motto that the shortest route between a pending bill and a congressman’s “aye” was through his stomach, Ward elegantly entertained political elites in return for their votes.
At a time when waves of scandal washed over Washington, the popular press railed against the wickedness of the lobby, and self-righteous politicians predicted that special interests would cause the downfall of democratic government, Sam Ward still reigned supreme. By the early 1870s, he had earned the title “King of the Lobby,” cultivating an extraordinary network of prominent figures and a style that survives today in the form of expensive golf outings, extravagant dinners, and luxurious vacations. Kathryn Allamong Jacob’s account shows how the king earned his crown, and how this son of wealth and privilege helped to create a questionable profession in a city that then, as now, rested on power and influence.
“Her extensive research is reflected in her recounting of Ward’s life, successfully putting it into the context of the history of lobbying…will appeal to American history buffs.” —Publishers Weekly
Kathryn Allamong Jacob is curator of manuscripts at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. She is the author of Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C., also published by Johns Hopkins, and Capital Elites: High Society in Washington, D.C., after the Civil War.
Table of Contents
Introduction Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Essay on Sources Index
What People are Saying About This
Michael McGerr
A wonderful book. The author explores a protean figure with much to tell us about the evolving nature of politics and government in the age of the Civil War. The author’s great accomplishment here is to make Sam Ward come alive.
From the Publisher
A wonderful book. The author explores a protean figure with much to tell us about the evolving nature of politics and government in the age of the Civil War. The author’s great accomplishment here is to make Sam Ward come alive.—Michael McGerr, Indiana University
Michael McGerr
A wonderful book. The author explores a protean figure with much to tell us about the evolving nature of politics and government in the age of the Civil War. The author's great accomplishment here is to make Sam Ward come alive.
