Title

Murdering McKinley : the making of Theodore Roosevelt's America

Description

After President William McKinley was fatally shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, Americans were bereaved and frightened. Eric Rauchway's brilliant Murdering McKinley re-creates Leon Czolgosz's hastily conducted trial and then traverses America as Dr. Vernon Briggs, a Boston alienist, sets out to discover why Czolgosz rose up to kill his President. While uncovering the answer that eluded Briggs and setting the historical record straight about Czolgosz, Rauchway also provides the finest portrait yet of Theodore Roosevelt at the moment of his sudden ascension to the White House.--BOOK JACKET.

Identifier

1132849

809071703

Creator

Rauchway, Eric

Format

1st ed.

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

2003

Program air date: September 21, 2003

Publisher

Hill and Wang

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes on front endpapers provide a short timeline of McKinley's assassination and Leon Czolgosz's trial and execution as well as some information on his family background. Also included in the notes is a reference to Jim Parker, a colored man who saved McKinley from a third bullet, and to the Secret Service who changed this story and claimed that Private Francis O'Brien had reached for the assassin's arm. Czolgosz was alternately called an anarchist and "a crazy fool". It is noted that he studied Edward Bellamy's 1887 novel 'Looking Backward' for 8 years. The question is asked whether John Wilkes Booth and Charles Guiteau, the assassins of presidents Lincoln and Garfield, had an impact on Czolgosz. Also mentioned in the notes are Lloyd Vernon Briggs, who visited Auburn State Prison and the assassin's family to discover a motive for the murder, Walter Channing, who analyzed Czolgosz, the shooting of Henry Clay Frick, the Carnegie steel executive, in Pennsylvania, and an attempt to shoot T.R. in 1912. The names of some of the people who played a role in this story are included, as are the following questions and statements: "Where was Roosevelt?" -- "2 bullets: what happened to the bullets?" - "Was he [Czolgosz] a madman?" - "Was there torture?" -- "[McKinley's stomach [was] not preserved - a man similarly shot would survive today." -- Annotations by Brian Lamb in the margins and underlining of pertinent phrases throughout the book. -- Examples: p.182: "He [Czolgosz] belonged to half a dozen despised social classes - working class, ethnic, Catholic, striker, freethinker, and so on. Every little community he loved had failed." -- p. 201: "The assassination that launched Roosevelt into the presidency presented him with the opportunity to spin a story of his own duty and gave purpose to his term: he must prevent the emergence of men with such awful conceptions of their political obligations. By contrast, Schrank's attack on Roosevelt cast the old reformer in the role of an ambitious office-seeker."

Subject

"McKinley, William, 1843-1901--Assassination."

"Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919."

"Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919--Political and social views."

"Czolgosz, Leon F., 1873?-1901."

"Presidents--United States--Biography."

"Assassins--United States--Biography."

"Anarchists--United States--Biography."

"Progressivism (United States politics)"

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Rights

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