Forgotten Firebrand

The reformer James Redpath (1833–1891) was a focal figure in many of the key developments in nineteenth-century American political and cultural life. He befriended John Brown, Samuel Clemens, and Henry George and, toward the end of his life, was a ghostwriter for Jefferson Davis. He advocated for abolition, civil rights, Irish nationalism, women's suffrage, and labor unions. In Forgotten Firebrand, the first full-length biography of this fascinating American, John R. McKivigan portrays the many facets of Redpath's life, including his stint as a reporter for the New York Tribune, his involvement with the Haitian emigration movement, and his time as a Civil War correspondent.Examining Redpath's varied career enables McKivigan to cast light on the history of journalism, public speaking, and mass entertainment in the United States. Redpath's newspaper writing is credited with popularizing the stenographic interview in the American press, and he can be studied as a prototype for later generations of newspaper writers who blended reportage with participation in reform movements. His influential biography of John Brown justified the use of violent actions in the service of abolitionism.Redpath was an important figure in the emerging professional entertainment industry in this country. Along with his friend P. T. Barnum, Redpath popularized the figure of the "impresario" in American culture. Redpath's unique combination of interests and talents—for politics, for journalism, for public relations—brought an entrepreneurial spirit to reform that blurred traditional lines between business and social activism and helped forge modern concepts of celebrity.

In this first modern study of the outspoken abolitionist and journalist James Redpath, John McKivigan resurrects the reputation of a well-traveled agitator who faded from public memory after he died in 1898.... McKivigan has heroically ferreted out scattered letters and newspaper articles as well as details about Redpath's disorganized personal life. The result is a careful and fluidly written chronicle that sets Redpath's varied and controversial activities in their historical context.... Whatever angle they adopt, historians of reform and journalism will appreciate McKivigan's work in uncovering the role that Redpath played in vital movements of his era., McKivigan has provided a well-written and researched account of an important and fascinating life. Brief and succinct, the biography fills a surprising gap in our understanding of nineteenth-century reform.... Redpath's broad areas of reform interest and somewhat erratic career clearly deserve the fine biography that McKivigan has written., McKivigan offers a measured biography of the too-little-remembered James Redpath, who was at the cutting edge of a series of mid- and late-nineteenth-century reform movements.... Two of the book's more intriguing sections discuss Redpath's association with the assault on Harpers Ferry designed to spark a mass slave revolt, and his ties to the former president of the Confederacy. McKivigan notes the uniqueness of Redpath's close ties to both slaves and slaveholders while underscoring that the reformer remained dedicated to equality for blacks and whites., The author makes a convincing case that Redpath has been 'one of the nation's most colorful and unjustly forgotten characters.'... What secondary scholarship about Redpath has failed to appreciate, according to McKivigan, was that he was unlike most political journalists, both before and in most cases since, who aspired to patronage or even elected office by finding ways to profit from literary support for unpopular causes. In McKivigan's words, a study of his life 'contributes to the scholarly appreciation of change and continuity in nineteenth-century American reform,' a reform movement that, thanks to the extensive work in this book, will not be forgotten.

John R. McKivigan is Mary O'Brien Gibson Professor of History at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. He is the author of Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830-1865, also from Cornell, and the coeditor of several books.