Summers, Mark Wahlgren 1951–

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Summers, Mark Wahlgren 1951–

(Mark W. Summers)

PERSONAL:

Born June 5, 1951. Education: University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D., 1980.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, University of Kentucky, 1715 Patterson Office Tower, Lexington, KY 40506-0027. E-mail—msumm2@pop.uky.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, historian, and educator. University of Kentucky, Lexington, Thomas D. Clark Professor of History.

WRITINGS:

(Under name Mark W. Summers) Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel of Prosperity: Aid under the Radical Republicans, 1865-1877, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1984.

(Under name Mark W. Summers) The Plundering Generation: Corruption and the Crisis of the Union, 1849-1861, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1987.

The Era of Good Stealings, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1993.

The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865-1878, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1994.

The Gilded Age, or, The Hazard of New Functions, Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ), 1997.

Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 2000.

Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author, historian, and educator Mark Wahlgren Summers is a professor of history at the University of Kentucky. Summers "has become this generation's reigning expert on historical political corruption, an academic Lincoln Steffens with an extraordinary command of his subject and an important message for his readers," commented John Lauritz Larson in the Historian.

In The Era of Good Stealings, Summers takes a detailed look at Gilded Age American politics, and considers at length the "damage done to republican government and American ideals by the practice of and the outcry against political corruption," Larson reported. Summers pays particular attention to the crimes of bribery and influence peddling that were a constant presence in the U.S. government during the Gilded Age. He notes that the Grant administration was particularly plagued by this form of corruption. He provides a thorough assessment of the role the press played in identifying and spotlighting crime and corruption during this period. Summers offers his readers a well-reasoned and balanced assessment of the crimes that took place, the outcry that rose up in the wake of these problems, and the attempts at reform that were made. He notes that, in some cases, the popular stories were exaggerated or much more lurid than the actual crimes warranted. In later years, this flamboyant and flagrant image became emblematic of Gilded Age politics, whether the reputation was deserved or not. Summers concludes that corruption did indeed exist during this time period, and in places it was quite widespread. However, he points out that critics and foes often exaggerated the nature and prevalence of corruption beyond its actual base in reality. He cautions readers to remember that the most vocal of the reformers also had their own motivations and agendas. Summers also makes the surprising point that dishonest practices sometimes resulted in positive outcomes, although the cost was higher than it would have been otherwise. Perhaps worst of all for Summers, he points out that corruption, abuse of political power, and related crimes deeply eroded public trust in the government to faithfully act for the common good of all citizens.

Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884 is Summers's analysis of the late-nineteenth-century presidential campaign between Republican James G. Blaine and Democrat Grover Cleveland. "Seldom have voters faced a choice between two such contrasting personalities," observed Charles W. Calhoun in the Presidential Studies Quarterly. On the one hand was the popular, energetic, and personable Blaine, charming but touched by accusations of profiteering and other irregularities. Blaine was much adored by many, but many of the reformers throughout America thoroughly disliked him. His opponent was the leaden and plodding Cleveland, supported by those who sought reform but in general a character who was difficult to like. Cleveland had his own accusers and he too had to deal with the effects of scandal as he entered the presidential race. Many of the accusations against both Blaine and Cleveland were exaggerated and fanciful, yet these lurid stories invigorated the public, leaving the voters eager for more hints of overwrought impropriety. "Cleveland's razor-thin victory compounded the fabulous character of the tale," Calhoun noted. With Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, Summers offers a book that "deserves attention as the first book-length scholarly examination of the contest that gave the White House to its only Democratic occupant between James Buchanan and Woodrow Wilson," Calhoun remarked.

In the book, Summers carefully considers the meaning of the 1884 election. He notes that since the disputed election that occurred in 1876, the American political system had been deliberately moving away from the system that reigned during the Civil War. Political parties had become less important to voters than economic concerns and other issues, Summers asserts. Nationwide problems such as taxation, temperance, and volatile questions of race and equality were still of great concern to voters. Summers looks at how the political parties addressed the concerns as they struggled to achieve dominance over one another. Summers also outlines many of the scandals, accusations, and dirty tricks used in the more rough-and-tumble politics of the day. He traces the pivotal point of the 1884 election to the outcome in New York, finding through his research that the Democratic party had successfully managed to suppress much voting by blacks in South, where Republicans would have likely enjoyed a larger percentage of votes. Calhoun concludes that Summers's reminder of the "skewed, undemocratic nature of the country's electoral system may be the book's most important point."

In Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics, Summers "provides a lively history of a Gilded Age political system in which cash ruled, partisanship ran wild, democracy was honored as much in the breach as in practice, and the political system made it virtually impossible for even the most earnest reformer to crack the Republican-Democrat duopoly," commented Brett Flehinger in the Canadian Journal of History. Summers looks not only at the success of the well-known Democratic/Republican two-party system, but provides insight and consideration of why other parties failed to rise with enough power and vigor to challenge the main parties of the day. The author assesses the place and purpose of the more raucous and underhanded aspects of Gilded Age politics, concluding that the scandals, accusations, bribery, fearmongering, violence, and corruption that helped the dominant parties and the professional politicians to retain their hold on power. It was this system, Summers notes, that helped keep third parties from becoming viable and from mounting potentially damaging challenges to the dominant political factions.

Through his attention to the use and maintenance of political power, Summers "challenges accepted historiography and provides a lively account of the professionals who dominated US politics at the end of the nineteenth century," Flehinger concluded. "Combining rigorous research, superb narrative capacities, and robust enthusiasm for his subject, seasoned historian and writer Mark Wahlgren Summers relates the complex and comprehensive details accounting for the survival and thriving of the two-party system in American politics," commented John A. Jones in Rhetoric & Public Affairs. In his study of how Gilded Age "political parties sought and used power and how they interacted with each other," Summers "gets nearly everything right," concluded Historian reviewer Robert W. Cherny. Reviewer Peter R. Argersinger, writing in the Journal of Southern History, called Party Games "an important and provocative book that commands attention and will reward reading."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October, 1994, Joel H. Silbey, review of The Era of Good Stealings, p. 1392; June 1, 2001, review of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884, p. 990; December, 2005, Leon Fink, review of Party Games: Getting, Keeping, and Using Power in Gilded Age Politics, p. 1546.

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November, 2001, review of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, p. 195.

Canadian Journal of History, March 22, 2006, Brett Flehinger, review of Party Games, p. 159.

Choice, July-August, 1993, J.M. Matthews, review of The Era of Good Stealings, p. 1834; December, 1994, C.M. Leder, review of The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865-1878, p. 592; September, 2000, S.K. Hauser, review of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, p. 206; December, 2004, P.D. Travis, review of Party Games, p. 725.

Civil War History, December, 1994, Terry L. Seip, review of The Era of Good Stealings, p. 337.

Historian, spring, 1994, review of The Era of Good Stealings, p. 572; summer, 1995, John Lauritz Larson, review of The Era of Good Stealings, p. 572; fall, 2005, Robert W. Cherny, review of Party Games, p. 545.

History Today, April, 2000, review of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, p. 58.

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, June 22, 1995, review of The Press Gang, p. 479.

Journalism History, summer, 1994, Richard B. Kielbowicz, review of The Press Gang, p. 82.

Journal of American History, December, 1994, Iver Bernstein, review of The Era of Good Stealings, p. 1323; September, 1995, Stephen G. Weisner, review of The Press Gang, p. 751; March, 2001, Rebecca Edwards, review of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, p. 1509; June, 2005, Richard Franklin Bensel, review of Party Games, p. 227.

Journal of American Studies, August, 1994, Daniel Walker Howe, review of The Era of Good Stealings, p. 311.

Journal of Communication, winter, 1995, John Nerone, review of The Press Gang, p. 153.

Journal of Economic History, March, 1994, James L. Huston, review of The Era of Good Stealings, p. 220; December 1, 2000, Robert A. McGuire, review of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, p. 1156.

Journal of Southern History, May, 1996, Anne Kusener Nelsen, review of The Press Gang, p. 393; May, 2005, Peter H. Argersinger, review of Party Games, p. 476.

Labor History, August, 2001, Gerald W. McFarland, review of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, p. 299.

New Yorker, December 12, 1994, Adam Gopnik, review of The Press Gang, p. 87.

North Carolina Historical Review, October, 2006, Michael L. Long, review of Party Games, p. 497.

Presidential Studies Quarterly, December, 2000, Charles W. Calhoun, review of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, p. 810.

Reviews in American History, September, 1995, Thomas C. Leonard, review of The Press Gang, p. 478.

Rhetoric & Public Affairs, summer, 2006, John A. Jones, review of Party Games, p. 318.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 1995, review of The Press Gang, p. 7; autumn, 2000, review of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, p. 124.