Research Catalog

Title

The New York City draft riots : their significance for American society and politics in the age of the Civil War / Iver Bernstein.

Author

Bernstein, Iver.

Publication

New York : Oxford University Press, 1990.

Supplementary Content

• Contributor biographical information
• Publisher description

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana (Mississippi State University. Libraries) MsSM

Description

ix, 363 pages, [8] pages of plates : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

For five days in July 1863, at the height of the Civil War, New York City was under siege. Angry rioters burned draft offices, closed factories, destroyed railroad tracks and telegraph lines, and hunted policemen and soldiers. Before long, the rioters turned their murderous wrath against the black community. In the end, at least 105 people were killed, making the draft riots the most violent insurrection in American history. In this vividly written book, Iver Bernstein tells the compelling story of the New York City draft riots. He details how what began as a demonstration against the first federal draft soon expanded into a sweeping assault against the local institutions and personnel of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party as well as a grotesque race riot. Bernstein identifies participants, dynamics, causes and consequences, and demonstrates that the "winners" and "losers" of the July 1863 crisis were anything but clear, even after five regiments rushed north from Gettysburg restored order. In a tour de force of historical detection, Bernstein shows that to evaluate the significance of the riots we must enter the minds and experiences of a cast of characters--Irish and German immigrant workers, Wall Street businessmen who frantically debated whether to declare martial law, nervous politicians in Washington and at City Hall. Along the way, he offers new perspectives on a wide range of topics: Civil War society and politics, patterns of race, ethnic and class relations, the rise of organized labor, styles of leadership, philanthropy and reform, strains of individualism, and the rise of machine politics in Boss Tweed's Tammany regime. An in-depth study of one of the most troubling and least understood crises in American history, The New York City Draft Riots is the first book to reveal the broader political and historical context--the complex of social, cultural and political relations--that made the bloody events of July 1863 possible.

Subjects

• New York (State) > New York
• Draft Riot (New York, New York : 1863)
• Geschichte 1863
• 1863
• Etats-Unis > Army > Recrutement et engagement > 19e siècle
• Draft Riot, New York, N.Y., 1863
• New York (City) > Riots, 1620-1865

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-347) and index.

Contents

pt. 1. Draft riots and the social order. A multiplicity of grievances -- The two tempers of draco -- pt. 2. Origins of the crisis, 1850s and 1860s. Workers and consolidation -- Merchants divided -- Industrialists -- pt. 3. Resolutions of the crisis, 1860s and 1870s. The rise and decline of Tweed's Tammany Hall -- 1872.

Call Number

F128.44

ISBN

• 0195050061
• 9780195050066
• 0195071301
• 9780195071306

LCCN

89002858

OCLC

19124575

Author

Bernstein, Iver.

Title

The New York City draft riots : their significance for American society and politics in the age of the Civil War / Iver Bernstein.

Imprint

New York : Oxford University Press, 1990.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-347) and index.

Connect to:

Table of contents

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description

Chronological Term

1863

Geschichte 1863.

Indexed Term

New York (City). Riots, 1620-1865

Added Author

Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana (Mississippi State University. Libraries) MsSM

Research Call Number

*R-USLHG F128.44 .B47 1990

Sc E 90-245

JFE 92-689