George Frisbie Hoar and the Half-Breed Republicans

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George Frisbie Hoar (1826–1904), whose national career spans the period from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Movement, was a Radical Republican who became one of the original Half-Breed Republicans. In this volume, Richard Welch, the first person to have access to Hoar’s papers and the only scholar to date to have examined the entire collection, presents both a biography of Hoar and a study of the Republican party. Contrary to a widely held view, the Half-Breed Republicans possessed an identifiable creed and their tradition served as the ideological bridge of the Republican party between the eras of Grant and Roosevelt. As much as any man of the post-Civil War generation, Hoar represents the character and influence of this tradition.