Political Tensions and the Rise of the Wide Awakes

They carried torches and marched at night. Their goal: defend free speech in America. What started as a small group of young men demonstrating during the 1860 election, snowballed into a mass movement of working-class Americans marching to end slavery. They called themselves the Wide Awakes. And they’re widely seen as the political force that helped elect Abraham Lincoln and spur the Civil War. So why has their story gone untold? And why is now the time to tell it?  

Guests: 

Jon Grinspan, Curator of Political History at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Author of Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War

Kevin Waite, Associate Professor of History at Durham University. Author of West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire