The Art of Manliness - #200： The Virgin Vote - Masculinity & Politics in the 19th Century

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well we're in the

00:00:18.740 middle of a presidential campaign here in the u.s and once again commentators politicians

00:00:22.600 reporters they're bemoaning the apathy and disengagement of young americans but there

00:00:27.160 was a time in american history when young people were the most passionate participants in american

00:00:31.560 democracy and no it wasn't the 1960s it was the 1860s my guest today on the podcast has just

00:00:39.020 published a book about 19th century politics and the energy that young voters brought to the process

00:00:43.580 and how young people particularly young men in the 19th century look to politics for a sense of

00:00:48.700 manhood and adult identity during a time of economic and social upheaval his name is john grinspan and

00:00:54.600 his book is the virgin vote how young americans made democracy social politics personal and voting

00:00:59.480 popular in the 19th century and on today's episode john and i discuss why politics was an essential

00:01:05.180 part of male identity in the 19th century and how a man's first vote was an important rite of passage

00:01:11.140 into manhood during this time and we also get into the atmosphere of campaigns in the 19th century

00:01:16.100 america and if you think this current election cycle is unprecedented in its violence nastiness

00:01:21.100 and general circus-like environment wait until you hear about the booze-laden torch-lit midnight

00:01:26.020 campaign barbecues and the shankings and brawls that happened at the polls during the 19th century some

00:01:31.380 pretty crazy stuff after the show make sure to check out the show notes at aom.is slash virgin vote

00:01:37.500 we will find links to resources things we mentioned so you can delve deeper into this topic

00:01:41.200 john grinspan welcome to the show thanks for having me uh so you got a new book out about a part of

00:01:53.080 american history that a lot of people don't know about it's called the virgin vote how young americans

00:01:59.860 made democracy social politics personal and voting popular in 19th century and um it's one of the

00:02:07.620 most fascinating books i've read this year um so far because it gets into a part of american history

00:02:12.460 that i love is the 19th century up until about the early 20th century and it's about politics which

00:02:19.140 is pertinent because we're in an election year and i guess my first question is is you know a lot of

00:02:24.220 people have been saying about this current presidential election it's that it's unprecedented

00:02:29.160 and it's violence it's nastiness you know and it's general circus-like atmosphere as someone who has

00:02:36.040 studied and written a book on the politics of the past is this true um have we devolved from a time

00:02:42.660 when elections were sober and upright and you know very greek column-esque um i mean what were elections

00:02:50.260 like during the 19th century yeah i think um people say that about this election and this is certainly a

00:02:56.180 weird one but that's only because we're used to the incredibly quiet boring political culture of 20th

00:03:02.620 century america that if you go back and you look at 19th century america politics is the biggest

00:03:08.180 loudest most important thing that's going on and political events and campaigns are the center not

00:03:13.640 just of political culture deciding who governs a country but are the center of entertainment culture

00:03:18.480 that that drive these big campaigns these midnight rallies with torches these bonfires that

00:03:24.120 there's a good side and a bad side to this on the one hand they do a great job getting many many

00:03:28.600 people involved many more than today turnout was you know often over 80 percent and many of those 0.97

00:03:34.160 people are young unlike today but you know it also brings out a lot of stupidness and violence and

00:03:39.580 people get stabbed and shot at every election in the 19th century and there there are riots and there

00:03:44.700 are people who don't understand the issues they're voting for and vote the wrong ways and that kind of

00:03:49.300 thing too so it's a very different world back then yeah i mean it was i mean you painted this picture

00:03:53.320 and it just sounded like it was a i mean it was not like a big party like campaigns and election day

00:03:58.200 was just a big party because not only were there torch lit you know marches in the street at night

00:04:03.220 there was like the parties would put out these big barbecues that was a tradition where they'd roast a pig

00:04:08.920 uh alcohol giving out alcohol was you know that was part of the election or campaign process

00:04:15.480 yeah this i mean you have to remember these campaigns are doing two jobs at the same time on the one

00:04:20.840 hand they're trying to win power basically and so these parties give out whatever they can to win

00:04:26.380 i mean they often buy votes for two or five hours but it's cheaper just to get voters medium drunk you

00:04:32.280 don't want to get them so drunk they forget to vote but you want to get them two drinks three drinks a

00:04:37.180 couple glasses of whiskey a couple glasses of beer to get them to vote on your side and at the same time

00:04:42.680 politics is american entertainment and american popular culture this is a a new country this is a very shaken

00:04:48.980 up country there are a lot of people migrating from from europe and from different parts of america and

00:04:54.140 there's no central culture that ties everything together except for the basically federal political

00:05:00.500 campaign i mean america is a rural nation that doesn't have that much entertainment back then and

00:05:06.060 so if it's september or october of an election year and the party's going to have a rally in town you go to

00:05:12.600 that and you hang out all night and you drink and you shout and maybe maybe you throw some bricks at the

00:05:17.360 other side maybe you don't but uh it's really the center of popular culture at the time right and

00:05:22.820 you even talk about in the book when um there'd be europeans that would come over and see this i mean

00:05:28.440 their response was like yeah plato is right like democracy just brings out the worst in people

00:05:34.140 yes people are shocked and they're shocked by two things one they're shocked by how wild and crazy

00:05:39.620 american politics is and a lot of them see it as a sign that democracy just doesn't work and the other is

00:05:45.100 shocked by american young people because american culture is also in many ways more democratic on

00:05:51.400 the ground and there's a lot less there's still hierarchies we would be surprised today by the

00:05:55.640 distinctions but compared to europe back then there's a lot more kind of freedom of action of

00:06:00.400 young people and so at every level of political campaigns in society you see children young adults

00:06:07.600 youth 20-somethings are involved really actively the idea that children were to be seen and not heard

00:06:13.700 it's kind of a fiction the young people are the loudest part of these political campaigns yeah

00:06:18.080 and that's the main premise of your book is talking about how young people were really the the driving

00:06:24.260 force of this democratic ethos or fire that hit america during the 19th century and as you said like

00:06:32.100 voting was about 80 percent um voter turnout was and a lot of it was young people but as you just said

00:06:37.980 um the this political activism or this involvement in politics began in young people even before they

00:06:45.600 could vote so what were young people who were doing like seven or eight or even 17 what were they doing

00:06:52.640 to get involved in the political process even though they weren't old enough to vote because at the time

00:06:57.420 it was 21 years old right yes and obviously many americans the majority weren't allowed to vote but

00:07:03.180 there's still ways that if you're a woman if you're african-american a place where african-americans 1.00

00:07:07.380 can't vote and if you're underage you can still be really involved because politics is so social and

00:07:12.460 that starts at a really young age as you said people people raise their children from birth to identify

00:07:18.360 with the political party of their family and to really see it as the the institution they belong to

00:07:24.280 almost almost the way we raise kids with sports teams today you know um they just as people are eagles fans

00:07:31.920 or cowboys fans today people were wigs or democrats or republicans back then and it builds over time

00:07:39.160 one of the reasons they get young people so involved and they get such great turnouts is because they

00:07:45.000 belayer this interest in politics over many years kids are taught to go to celebrations and to rallies and

00:07:51.800 they they chant slogans in school and then they kind of become errand boys and run errands for the

00:07:57.620 political campaigns they give out ballots on election day or they bring liquor to the campaign

00:08:02.860 headquarters and they just from a very young age they get involved in politics so that by the time

00:08:07.760 they're 21 they are veterans they've been in politics for years and years and years whether

00:08:13.140 they can vote or not and uh you know you talk about in the book that you'd even have young people

00:08:17.620 as young as 17 doing speeches at political rallies rallying up the voters even though they couldn't vote

00:08:24.700 like they were really supremely invested in this and to the point where they were persuading

00:08:29.480 even adults who could vote yeah there was this tradition of boy orators and you have to remember

00:08:36.280 america back then is a speechifying nation people love giving speeches and hearing speeches there's

00:08:41.580 obviously no tv or radio and it's really seen as an art and so kids are raised to give speeches to each

00:08:48.020 other and to adults and it's not uncommon in a collection campaign to go to a town square and see

00:08:53.260 50 60 70 year old standing around listening to a 12 or a 15 year old give a speech on the political

00:08:59.220 issues of the day they get they get this great training that connects into politics and also

00:09:05.020 gives them something to do in a sense of agency and involvement there's nothing that as they say

00:09:10.160 tickles the vanity of a young man besides more than giving a giving a big public speech with adults

00:09:15.200 listening in the years after the civil war in the south during reconstruction young african americans

00:09:20.720 who were born as slaves get really into speech making for the republican party and it's this

00:09:25.520 it's an amazing culture that people who were born in slavery are within a few years

00:09:29.880 making speeches and being listened to as candidates by adults and one of the arguments you make in the

00:09:36.120 book you know one of the reasons kids got involved because there's this culture there and it was fun

00:09:40.280 right you um could go to these campaign parties rallies eat some food meet with people uh because this is you

00:09:47.460 know this was again like you said america was a rural country this time so this was like the one

00:09:50.960 time people got together and you can actually meet other kids your age uh and have some fun in the

00:09:57.320 process but you also argue that besides the fun young people in america and one of the reasons why they

00:10:02.880 got so heavily involved in politics is that politics offered them something like a way to advance

00:10:09.640 themselves personally can you explain a little bit what you mean by that i mean how was it that a

00:10:14.820 how is it that politics could help fulfill personal ambitions of young people during the 19th century

00:10:20.760 i think it goes back to the predictive predicament that young people find themselves in in the 19th

00:10:26.740 century that this is a period when it's really hard especially to go from childhood to adulthood that

00:10:32.040 the 19th century is this great shaken up period in american history at the beginning of this era

00:10:37.140 there's five million people in america at the end there's 75 million it goes from agriculture to industry

00:10:42.960 and from country to city and millions of immigrants are pouring in and the whole in a boom and bust all 0.99

00:10:49.320 the time there are depressions that hit young people particularly hard it's really hard to find the path to

00:10:54.820 maturity for these young people they have trouble finding jobs they have trouble finding mentors the

00:11:00.340 marriage age is rising so they have trouble finding husbands or wives um they move around a lot so they 1.00

00:11:06.100 feel very unstable there's a lot of uncertainty for 15 or 18 or 22 year olds for men and for women

00:11:12.940 and they gravitate to the political system as the source of ambition and identity and involvement

00:11:19.940 maybe they can't get a job but they can give a speech for the party or they can march or they can

00:11:25.280 organize an event it's this this kind of artificial sense of adulthood when everything else in their

00:11:30.640 life seems kind of blocked yeah that part in particular was really interesting um because we often have

00:11:36.680 this mistaken idea or this idea that you know kids these days these 20 somethings right these

00:11:41.360 millennials you know they don't know they don't know what they're doing with their lives they're

00:11:44.780 still living at home with your parents like they just need to get on with their life and you know

00:11:48.040 you read millennial blog posts which is like i don't know what to do with my life maybe i'll intern

00:11:51.500 at a at a publisher and you know find my calling and we often think that people back then in the 19th

00:12:00.720 century like they had it all figured out like they knew they had like a certain sense of steadiness

00:12:05.120 about them but the picture you paint that like you just said like these young people in their 20 you

00:12:10.280 know late teens early 20s they were filled with as much existential angst as 20 somethings today

00:12:16.420 yeah absolutely you really see the parallels when you read their diaries and their journals and a lot

00:12:22.140 of them kept diaries and journals the literacy rate is very high so we have all these great documents

00:12:26.360 from young men and young women who just moan in their diaries about how they can't figure out how to

00:12:32.580 become adults the whole world their parents grew up in has crumbled you can't grow up the way that

00:12:38.700 europeans had grown up or earlier americans or kind of rural stable people had had found their way into

00:12:44.340 adulthood but they're none of the institutions of the 20th and 21st century there there isn't a good

00:12:49.660 school system there aren't unions there isn't a clear way to get a job or find a find a spouse or 0.99

00:12:55.480 settle down and so these young people really cast about and some of them do really well and you know

00:13:01.380 the booms and busts they get the booms and it really benefits them and some of them

00:13:05.460 you know they essentially the equivalent of graduating into a recession they really struggle

00:13:09.940 to find themselves but what they all share is uncertainty no one knows how to become an adult

00:13:15.400 the old way is kind of crumbled and the new way hasn't been established yet and i think we see echoes

00:13:20.440 of that today that in many ways it seems as if in the 20th century there was a stable path into

00:13:25.460 adulthood and i'm a millennial i think you count as a millennial too right right yeah barely yeah

00:13:31.740 me too barely um but we we've seen this this shaking in the last couple of decades that makes

00:13:37.900 it harder to become an adult and a lot of people a lot of people struggle with this and it's not

00:13:43.260 unprecedented this this has happened before i'm curious you said you know there's journal

00:13:47.640 and diary entries do you i don't know if you have one at hand is it like an excerpt from a journal

00:13:51.440 from a young person yeah that you have that you could share with us yeah let me let me pull that

00:13:56.500 up uh and i'm going to read it if it's too long no that's fine i'm going to read one part of it um

00:14:02.680 so this is a diary from this guy ben foster who lives in maine he's about 16 years old he can't get

00:14:09.160 an apprenticeship he can't get a bell or a girlfriend he's having trouble meeting women he's

00:14:13.980 having trouble getting a job he really feels stuck and he keeps his great diary and he writes 0.87

00:14:19.180 my life is probably a quarter or fifth gone and with what result leaving me ignorant poor fickle

00:14:25.300 wavering without brilliancy talents wealth or influential friends a shuddering discontent that

00:14:31.120 crawls over me when i reflect i am learning nothing earning nothing doing nothing i shrink to think of

00:14:36.700 a time when i'm 21 and shall have no home to fall back upon in case of disappointment when i must do or

00:14:42.480 die and he's really he seems particularly depressed or worried but he's really common there's so many

00:14:49.540 anxious ambitious striving young people who the culture is pushing them to succeed more and more

00:14:55.680 there's this kind of belief in progress that earlier generations didn't have have but there's no clear

00:15:01.220 root to it so they they feel like they're failing individually and they're looking for something to

00:15:05.320 help them feel more like they have that agency and like they have that progress even if they can't

00:15:10.220 get a job or find a wife or whatever right so they couldn't find the path to adulthood in the

00:15:14.840 marketplace because jobs were they were in a transition in the economy so it was tough much

00:15:19.820 like we are today i guess some of the traditional like the family um part would maybe has fallen apart

00:15:25.180 a little bit because people were becoming more mobile so i guess they they looked like politics was

00:15:29.960 the outlet they could find a path to adulthood by taking an active part in politics yeah that's exactly

00:15:37.360 right i think uh there's a slightly later quote i don't want to quote too much but from the same guy

00:15:41.940 he's moaning he's whining and then he goes out to a political rally and he talks to people about

00:15:46.740 politics at this upcoming election the 1848 election and he goes home and writes in his diary

00:15:51.500 i can say that nothing in some years not intimately concerning myself have i felt so much intense

00:15:57.380 interest and excitement as a pending presidential election i have talked and argued with men i have

00:16:02.640 endeavored to advance a boy's opinion with a boy's modesty oh i wish that for one year on this one

00:16:07.900 topic i was a man a voter so before when he's looking at his life he's saying oh i i can't imagine

00:16:13.520 when i'm going to be 21 and i'm an adult i have no idea what i'm going to do he's terrified about it

00:16:18.300 and then a couple diary entries later he's out at this rally and he's wishing that he's a man and a

00:16:23.440 voter because politics seems like it offers him some kind of agency in his life that he doesn't see in

00:16:28.720 in any other world right and you know dovetailing off that this idea of becoming a man and you argue

00:16:37.640 in the book make the case that politics wasn't just tied up with adulthood but it was really tied up

00:16:43.640 because men were the only ones that could vote at the time was tied up with notions of manhood and

00:16:47.800 masculinity in the 19th century um so like this ben he felt he wasn't making a lot of progress in

00:16:53.880 becoming a man um and i'm guessing i mean what what it besides just like the sense of agency i mean

00:17:01.640 what did politics offer young men in terms of their conception of masculinity that they weren't

00:17:08.920 getting from say their families or their church for example the idea of masculinity back then is rooted

00:17:16.300 in this idea of being stable that the kind of the vision of men and if you read you see this a lot

00:17:22.540 kind of advice on young books for young men on how to grow up and and in comics and in novels the

00:17:28.560 idea for young men is that they should be stable and self-controlled that's what masculinity is all

00:17:33.500 about it's not necessarily physical strength it's a father a boss somebody who is stable has both feet

00:17:40.240 on the ground and it is uh has control over their instincts they're they're they're not violent

00:17:45.780 they're not aggressive they're they're completely in control of themselves and this is very hard for

00:17:51.340 an 18 year old to do in that economy one of the ways they can do that is have a stable connection to

00:17:56.560 a political party they might not have other identities they might not have the job or the

00:18:00.980 family but they can be a democrat or a republican they can be a voter and a citizen of the nation and

00:18:06.840 that's like it's a great artificial way for them to feel that identity and stability that they

00:18:11.680 associate with manhood and at the same time this political culture denies women that same sense so 0.65

00:18:17.460 there are a lot of women who are deeply interested in politics but they're always unstable because they 1.00

00:18:22.380 can never actually act they can never vote they can always be they can be very interested and they are

00:18:27.680 and they can talk to their husbands and their children and their fathers about politics and they

00:18:32.020 can play a role but because they can't vote they're always somewhat unstable they're never full

00:18:36.820 citizens or adults in the eyes of the country in many ways and and so were these young men and

00:18:43.340 getting involved in politics i mean was it just the act of getting involved in politics that

00:18:48.140 give that gave them a sense of that they were becoming a man or did a lot of them have aspirations

00:18:53.280 to be you know work their way up through the party ranks and actually you know become part of the

00:19:00.340 political machine in a way and find status or um i don't know a sense of of identity um within the

00:19:07.980 the actual political party i think for a lot of these young guys it's temporary that there are people

00:19:14.200 who want to make their lives in politics and become bosses and make money and a career in it but a lot of

00:19:19.060 them they just need politics for a couple years and we know that young young men in their late teens

00:19:24.260 and early 20s are the most engaged in politics and they can do things like if you're ben foster if

00:19:30.280 you're this unstable kid in maine one thing you can do is you can join a political club and then

00:19:34.620 you're in this organization with uh 20 30 100 like-minded young people of the same party who

00:19:41.480 are your age or a couple years older a couple years younger and you meet on weeknights or weekends and

00:19:47.360 you drink and you smoke cigars and you put on uniforms you march down the middle of town square

00:19:52.040 and you have a camaraderie it's it's like it's a little bit like something along the lines of a

00:19:57.340 fraternity or a gang or some sense that here are other men and we are all part of this club together

00:20:02.420 that's one way they get it another is through voting and that act of casting a ballot when they

00:20:08.040 turn 21 is seen as a gateway to real manhood and adulthood so your book's called the virgin vote and

00:20:14.220 that's what um they called it was referred to as the a man's first vote and the virgin vote

00:20:20.180 um why was it such an important event in a young man's life yeah they use that phrase the virgin

00:20:27.640 vote i i was seeing that in diaries for years and it just stuck in my in my head it just says so much

00:20:33.960 about how they saw politics that a man's first vote is his virgin vote or his maiden vote and the idea

00:20:40.060 is that he's losing his political virginity and he's supposed to be courted by a political party before

00:20:46.100 that and once he votes for that party he's supposed to stay monogamous for life for that party so you

00:20:51.860 cast your first vote your virgin vote not only does it make you a man but it makes you a democrat or a

00:20:57.060 republican or a wig or what have you and you stick with that party for life and young people really

00:21:02.460 treat young men really treat this as the event the rite of passage into adulthood they younger kids

00:21:08.960 kind of look forward to it and talk about when they become voters virgin voters went on the days

00:21:14.440 before their election a lot of times they try to grow out a beard or a mustache or some facial hair

00:21:19.460 and they try to dress up and look adult and then once they've cast that vote they these guys talk

00:21:25.020 about it for the rest of their life you read their diaries you read their memoirs when they're 80 years

00:21:30.060 old you read their uh obituaries and it always mentions who they cast their first vote for that's

00:21:35.900 fascinating and so you guys this is going back to the idea that um american society american culture was in

00:21:41.640 flux and rites of passages that may have existed before were no longer there so young men you know

00:21:48.420 used the political process the act of making a vote as that new rite of passage yeah i mean if you think

00:21:54.400 about it culturally america is an overwhelmingly white place at this time and most of those white people

00:22:00.960 come from the british isles or germany they've given up on those old european traditions for african

00:22:06.540 americans have been separated from whatever traditions go back to africa most cultures have

00:22:12.140 some rites of passage but america is this place in flux where those old hundreds year old traditional

00:22:18.060 rites of passages are being forgotten and nobody remembers how you became a man in germany or

00:22:23.240 whatever and so they need something new and the one thing they all share throughout the country is the

00:22:28.120 political process so american democracy becomes popular culture and offers this rite of passage

00:22:34.380 to a nation that's forgotten its old ways to become an adult so how did the balloting system in the

00:22:40.460 19th century make a man's first vote all the more significant because i think a lot of people think

00:22:44.720 now oh wow why is that so significant like you get the scantron right um and you just fill in the arrow

00:22:51.000 and then you give it but um was there the way they did balloting back then did that add to the

00:22:57.000 significance of the vote in any way it's a great question we've made the active voting so clean and safe

00:23:03.100 and dull that it's hard to imagine what it was like in the 19th century the government didn't used to

00:23:07.920 print ballots parties would print ballots and what would happen is the the men in the community would

00:23:12.640 gather on election day in a town square or in a saloon or in a warehouse and there'd be somebody at

00:23:18.120 the front with a ballot box accepting ballots and so these party activists would try to voice ballots

00:23:23.120 on whoever they could for their party and they'd line up and they'd try to vote but the problem is

00:23:27.960 once you got to the front of the line there's no registration system but there are challengers

00:23:33.300 which are party operatives from both parties who are trying to challenge people's votes from the

00:23:37.940 other side so if i'm a democrat then i might try to pick out who looks like a republican based on

00:23:43.480 what i know about the people in my community his clothes his accent his race his background all of

00:23:49.060 these things to try to figure out who's going to vote the way i don't want them to and i might 0.98

00:23:53.880 challenge them on legal grounds i might try to intimidate them i might stab them they used to 0.96

00:23:59.140 stab people with awls like the shoemakers like because you could kind of subtly poke somebody 0.86

00:24:04.140 with that and it would hurt them but and threaten them without becoming a big thing so because it's

00:24:09.940 so contested because there are fights on election days and everyone is gathered and there's music and

00:24:14.240 drunk people it makes this act of voting even more of an important rite of passage all the men in 0.96

00:24:20.120 your community will see you vote and they'll see you go up to the front of the line and cast your

00:24:24.080 ballot and all the women in your community will hear about it and know that you've done this thing

00:24:28.460 that supposedly makes you a man back then so it really because voting was so different and because it was

00:24:33.840 so contested it makes the act that much more important right and going back to they didn't have

00:24:39.360 you know official ids like a lot of people didn't even know their actual birthday and and so you had

00:24:45.520 like that's one of the reasons why they these young guys would start trying to grow mustaches and

00:24:49.860 beards because one of the ways that they were challenged was like well you're not old enough

00:24:53.080 to vote um and so they try to look older and so by the act of voting like it was a way of being able

00:24:59.380 for the community to say yeah you are a man like you are you look old enough to be a man we accept you

00:25:04.420 as a man yeah because who knows i mean this world is so shaken up that okay so you might be 21 but your

00:25:10.780 mother died of cholera so she can't tell anybody how old you are maybe you were born in pennsylvania

00:25:15.600 moved to oklahoma so no one remembers where you were born you might not even know how old you are

00:25:20.840 most people don't um so and you certainly can't prove it even if you do so you need to prove it

00:25:26.240 through you can grow a beard so i guess you can vote um you can get somebody to kind of vouch for you

00:25:32.500 if you've done a impressive manly deed in some communities you could get the vote so if you lived

00:25:38.100 in kind of a pioneer community in nebraska or colorado or california often you could vote

00:25:43.980 underage just because they thought well you got to california you're worth you can vote soldiers

00:25:49.020 could often vote at 18 or 17 just because they were a good soldier during the civil war but yeah

00:25:55.100 because nobody really knows how old you are because it's so hard to enforce it makes the act of voting

00:26:01.020 that much more important and that much more meaningful about adulthood and manliness as well as politics

00:26:06.320 right and then you also talk about um you know with the newly freed african-american slaves

00:26:11.680 um who were voting for the republican party um there's a lot of voter intimidation so like

00:26:17.080 black men in the community they get together as a group and make sure they had revolvers make sure 1.00

00:26:22.940 they had knives and they go together to vote um to avoid that intimidation and sometimes there you

00:26:28.480 know things came to came to a blow yeah and it reminds you or reminds me not to be too light about

00:26:35.200 all this political violence because it seems like it was so far away and we can you know it sounds

00:26:39.940 interesting and exciting and kind of exotic but you have to remember these elections turned into

00:26:45.160 race riots and massacres and these are the bloodiest elections in american history in the south in the

00:26:50.660 years after the civil war and there's a huge number of african-americans who are voting for the first time

00:26:56.040 and they're deciding elections ulysses s grant is elected in 1868 because he has black vote on his

00:27:01.900 side and so these become really contested places they're organizations like the union league which is a club of

00:27:07.840 of african-americans especially in mississippi and alabama who they all go to vote together and

00:27:13.380 bring revolvers whether obviously are kind of hidden and often they need them so yeah this this

00:27:19.300 political violence really affects who gets to vote and what voting means and it's true for for other

00:27:24.560 minorities too it's especially true for irish catholics in northern cities where there's a protestant

00:27:30.040 majority who really doesn't want catholics voting and so they often have to fight their ways to the

00:27:34.140 polls too right um and then you're going back to you know there's a lot of club formation during

00:27:39.440 this wasn't just unique to politics like you just young people at the time were just forming clubs

00:27:43.460 about everything um but you talk about within within the individual parties there's these sort of like

00:27:48.220 sub clubs of young party supporters and i think one you mentioned i thought was really fascinating was

00:27:53.160 the wide awakes oh yeah um and it was kind of like it's actually kind of scary when you like

00:27:57.760 you describe like what they i mean they would get in these like uniforms and they um look kind of

00:28:03.020 like knights almost and they would uh carry torches at night and like i guess the reason why they're

00:28:08.560 called wide awake is they'd go to people's houses in the middle of the night and like keep them you

00:28:12.580 know bang pots and pans or things yeah i mean when we think of abraham lincoln's election we think of

00:28:18.840 kind of upstanding honest abe and we imagine this this honest tall kind of earnest statesman abe lincoln's

00:28:26.440 election is organized by this movement called the wide awakes which comes out of connecticut the leader of the

00:28:32.180 whole national movement is 23 years old and what they do are they're young men who dress up in

00:28:37.000 really military uniforms black capes and black hats and they march in the street and they basically take

00:28:43.580 over the north there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of them from from maine to san francisco

00:28:49.360 and into some southern states and they're seen for northern republicans who support abe lincoln

00:28:55.060 they're seen as this godsend that the the north is going to finally stand up for their rights

00:28:59.040 if you're a southerner who doesn't like gabe lincoln this looks like the beginning of a political

00:29:04.060 war it looks like a paramilitary movement and so this this movement actually affects the the beginning

00:29:10.860 of the civil war because it seems so threatening these these young men in uniform marching at night

00:29:15.820 well that that doesn't seem so great if you're not on their side oh and that also because politics

00:29:22.500 is so competitive because the races are so neck and neck everybody steals everybody's ideas so

00:29:29.500 they're the wide awakes are created and almost immediately lincoln's opponents all have similar

00:29:33.640 organizations with different names so no party ever really has an edge for very long because as soon as

00:29:40.080 one group of 18 year olds try something their their opponents across town try the same thing or if

00:29:45.360 they're doing it in maine someone in south carolina comes up with something similar so because politics

00:29:50.500 is so close and so contested back then and lincoln only won that election with 39 of the popular vote

00:29:56.960 uh people really rip off each other's ideas yeah um somebody was thinking about you know the adults who

00:30:04.020 were actually running for these offices that these young people were campaigning for what did the

00:30:09.940 these adults think of these ardent young people i mean do they just sort of like do they i guess do

00:30:16.100 they they leverage them and they just sort of like at the same time disdain them

00:30:19.280 yeah i think that's exactly right um it's a hierarchical society still and adults think

00:30:25.740 they are better and wiser and smarter than young people but no matter how great they think they are 0.99

00:30:30.640 the parties need young people because elections are so close and because there's so few independents

00:30:36.640 because most people who pick a party their virgin vote stick with a party the only way to gain any

00:30:42.840 ground is to bring in new members and new members are young members so these parties realize pretty

00:30:48.940 quickly that they really need to bring in 21 year olds so they organize events to be entertaining for

00:30:54.220 young voters they reach out to the children and and uh youths because they know that if they win over

00:31:00.360 a 15 year old maybe in six years that 15 year old will vote for their party and they focus a ton of

00:31:06.080 time and money on entertaining and reaching out to and recruiting young men and young women because

00:31:12.140 they know young women have an influence on the young men in their lives so while governing in in

00:31:17.700 washington or in state capitals is done by these 60 year old guys campaigning is done by 18 20 22 year

00:31:25.220 olds and the parties know that and they know it's their best shot at victory yeah i mean i guess at the

00:31:30.060 same time though they're just kind of like oh you know they because it seems like a lot of the like

00:31:34.000 the politicians you describe in the book they kept the distance from actual campaigning

00:31:38.120 um because they would they didn't want to sully themselves so they left it to

00:31:41.960 these these young men to do it for them yeah i think there's there's two there's two attitudes

00:31:47.680 towards young voters then and now honestly and we see this throughout american history on the one hand

00:31:52.760 there are some people who look down at young people and see them as self-involved or flighty and not

00:31:57.460 not committed and not knowledgeable and kind of disdain young people and then there are those who think

00:32:02.300 that young people are purer smarter somehow going to uplift the democracy and solve all the problems

00:32:07.900 and obviously both are exaggerations um but yeah you see people go back and forth some people see

00:32:13.700 young voters as the way to destroy the other party or clean up politics when it's very very dirty

00:32:19.840 in the late 19th century and others say they'll accept young people's votes but they're not going to

00:32:26.000 listen to them in terms of party platforms or nominations or anything like that

00:32:30.040 um so in the book you a lot of a lot of the focus is on um men obviously because like they're the ones

00:32:36.620 who could vote but you argue that women um also used the political culture of the 19th century 1.00

00:32:42.300 to advance personal goals or personal ambitions so how were they able to do that when they weren't

00:32:48.640 allowed to vote for women's women's politics back then they have to be social they the democracy is 1.00

00:32:56.660 social and women's influence has to depend on on connections to men because they obviously can't 1.00

00:33:01.860 vote themselves and that works both ways on the one hand they're women with really deeply held 1.00

00:33:06.480 political beliefs and what they can do is they can pressure their their fiancee to go vote for their

00:33:11.880 their political belief they can they can push their their siblings and their the men in their lives to

00:33:17.460 vote and they do and then there are women who use politics as a tool just as men are using politics 1.00

00:33:22.400 so it's a great way to court if you want to if you want to meet some young guy you go out to a

00:33:28.260 political rally if you want to get the attention of someone who's in a political club well if you

00:33:32.920 talk about with him about the party he supports that's a great way to engage with him and politics

00:33:38.360 kind of gives these victorian women cover to court in a way they otherwise wouldn't be able to they 1.00

00:33:44.100 can go up where else in 19th century america could a victorian lady go out at midnight and hang out 1.00

00:33:49.980 with a bunch of drunk people and maybe get drunk herself and you know wave a torch and everything 1.00

00:33:54.500 is this it offers some kind of cover for that and women get more directly involved they they organize 1.00

00:34:00.600 women's clubs and they they march dress as goddesses or dress as the different states so there are a lot 0.59

00:34:06.360 of ways women can play a role socially even though they're denied the right to vote so this uh the 1.00

00:34:12.620 period you cover was about i guess 1840 till about the early like 19 i mean 1905 and it seems like

00:34:19.780 there's this just precipitous drop can you i mean that was something that amazed me what can you

00:34:24.340 describe the drop in i guess voter turnout from like the peak it was there in the late 19th century

00:34:30.020 to like the early 20th century yeah it really crashes throughout the second half of the 19th century

00:34:36.260 roughly 80 percent of eligible voters will turn out in an election in a presidential election

00:34:41.180 sometimes it's lower sometimes it's higher but there's this really sustained period of really

00:34:45.980 high level of involvement and then something happens in 1900 and those numbers tumble in

00:34:51.460 almost every presidential election until by the 1920s fewer than half of eligible voters are going to the

00:34:57.860 poll there's this political culture that exists in the 19th century that just dies within a generation

00:35:04.160 in the 20th century and we've known this as historians for a while but i think the answer to why this

00:35:10.140 happens is lies with young people if there's a new generation of young people who don't engage in

00:35:16.120 politics and look to politics in the same ways as their parents or their grandparents had and they

00:35:20.980 don't join so the people who cast their virgin vote in 1876 will keep turning out for the rest of

00:35:27.520 their lives but the people who could vote for teddy roosevelt or taft don't care as much and they

00:35:33.320 don't bother to and so i mean what changed um in american culture where young people just they

00:35:39.440 weren't looking to politics anymore for personal fulfillment or a sense of identity i'd say there's

00:35:45.820 a change with young people and there's a change with politics with young people life is easier for 0.52

00:35:50.760 a lot of these people in the 20th century than in the 19th they're more institutions that kind of

00:35:55.620 stabilize their world they have a full school system until they're 18 they have unions they have

00:36:01.040 cities where they know more people they have all these other options they have an entertainment

00:36:05.560 culture they're teenagers in the 20th century and they have movies and radio and dance halls and cars

00:36:11.720 and all these other entertainment forms uh so in many ways they don't have the same need for politics

00:36:17.440 and political clubs that they did before i mean their lives are they they still have their challenges

00:36:22.860 and life is still difficult for many of them i don't want to be too exaggerate with this but

00:36:27.380 yeah the i mean the death rate goes down young people are living longer and they're healthier

00:36:32.000 and they just they have less need so there are fewer of them turning to politics at the same time the

00:36:37.980 political parties there's a real revolution in who runs the parties in that in the 19th century

00:36:43.300 campaigning is run by kind of working class men who you know they might run a saloon or a butcher shop

00:36:49.420 and they organize campaigning there's a switch in the end of this period where these kind of

00:36:55.860 upper middle class reformers take over politics and the one thing they really don't like is these

00:37:00.580 crowds of drunk you know uh working class men in the street so one thing they try to do is they

00:37:05.260 try to shut down this public campaigning that uh attracts so many young people and uh yeah i mean

00:37:11.440 that i think that's really the cultural change where there's more outlets i guess in america became

00:37:15.280 more of a peer culture um young people began looking to their peers instead of i guess some of the

00:37:20.600 political parties or the political process they kind of looking up to older people into sort of

00:37:26.740 ushering them into adulthood um as these outlets like you know talk about you talk about sports you

00:37:31.800 talk about the amusement park you talk about you high schools where you have the same kids who are

00:37:37.640 your age they start turning the dent to them to their identity and sense of fulfillment instead of

00:37:42.940 older people uh to give that to them i think that's really important that we forget how

00:37:47.940 how mixed life used to be in terms of age groups and that if you went into a saloon in 19th century

00:37:53.360 america there'd be 15 year olds and there'd be 12 year olds and there'd be 30 year olds and there'd

00:37:57.800 be 80 year olds so society mixed more in in churches and political organizations and work they just spent

00:38:05.340 more time with other age groups in the 20th century the age groups separate out a lot more so

00:38:10.740 political parties still have youth organizations but there's an age limit on them no one over 21 joins the

00:38:16.680 youth organizations anymore so these young people who want to meet adults who can benefit their career

00:38:21.720 or give them a sense of manhood or whatever they don't meet these people anymore they're they're

00:38:25.720 isolated with their own age group and there's not there's not really the same selling point if you

00:38:30.360 can't if politics is removed from kind of personal ambition why should young people care right and

00:38:36.260 then going back to the the change in the political process i mean with the you make the case that the

00:38:40.680 introduction of the australian ballot ballot where it was you know a state-sponsored ballot like the kind of we

00:38:46.020 have today took away some of the significance of the virgin vote or that first-time vote that

00:38:51.780 young people in the 19th century have and that we really don't have anymore yeah i mean voting machines

00:38:57.140 are kind of a physical example of what happens when there's a ballot box everyone stands around the

00:39:01.960 ballot box if i have to put the ballot in the box and there's you know conflicts over that when it's a

00:39:06.540 voting machine and you go off by yourself behind a curtain you vote with this electric device or mechanical

00:39:11.080 device it's it's a really different culture it says politics isn't social politics is private

00:39:16.520 and that's one of the big changes the this kind of public political culture goes away and politics

00:39:21.580 becomes something you're not supposed to talk about at the dinner table that really saps the interest

00:39:26.620 it doesn't really benefit young people and they're kind of cut off from it in a way after that

00:39:30.920 right and that's not to say i mean like there were benefits there were reasons why they made these

00:39:34.980 reforms um you know avoid corruption um voter voter fraud but yeah in the process you lose something

00:39:41.800 with it within like with any reform you make um yeah you lose something yeah there's a trade-off

00:39:47.480 between big loud popular democracy and smaller quieter cleaner democracy and there's a huge amount

00:39:54.460 of corruption and a huge amount of problems with 19th century democracy this is not in any way a golden

00:39:59.880 age and i certainly wouldn't want to have to vote back then but there's a trade-off and as they

00:40:04.360 clean it up they lose some of the popularity but do you say with this current election i mean i guess

00:40:09.520 maybe the rise of social media and people sort of spout their political opinions on social media are we

00:40:15.120 seeing the the re-emergence of you know bringing back that sociability into politics again well yeah

00:40:22.160 for good and for bad i i see some of that i mean one of the things that powered 19th century politics

00:40:28.020 are newspapers and the thousands of newspapers in the country and people cut out articles and they

00:40:34.000 reprint them almost the way we do with links and sharing things today so there's this idea that

00:40:39.400 there's a social conversation about an election which we have again today as opposed to the 20th

00:40:44.360 century when there are a couple media outlets who control it and um i'm curious you know a lot of

00:40:50.640 people get this idea because i have like john l sullivan i like this retro vibe on the art of

00:40:54.220 manliness that i'm like nostalgicizing the past and uh and that i want to bring back and i go back to

00:40:59.360 the 19th century or something but i don't um but i'm always curious like there's always things you

00:41:04.200 could probably learn from the past i'm curious if there's anything we can learn from this very

00:41:08.260 uh this period of an american history where uh political activity was high that maybe we could

00:41:13.860 bring back in some way or another yeah i completely agree we don't want to bring back

00:41:20.000 i don't want to i don't want to get shanked when i go to the ballot you know make a vote right

00:41:25.400 yeah i i completely agree um and we want everybody being allowed to vote but there are some things

00:41:31.080 they are really good at and they're really good at engaging people particularly young people and i

00:41:35.860 think they do that through two ways we could think about today one is that the way they view politics

00:41:41.940 they view the political as personal voting isn't voting isn't just about issues it's not just about

00:41:48.420 civic duty it's not just kind of about the big the better good the greater good it's about young

00:41:54.480 people personal engagement with politics voting means so much to them as individuals

00:41:59.700 and they use it in their lives you see they're not just voting because of the issues but they're

00:42:04.560 voting because they need politics in their lives so they make the political personal that way

00:42:08.720 the other thing is this idea that democracy is social that you don't just vote because of your

00:42:13.340 own individual views but you vote because of the world you've grown up in and the society you've

00:42:18.860 grown up in and we've we see this today political scientists have shown that people who grow up

00:42:23.220 around voters are more likely to vote people who grew up in households or people talk politics

00:42:27.300 are more likely to vote uh you don't just decide on your own whether you're going to be engaged or

00:42:32.320 not or how you're going to be engaged you really it's really promoted by by your role models in the

00:42:37.700 world around you and i think that's something we could think about again i think there's a tendency

00:42:42.300 to kind of shake your finger at young people and say oh they don't vote why don't they care but

00:42:46.280 every young person who's not voting is the result of the adults in their life not introducing them to

00:42:52.180 politics okay well john grinspan this has been a really fascinating discussion because like i said

00:42:56.540 this was uh really one of the most fascinating books i've read so far this year just so interesting

00:43:00.880 um thank you to read this part of american history well john grinspan thank you so much for your time

00:43:06.280 this has been an absolute pleasure oh yeah thanks for having me my guest there is john grinspan he's

00:43:11.220 the author of the book the virgin vote how young americans made democracy social politics personal and

00:43:15.860 voting popular in the 19th century and it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere and be sure

00:43:21.540 to check out the show notes at aom.is slash virgin vote for links to resources we mentioned so you can

00:43:27.700 delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:43:39.060 for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

00:43:42.320 artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy this podcast and i've got something out of it i'd really appreciate

00:43:46.680 it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher help spread the word about the show as always i

00:43:50.960 appreciate your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:43:55.560 you

The Art of Manliness - May 12, 2016

#200： The Virgin Vote - Masculinity & Politics in the 19th Century

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