Author Event | Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War

4th Floor Skyline Room

Jon Grinspan will discuss his propulsive account of one of U.S. history's most consequential political clubs: the Wide Awake anti-slavery youth movement that marched America from the 1860 election to civil war.

Jon Grinspan is Curator of Political History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. He is the author of the award-winning The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the 19th Century. He frequently contributes to the New York Times, and has been featured in The New Yorker, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Registration encouraged but not required