James K. McGuire is often overlooked as a key figure of Irish nationalist politics, yet the issue defined his life for over three decades. As the title implies, he had multiple careers, each overlapping the others.

This is the story of a self-educated, charismatic, gifted leader who overcame personal tragedy in childhood and was elected the youngest mayor of a major city in the United States at age twenty-six. It is the story of a reformer who possessed a genius for politics. James K. McGuire (1868–1923) was elected mayor of Syracuse three times as a Democrat in a Republican bastion. As a candidate for governor in 1898, he nearly derailed the rise of Theodore Roosevelt. His ideas and positions informed the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan in his quest for the presidency and the platform of the Democratic Party in those elections. Fahey narrates McGuire’s remarkable rise to become a major figure in national politics as well as his questionable business dealings along the way. Indicted twice during his life, he was investigated by Congress and the Department of Justice for his advocacy of Irish freedom. McGuire befriended and aided Éamon de Valera and the Irish freedom fighters of that time, using his influence at the highest levels of the American government to further the cause of Ireland. This fascinating portrait reveals a complex man who earned a place on the national political stage and battled for the causes in which he deeply believed.

James mark Sullivan was part of the post-famine Irish immigration to the United States in the late 19th century. Overcoming family misfortune, he moved from newsboy to journalist to Yale-educated lawyer. Relocating to New York City, his association with Tammany Hall involved him in the "Crime of the Century" Becker-Rosenthal murder case, a role not previously explored. Sullivan's involvement won him a patronage appointment as ambassador to Santo Domingo. Scandals about graft and corruption forced his resignation. However, another factor which contributed to his dismissal, unexplained until now, was his effort at subversion of his government's policy of neutrality, which was connected to his ties to Irish nationalism. He later established the first indigenous Irish film company with a pronounced Nationalist agenda, making several films which are now classics of the silent film era. Following the death of his wife and son during the influenza epidemic of 1918, he returned to the United States. Failing to revive his legal career, he removed to Florida, dying in relative obscurity.

Gangsters, train robbery, forgery and prostitution--these misdeeds are more often associated with New York City or the Wild West, but make no mistake, Syracuse, New York, has housed its fair share of vice and sinners. A riot prompted politicians to make Syracuse a city in the first place. A man who billed himself as "Dillinger the Second" once walked 'Cuse's streets, and a notorious gangster boasted of his desire to retire in Salt City. At the end of the nineteenth century, neither law enforcement nor fervent clergy could stop rampant illicit gambling. Local author Neil MacMillan tours the city of Syracuse, unearthing tales of its most infamous residents and their dastardly deeds--from strange murders to bounty jumpers to vandals.

While many Civil War reference books exist, there is no single compendium that contains important details about the combatant states (and territories) that Civil War researchers can readily access for their work. People looking for information about the organizations, activities, economies, demographics, and prominent personalities of Civil War states and state governments must assemble data from a variety of sources, with many key sources remaining unavailable online. This volume provides a crucial reference book for Civil War scholars and historians, professional or amateur, seeking information about New York during the war. Its principal sources include the Official Records, state adjutant general reports, legislative journals, state and federal legislation, executive speeches and proclamations on the federal and state levels, and the general and special orders issued by the military authorities of both governments, North and South. Designed and organized for easy use, this book can be read in two ways: by individual state, with each chapter offering a stand-alone history of an individual state's war years; or across states, comparing reactions to the same event or solutions to the same problems.

Out of many, one—e pluribus unum—is the motto of the American nation, and it sums up neatly the paradox that Stephanie Foote so deftly identifies in Regional Fictions. Regionalism, the genre that ostensibly challenges or offers an alternative to nationalism, in fact characterizes and perhaps even defines the American sense of nationhood. In particular, Foote argues that the colorful local characters, dialects, and accents that marked regionalist novels and short stories of the late nineteenth century were key to the genre’s conversion of seemingly dangerous political differences—such as those posed by disaffected Midwestern farmers or recalcitrant foreign nationals—into appealing cultural differences. She asserts that many of the most treasured beliefs about the value of local identities still held in the United States today are traceable to the discourses of this regional fiction, and she illustrates her contentions with insightful examinations of the work of Sarah Orne Jewett, Hamlin Garland, Gertrude Atherton, George Washington Cable, Jacob Riis, and others. Broadening the definitions of regional writing and its imaginative territory, Regional Fictions moves beyond literary criticism to comment on the ideology of national, local, ethnic, and racial identity.

This book traces a genealogy of political dandyism in literature. Dandies abstain from worldly affairs, and politics in particular. As an enigmatic figure, or a being of great eccentricity, it was the dandy that haunted the literary and cultural imagination of the nineteenth century. In fact, the dandy is often seen as a quintessential nineteenth-century figure. It was surprising, then, when at the beginning of the twenty-first century this figure returned from the past to an unexpected place: the very heart of European politics. Various so-called populist leaders were seen as political dandies. But how could that figure that was once known for its aversion towards politics all of a sudden become the protagonist of a new political paradigm? Or was the dandy perhaps always already part of a political imagination? This study charts the emergence of this political paradigm. From the dandy’s first appearance to his latest resurrection, from Charles Baudelaire to Jean-François Lyotard, from dandy-insects to a dandy-Christ, this book follows his various guises and disguises.

"For anyone who believes that there was no important labor movement before Roosevelt, or before Gompers, or before the Knights of Labor, this well-documented work should prove a shocker. And for those who look to the past for enlightenment to guide us through our troubled tomorrows, this book is a reservoir of historic information and insights." -- New Leader "Beyond Equality is a masterpiece. . . . A book of bold and brilliant originality, it is now shaping the perspective of a new generation of graduate students." -- David Brion Davis, author of The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture