Who were the Republicans and what were they about? Politics were stormy in Michigan, but nothing like today. A fascinating political story set in the context of of the lives of one of Michigan's greatest families.
· Elizabeth Homer writes with excitement and passion.
· A story with Shakespearean elements.
· The political story in Elizabeth Homer’s book is superb.
· Both fascinating personal and crucial national stories.
In Part I, Marian and James Turner join a group of pioneers who build a capital city in the primal forest in seven months and become friends for life and into the next generation. They are among the progressive Whigs and Democrats who founded the Republican Party to end slavery. They advance controversial and humanitarian ideas. Marian’s family scrapbook is a source of many of the stories in this narrative history of heroes and villains, greed and corruption. We learn of the Civil War and its aftermath in Michigan, founding of the Michigan Female College and the beginning of the Michigan Agricultural College (MSU) and the small African American community forming in Lansing before emancipation.
In Part II, the second generation includes James Munroe Turner who was a folk hero to much of the state. He is a farmer, railroad builder, manufacturer, miner in the Upper Peninsula, millionaire, and reformer. The second generation is bent on holding the Republican Party to its original ideals. A clash between Turner, Vanderbilt, and the Grand Trunk Railroad has far-reaching effects. At the end of the 19th century they grapple with monumental societal problems, ones that dog us today. It is a long-awaited view of women's history deftly mainstreamed into the political, social, and economic events of the 19th century. Frank Dodge defends the Knights of Labor in two notorious court cases. $24.99 + mailing, soft cover
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