John William McCormack

A Political Biography

Garrison Nelson

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781350143234
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781628925180
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In the first biography of U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack, author Garrison Nelson uncovers previously forgotten FBI files, birth and death records, and correspondence long thought lost or buried. For such an influential figure, McCormack tried to dismiss the past, almost erasing his legacy from the public's mind. John William McCormack: A Political Biography sheds light on the behind-the-curtain machinations of American politics and the origins of the modern-day Democratic party, facilitated through McCormack's triumphs.

McCormack overcame desperate poverty and family tragedy in the Irish ghetto of South Boston to hold the second-most powerful position in the nation. By reinventing his family history to elude Irish Boston's powerful political gatekeepers, McCormack embarked on a 1928 - 1971 House career and from 1939-71, the longest house leadership career. Working with every president from Coolidge to Nixon, McCormack's social welfare agenda, which included Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, immigration reform, and civil rights legislation helped commit the nation to the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens. By helping create the Austin-Boston Connection, McCormack reshaped the Democratic Party from a regional southern white Protestant party to one that embraced urban religiously and racially diverse ethnics. A man free of prejudice, John McCormack was the Boston Brahmin's favorite Irishman, the South's favorite northerner, and known in Boston as "Rabbi John," the Jews' favorite Catholic.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Contents
• List of Photographs
• Acknowledgments
• 1 November 27, 1963: The Troubling Public Introduction
• 2 Irish Emigration and the Cauldron of Yankee Boston
• 3 The Reinvention of John McCormack
• 4 The Ascent: Yankee Mentors, Irish Gatekeepers, and Harriet
• 5 From Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill
• 6 The 1928–33 Game Change
• 7 The New Deal and a National Stage
• 8 The Problematic Landslide: Court-Packing and Purges
• 9 FDR’s Third Term, the Austin-Boston Connection, and the Brink of War
• 10 War Transforms the Nation
• 11 FDR’s Death and the Politics of Postwar America
• 12 The Unhealed Early Wounds: McCormack and Kennedy in the House
• 13 A Republican Congress, a Vice Presidential Bid, and the Four-Way Election of 1948
• 14 The Lost Peace, Korea, and Anti-Communism
• 15 Rabbi John Rescues Kennedy and a Transformed Delegation
• 16 Ike’s Presidency, John’s Partial Eclipse, and the Anti-Communism Crusade Fizzles
• 17 Political Positioning, 1956–60
• 18 Transitions, 1960–61
• 19 The Tenuous Partnership, 1962
• 20 The Fateful Year of 1963
• 21 A Legislative Legacy Built upon a Tragedy
• 22 The Unraveling, 1967–68
• 23 It’s Time, Mr. Speaker
• Epilogue: Closing the Book
• Sources
• Index
• Copyright