In the Days of McKinley - A Study of a Fascinating and Forgotten Era

Sep 29, 2026

A Book-of-the-Month Club editorial board selection introducing In the Days of McKinley, a long-awaited historical chronicle by Margaret Leech. The text positions it as a muscular, well-researched narrative that reanimates an overlooked epoch in American history through living, complex characters. It reframes William McKinley beyond simplified stereotypes, exploring his political career, public controversies like bimetallism and tariffs, and personal life details while reassessing his legacy and era.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages28

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Editorial Board Selection

Margaret Leech’s Historical Approach

Reassessing McKinley’s Legacy

Public Career and Private Life

6GROVE COLLEGE LIBRAA # DETROIT,MICHIGANBook-of-the-Month ClubLEASE DO NOT REMOV NESOCTOBE R 1959For November A STUDY OF A FASCINATING AND FORGOTTEN ERABY THE AUTHOR OF Reveille in Washington Editorial Board:John Mason Brown·Basil Davenport.Clifton FadimanGilbert Highet·John P.Marquand Book-of-thc-Moth Club Selections rcpresent the unanimous choice of this Editorial Board 704 PAGES·32 PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS IGHTEEN years after the appearance of her Pulitzer Prize… W /ic Club Soleciwinner,Reveille in Washington(which was a CiuD selectionat the time),Margaret Leech has completed her long-awaitedchronicle of a strangely underestimated epoch in Americanhistory.Writing with'the same muscularity of mind,the samenarrative skill,thoroughness of research and mastery of characterization ...she walks into a shrouded period,turns onthe lights,rips off the covers and opens the windows."Anyonewho thinks of McKinley as "one of our postage-stamp Presidents,"and his era as"a waxworks interval in our history,"is in for asurprise when he reads this absorbing book. REPORT BY John Mason Brown A MINK COAT made from a Mexican hairless?Impossible.But not moreimprobable than a fascinating,invaluable and most welcome life ofWilliam McKinley.This,in spite of the seeming odds against her,isprecisely what Margaret Leech has achieved.In the Days of McKinley is a rich,needed and absorbing chronicle of a President and a period known and caredabout by all too few Americans.One finishes her copious volume knowing andcaring,grateful and rewarded.One finishes it excitedly aware,too,that MissLeech has brought to her new book the same muscularity of mind,the samenarrative skill,thoroughness of research and mastery of characterization whichmake her Reveille in Washington,published eighteen years ago,one of theenduringly fine books about the Civil War. McKinley's has been an ironic fate.The calendar has done him in as surely asCzolgosz's bullets.Overshadowed as a personality by Cleveland,snowedunder by the colorful vigor of Theodore Roosevelt,he has been dismissed asone of our postage-stamp Presidents.His name is apt to be smiled at as asymbol of unadventurous and acquiescent conservatism.When he is remem-bered,it is vaguely as the champion of Protection,the symbol of Americanimperialism,a good,dull man,Mark Hanna's handsome puppet,who wasinteresting chiefly because he had the misfortune to have an epileptic wife andto be assassinated. There is so much history to be remembered that most people find it easierto allow a lot of it to be forgotten.As an act of convenience,the majority of ushave jettisoned McKinley and his era into a stodgy oblivion.Just as it takestime for a fashion to return to favor as a costume,so with history there areperiods,neither quite distant enough to seem picturesque nor near enough tobe vividly recalled,which are consigned to the oubliette until they are reclaimed. In In the Days of McKinley Miss Leech has raided what has been widelyaccepted as a Madame Tussaud interval in our history.She has come out ofthe waxworks not with dummies but with a host of living,breathing,scheming,suffering,ambitious,silly,vain,charming men and women.Fortunately,sheis neither a debunker nor an incense burner.She sees her people plain,includingMcKinley;wants us to see them the same way;and has the renarkable abilityto enable us to do so.She is far too good a biographer and historian to cater topreconceptions or to accept the stereotypes of prejudice,ignorance or forget-fulness.She writes from the kind of mind that men with lesser minds like tothink of as masculine,and also from those sharp insights which women who donot possess them claim to be feminine.No partisan but a clear-eyed observer,she walks into a shrouded period,turns on the lights,rips off the covers andopens the windows. She adnits that the inner minds of few public men have been so well con- sword to Admiral Dewey (Meserve Collection) REPORT

FAQs

What kind of historical work is In the Days of McKinley presented as?

It is presented as a thorough, narrative chronicle that brings a forgotten American epoch to life with detailed research and characterization.

How does the text argue McKinley should be understood differently?

It challenges the tendency to reduce McKinley to postage-stamp stereotypes by showing his personality, relationships, and the complexity behind his public role.

Which aspects of McKinley’s life does the review highlight?

It highlights both his public career—bimetallism, tariff fights, and major events—and elements of his private life, emphasizing that the book is neither written nor meant to be read quickly.

Sep 29, 2026

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