Civic Passions

“Read this book and the embers in your civic soul will flare again. Cecelia Tichi is a master of her subject and her craft. In writing so fluently and vividly about seven people who helped to save democracy in the first Gilded Age, she rekindles the passion and courage needed to confront the ravages of its reincarnation in our time. Just as she did with her book on great muckraking journalists then and now — Exposés and Excess — Tichi takes us back to the future and challenges us to stand up as citizens to the powerful forces of unbridled capitalism that threatens to overwhelm our democratic traditions and institutions.” — Bill Moyers

“A fervent, illuminating account of a moment when the United States became a more democratic and humane society. Against conventional wisdom and the opposition of a political and business regime serving only the comfortable and powerful, the activists in Tichi’s story changed Americans' minds about social justice and their mutual obligations. It is a stirring tale, perceptively and passionately told, and one we need to remember in this contemporary moment with its striking similarities to the Gilded Age.” — Charles McGovern, College of William and Mary

“In elegant and engaging prose, Tichi relates the dramatic stories of seven lives that teach us great lessons. She captures the relationships of people and social movements, offering a series of portraits that weave biography, politics, history, and social reform. This is a terrific book.” — Daniel Horowitz, Smith College

“Remind[s] readers that the legacies of century-old struggles are woven deeply into the fabric of life today. . . . Tichi’s writing is always clear; and she invests Civic Passions with narrative brio.” — Bookforum

“In a lively spur to reform-minded discussion, Tichi offers profiles of seven Victorian-era reformers. . . . Their deeds, eloquently channeled here, do resound with renewed import now.” — Publishers Weekly

“A passion for the progressives . . . Cecelia Tichi’s new book dramatizes a chapter in America’s history.” — The Chronicle of Higher Education

“Highly readable. . . . As much an intervention in modern political debates as it is a contribution to historiography. . . . In each of the book’s seven main chapters, Tichi presents a sensitive, contextualized portrait of an individual whose life work confronted, and changed, the circumstances of a rapidly modernizing America.” — Tennessee Historical Quarterly

“Beautifully written . . . each chapter succeeds in gripping readers by plunging them into the middle of the subject’s stream of life, generally at a pivotal moment in his or her career.” — Indiana Magazine of History