Mr. Democrat: Jim Farley, the New Deal and the Making of Modern American Politics

by Daniel Mark Scroop

Overview

Mr. Democrat tells the story of Jim Farley, Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign manager. As party boss, Farley experienced unprecedented success in the New Deal years. And like his modern counterpart Karl Rove, Farley enjoyed unparalleled access and power. Unlike Rove, however, Farley was instrumental in the creation of an overwhelming new majority in American politics, as the emergence of the New Deal transformed the political landscape of its time.

Mr. Democrat is timely and indispensable not just because Farley was a fascinating and unduly neglected figure, but also because an understanding of his career advances our knowledge of how and why he revolutionized the Democratic Party and American politics in the age of the New Deal.

Daniel Scroop is Lecturer in American History, University of Liverpool School of History.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472021505
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	01/20/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	275
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Daniel Scroop is Lecturer in American History, University of Liverpool School of History.

Table of Contents

\rrhp\ \lrrh: Contents\ \1h\ Contents \xt\ Acknowledgments Introduction 1. "The Art of Practical Politics in Local Affairs" 2. Reawakening the "Rip Van Winkle Upstate Democracy" 3. A Traveling Elk 4. A Regular Guy 5. The Death of the Broker? 6. "As Maine Goes . . ." 7. Drifting Apart 8. The Breaking Point 9. The Politics of Revenge? 10. Mr. Democrat Notes Bibliography Index \to come\ Illustrations following page 00

Editorial Reviews

Scroop, a lecturer in American history at the University of Liverpool, launches this biography of the Roosevelt-era political operator Jim Farley with a comparison to President Bush's adviser Karl Rove. Like Rove, Farley helped engineer two electoral triumphs, in 1932 and 1936, and like Rove, Farley was a shrewd political tactician, an expert reader of the public mood and master of the millions of details that make a successful campaign. Unlike Rove, Farley was a master of old-style machine politics whose primary loyalty was neither to FDR nor to the New Deal but rather to the Democratic Party. Thus, when Roosevelt veered from party loyalty to support New York's Republican Mayor La Guardia and the Progressives of the Midwest, Farley was appalled. It led to a break between the two men and Farley's futile bid to capture the 1940 presidential nomination. Scroop gives us a workmanlike study of Farley's role in forging the New Deal coalition and ushering in a new type of politics in which the power of local bosses gave way to that of organized labor, minorities and women-a shift that, ironically, rendered Farley himself irrelevant long before his death in 1976. 10 b&w photos. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Providing insight into a political figure who has received little attention, Scroop (history, Univ. of Liverpool, U.K.) challenges the current historical understanding of Jim Farley, the campaign manager for Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New York State and national Democratic Party chairman. This biography traces the life of Farley, detailing his boyhood in the lower Hudson Valley, his rise in New York State's Democratic Party, and his ascension in national politics. Challenging Arthur Schlesinger's interpretation of Farley in The Age of Roosevelt, Scroop argues that his subject was actively engaged in the process that transformed the Democratic Party from a configuration driven by patronage to one driven by ideology, thus enabling the formation of national coalitions. More than just a biography of achievement, Scroop's book places Farley in the broader historical context of a period that saw the transformation of American politics. This readable book is recommended for all public and academic libraries.-Michael LaMagna, Cabrini College Lib., Radnor, PA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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