Frank and Al
FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance That Created the Modern Democratic Party
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ISBN10: 1250089646
ISBN13: 9781250089649
Hardcover
336 Pages
$29.99
CA$38.99
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Democratic Party was bitterly split between its urban machines—representing Catholics and Jews, ironworkers and seamstresses, from the tenements of the northeast and Midwest—and its populists and patricians, rooted in the soil and the Scriptures, enforcers of cultural, political, and religious norms. The chasm between the two factions seemed unbridgeable. But just before the Roaring Twenties, Al Smith, a proud son of the Tammany Hall political machine, and Franklin Roosevelt, a country squire, formed an unlikely alliance that transformed the Democratic Party. Smith and FDR dominated politics in the most-powerful state in the union for a quarter-century, and in 1932 they ran against each other for the Democratic presidential nomination, setting off one of the great feuds in American history.
The relationship between Smith and Roosevelt, portrayed in Terry Golway's Frank and Al, is one of the most dramatic untold stories of early 20th Century American politics. It was Roosevelt who said once that everything he sought to do in the New Deal had been done in New York under Al Smith when he was governor in the 1920s. It was Smith who persuaded a reluctant Roosevelt to run for governor in 1928, setting the stage for FDR’s dramatic comeback after contracting polio in 1921. They took their party, and American politics, out of the 19th Century and created a place in civic life for the New America of the 20th Century.
Reviews
Praise for Frank and Al
A fine account of FDR’s rise to power combined with a cradle-to-grave biography of the man who made it possible."—Kirkus Reviews
"Golway's clear, at times humorous prose will entice all readers interested in this political rivalry. The author's diligent research will impress historical practitioners."—Library Journal
"Terry Golway’s beautifully written book not only traces the careers of two of America’s most significant twentieth-century politicians but also reminds us of how the Democratic party became the powerhouse it was for so many years in mid century. The book is must reading for anyone interested in the history of American politics and the rise of the country’s welfare state."—Robert Dallek, author of An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
“Terry Golway’s Frank and Al is a marvelous portrait of two combative Democratic leaders from New York—FDR and Al Smith—and the New America they forged on behalf of the forgotten men and women of the 1920s and 1930s, and beyond. Anybody interested in U.S. political history needs to read this essential history. Highly recommend!”—Douglas Brinkley, professor of History at Rice University and author of Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America
"Terry Golway’s book is a moving and beautifully written history that is also essential reading for anyone trying to understand the politics of Trump-era America. Through the fragile alliance of FDR and Al Smith, a patrician and an ethnic urban machine pol, we see the creation of the modern Democratic Party and its potential to enact transformational social and economic change. And through its ultimate unraveling, we see the resentments and class tensions that Democrats have struggled to manage ever since."—Steve Kornacki, host of MSNBC's Up with Steve Kornacki
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
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RIVER FAMILIES
IN THE DRY SEASONS of the late nineteenth century, salt water from New York Harbor churned upstream from lower Manhattan to a bend in the Hudson River north of Poughkeepsie called Crum Elbow. There, brine...
About the author
Terry Golway
