19th-Century American Radicals: Vegans, Abolitionists, and Free Love Advocates

History Unplugged Podcast · Nov 21, 2019 · 39m

On July 4, 1826, as Americans lit firecrackers to celebrate the country’s fiftieth birthday, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were on their deathbeds. They would leave behind a groundbreaking political system and a growing economy—as well as the glaring inequalities that had undermined the American experiment from its beginning. The young nation had outlived the men who made it, but could it survive intensifying divisions over the very meaning of the land of the free?

In today's episode, I'm speaking with Holly Jackson about her new book American Radicals, which looks at this new network…