Civil War Museum Media Club: Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War by Jon Grinspan

Tuesday, October 22  |  6:30pm – 8:00pm  |  $8 ($10 for non-members)  | Instructor: Doug Dammann  |  Register Here

Jon Grinspan’s new book explores a political group known as the Wide Awakes and how their actions influenced the presidential election of 1860 and the coming of the Civil War.  The group began as fired-up young Northerners who acted as bodyguards to defend Republican stump speakers from frequent verbal and physical attacks. The idea spread and hundreds of thousands of young people organized into boisterous, uniformed, torch-bearing brigades. These Wide Awakes–mostly working-class Americans in their twenties–became one of the largest, most spectacular, and most influential political movements in our history. To some, their actions demonstrated the power of a rising majority promoting political ideas. 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.

Participants in the Media Club are invited to read the book before the meeting and to come prepared to share their thoughts on its themes in an informal and thought provoking discussion.