PROGRAM

Please join us at Roosevelt House as we welcome Terry Golway, to mark the publication of Frank & Al: FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance That Created the Modern Democratic Party, the story of the unlikely political partnership that transformed the Democratic Party and led to the New Deal.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Democratic Party was bitterly split between its urban machines and its populists and patricians. The chasm between the two factions seemed unbridgeable. But Smith, a proud Catholic son of Tammany Hall, and Franklin Roosevelt, a Protestant country squire, formed an unlikely alliance. They dominated politics in the most-powerful state in the union for a quarter-century, and in 1932 ran against each other for the Democratic presidential nomination, setting off a great feud. Their relationship is one of the most dramatic untold stories of early 20th Century American politics.

Writing in The New York Times, Sam Roberts praised Frank & Al asthe latest of Mr. Golway’s several captivating books on New York politics. He delivers once again, with a timely narrative on the centennial of Smith’s first election as governor.”


Terry Golway — Frank & Al: FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance That Created the Modern Democratic Party | Posted on November 2nd, 2018 | Book Discussions, Public Programs