Jon Grinspan. The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century.

Abstract

The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century is a slim but ambitious book that ranges widely across the history and historiography of nineteenth-century American politics and adds a hopeful afterword for the present. Its major contribution is to demonstrate, often dramatically, the importance of young people to the American political universe from 1840 to 1900—and the converse as well. Jon Grinspan vividly portrays the entertaining spectacle of American campaigning during this era of popular politics and high turnout: the massive parades of uniformed marchers, the bonfires and fireworks accompanying huge public rallies, the pole-raisings and emptied barrels, and the competitive conflict that many other scholars have ably described before. He properly recognizes the significance of the electoral structure, particularly the use of party tickets and the lack of secrecy in voting, which made going to the polls an open and public act for all concerned. Grinspan also maintains that it was young people who provided most of the energy in the campaign; who marched in the parades, built the bonfires, and shot off the fireworks; who furnished the muscle at the polls, peddling the tickets, pounding the drums, and intimidating opponents; and who cast many of the ballots. Other scholars have calculated their significance in that crucial last act: new or “virgin” voters often constituted a quarter or more of the electorate, with turnout rates of 80 percent or more. Grinspan, however, is interested in the social environment that shaped the nature of their political involvement.