In this compelling portrait of interracial activism, Mark A. Lause documents the efforts of radical followers of John Brown to construct a triracial portion of the Federal Army of the Frontier. Mobilized and inspired by the idea of a Union that would benefit all, black, Indian, and white soldiers fought side by side, achieving remarkable successes in the field. Against a backdrop of idealism, racism, greed, and the agonies and deprivations of combat, Lause examines links between radicalism and reform, on the one hand, and racialized interactions among blacks, Indians, and whites, on the other. Lause examines how this multiracial vision of American society developed on the Western frontier. Focusing on the men and women who supported Brown in territorial Kansas, Lause examines the impact of abolitionist sentiment on relations with Indians and the crucial role of nonwhites in the conflict. Through this experience, Indians, blacks, and whites began to see their destinies as interdependent, and Lause discusses the radicalizing impact of this triracial Unionism upon the military course of the war in the upper Trans-Mississippi. The aftermath of the Civil War destroyed much of the memory of the war in the West, particularly in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The opportunity for an interracial society was quashed by the government's willingness to redefine the lucrative field of Indian exploitation for military and civilian officials and contractors. Assessing the social interrelations, ramifications, and military impact of nonwhites in the Union forces, Race and Radicalism in the Union Army explores the extent of interracial thought and activity among Americans in this period and greatly expands the historical narrative on the Civil War in the West.

In this provocative study, Robert Harrison provides new insight into grassroots reconstruction after the Civil War and into the lives of those most deeply affected, the newly emancipated African Americans. Harrison argues that the District of Columbia, far from being marginal to the Reconstruction story, was central to Republican efforts to reshape civil and political relations, with the capital a testing ground for Congressional policy makers. The study describes the ways in which federal agencies such as the Army and the Freedmen's Bureau attempted to assist Washington's freed population and shows how officials struggled to address the social problems resulting from large-scale African-American migration. It also sheds new light on the political processes that led to the abandonment of Reconstruction and the onset of black disfranchisement.

"Robert Harrison provides new insight into grass-roots Reconstruction after the Civil War and into the lives of those of those most deeply affected, the newly emancipated African Americans"--

Monumental and revelatory, Free Labor explores labor activism throughout the country during a period of incredible diversity and fluidity: the American Civil War. Mark A. Lause describes how the working class radicalized during the war as a response to economic crisis, the political opportunity created by the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the ideology of free labor and abolition. His account moves from battlefield and picket line to the negotiating table, as he discusses how leaders and the rank-and-file alike adapted tactics and modes of operation to specific circumstances. His close attention to women and African Americans, meanwhile, dismantles notions of the working class as synonymous with whiteness and maleness. In addition, Lause offers a nuanced consideration of race's role in the politics of national labor organizations, in segregated industries in the border North and South, and in black resistance in the secessionist South, creatively reading self-emancipation as the largest general strike in U.S. history.

New York Times • Times Critics Top Books of 2019 This long-overdue biography reestablishes William Monroe Trotter’s essential place next to Douglass, Du Bois, and King in the pantheon of American civil rights heroes. William Monroe Trotter (1872– 1934), though still virtually unknown to the wider public, was an unlikely American hero. With the stylistic verve of a newspaperman and the unwavering fearlessness of an emancipator, he galvanized black working- class citizens to wield their political power despite the violent racism of post- Reconstruction America. For more than thirty years, the Harvard-educated Trotter edited and published the Guardian, a weekly Boston newspaper that was read across the nation. Defining himself against the gradualist politics of Booker T. Washington and the elitism of W. E. B. Du Bois, Trotter advocated for a radical vision of black liberation that prefigured leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Synthesizing years of archival research, historian Kerri Greenidge renders the drama of turn- of- the- century America and reclaims Trotter as a seminal figure, whose prophetic, yet ultimately tragic, life offers a link between the vision of Frederick Douglass and black radicalism in the modern era.

This collection of intimate letters reveals the remarkable radicalism—personal and political—of Mathilde Franziska Anneke. Anneke first became a well-known feminist and democrat in Prussia, earning notoriety for divorcing her first husband and fighting in the German Revolutions of 1848–1849. After moving to the United States, she became a noted proponent of woman suffrage, working with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Like many other refugees of the German revolutions, Anneke was deeply involved in the Civil War. Radical Relationships focuses on the years 1859–1865, which encompassed not only the war but also Anneke’s intense romantic friendship with Yankee abolitionist Mary Booth. Over the course of seven years, Anneke supported Mary through her husband’s trial for rape. When Sherman Booth was later imprisoned for his abolitionist activity, Anneke conspired to spring him from jail. The two women then moved with three of their children to Zürich, Switzerland, where they collaborated on antislavery fiction and mixed with leading European radicals such as Ferdinand Lassalle. From Europe, they followed the fate of German-born soldiers in the Union army, including Anneke’s husband, Fritz, and his court martial. Throughout her career, Anneke’s intimate relationships informed her politics and sustained her activism. Her correspondence with Fritz and Mary Booth provides fresh perspectives on the transnational dimensions of the Civil War and gender and sexuality.

Often dismissed as a nineteenth-century curiosity, spiritualism influenced the radical social and political movements of its time. Believers filled the ranks of the Free Democrats, agitated for land and monetary reform, fought for abolition, and held egalitarian leanings that found powerful expression in campaigns for gender and racial equality. In Free Spirits , Mark A. Lause considers spiritualism as a political and cultural force in Civil War-era America. Lause reveals the scope, spread, and influence of the movement, both in its links to reformist causes and its ability to amplify previously marginalized voices. Rooting spiritualism's appeal in the crises of the time, Lause considers how spiritualist influences, through the distillation of the war, forced reassessments of the question of Radical Republicanism and radicalism in general. He also delves into unexplored areas such as the movement's role in Lincoln's reelection and the relationship between Native Americans and spiritualists.