A01=Kathryn Allamong Jacob
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
American history
Author_Kathryn Allamong Jacob
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BGH
Category=DNBH
Category=HBJK
Category=HBLL
Category=NHK
Congress
COP=United States
DC
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Language_English
Lobby
Lobbying
Lobbyist
PA=Available
Political corruption
Politics and government
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch
Washington
Product details
- ISBN 9780801893971
- Weight: 476g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 26 Feb 2010
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
King of the Lobby tells the story of how one man harnessed delicious food, fine wine, and good conversation to the task of becoming the most influential lobbyist of the Gilded Age. Sam Ward was a colorful character. Scion of an old and honorable family, best friend of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and charming man-about-Washington, Ward held his own in an era crowded with larger-than-life personalities. Living by the motto that the shortest route between a pending bill and a congressman's "aye" was through his stomach, Ward elegantly entertained political elites in return for their votes. At a time when waves of scandal washed over Washington, the popular press railed against the wickedness of the lobby, and self-righteous politicians predicted that special interests would cause the downfall of democratic government, Sam Ward still reigned supreme. By the early 1870s, he had earned the title "King of the Lobby" and jokingly referred to himself as "Rex Vestiari." Ward cultivated a style of lobbying that survives today in the form of expensive golf outings, extravagant dinners, and luxurious vacations.
Kathryn Allamong Jacob's engaging account shows how the "king" earned his crown through cookery and conversation and how this son of wealth and privilege helped to create a questionable profession in a city that then, as now, rested on power and influence.
Kathryn Allamong Jacob is curator of manuscripts at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. She is the author of Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C., also published by Johns Hopkins, and Capital Elites: High Society in Washington, D.C., after the Civil War.
