Counterfeiting Labor's Voice

William A. A. Carsey and the Shaping of American Reform Politics

Mark A. Lause

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9780252087899
  9780252045783
• eBook ISBN:
  9780252056666
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: History

Confidence man and canny operative, charlatan and manipulator--William A. A. Carsey emerged from the shadow of Tammany Hall to build a career undermining working-class political organizations on behalf of the Democratic Party. Mark A. Lause's biography of Carsey takes readers inside the bare-knuckle era of Gilded Age politics. An astroturfing trailblazer and master of dirty tricks, Carsey fit perfectly into a Democratic Party that based much of its post-Civil War revival on shattering third parties and gathering up the pieces. Lause provides an in-depth look at Carsey's tactics and successes against the backdrop of enormous changes in political life. As Carsey used a carefully crafted public persona to burrow into unsuspecting organizations, the forces he represented worked to create a political system that turned voters into disengaged civic consumers and cemented America's ever-fractious two-party system.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Prologue. Carsey’s Paternities: The Son of the Streets and the Odysseys of Father Columbia
• 1 Paper Party Power Broker: The Entrepreneurial Roots of Labor Reform Insurgency
• 2 Independents and Partisan Pantomimes: The Dilemma of Third Parties under a Two-Party System
• 3 Counterfeiting Class: The Secret Society Tradition and the Deep Origins of the American Federation of Labor
• 4 Monopolizing Antimonopolism: Ben Butler and the Preemption of Insurgency
• 5 The Path through Populism: From Henry George to William Jennings Bryan
• Epilogue. Carsey’s Progeny: The Forgotten Grandfather of American Progressivism and the Political Unmaking of an American Working Class
• Notes
• Index