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Fake news and the Dreyfus affair: the media-fuelled scandal that divided France
The wrongful conviction for treason of a Jewish army captain in France in the late 19th century exposed antisemitism and virulent nationalism – but also, as Mike Rapport reveals, sparked a flood of ‘fake news’ that presaged the worst of the modern media landscape
In the oppressive heat of his cell in the Mont-Valérien military prison west of Paris on 31 August 1898, Lieutenant-Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry wrote a despairing letter to his wife, drank half a bottle of rum, and killed himself. This desperate act was a pivotal moment in one of the best-known causes celebres in modern history: the Dreyfus Affair. The story of Henry’s suicide, following his arrest for forging a document in the controversial case, was co-opted by the nationalist rightwing media as part of a tidal wave of coverage that threatened to destabilise French democracy and public trust in the Republic. The background is well known today. In September 1894, Henry, a counter-espionage officer, had uncovered evidence of a mole within French military intelligence. A cleaner working in the German embassy (and in Henry’s pay) had found a memorandum, since dubbed the ‘bordereau’, written by an officer in the French General Staff revealing military secrets. The handwriting was identified as that of Alfred Dreyfus, an army captain then working in the War Ministry, who was arrested, court-martialled, publicly degraded and hauled off to solitary confinement on the notoriously harsh penal colony of Devil’s Island, off French Guiana. But the army had the wrong man. Contradictions and irregularities in the case soon began to appear. In August 1896, the new head of military intelligence, Lieutenant-Colonel Georges Picquart, was examining more papers stolen from the German embassy. The handwriting on one was identical to that in the bordereau used to convict Dreyfus – but the signature was that of Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, a dissipated, debt-ridden, disreputable officer who had been selling secrets to the Germans for two years. Dreyfus, Picquart realised, was innocent. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/BAL1756949-CMYKWeb-Ready-2c9d689.jpg" width="3683" height="2456" alt="An engraving shows a man lying dead on the floor, while a police officer kneels over him. Another police officer stands by his head, and two more officers are entering the room in the background" title="An engraving depicts the discovery of the suicide of Lieutenant-Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry following his arrest for forging a letter incriminating Dreyfus. Some thought his crime justifiable (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> Ignoring the errors Even after this discovery, Dreyfus remained incarcerated for years longer because government officials, the army and large segments of public opinion refused to accept that a terrible error had been made. In part this was a result of the desire to maintain national security by authorities who were keen to avoid demoralising the army just as France secured a military alliance with the Russian empire, and amid heightened tensions with Germany following its annexation of the Alsace-Lorraine region from France in 1871. But it was also due to the fact that Dreyfus was from Alsace, and Jewish – at a time when a virulent strain of antisemitism based on ‘scientific’ racism had emerged, and as antisemites of different political persuasions associated Jews with either socialism or capitalism. Read more | Fake news and Nazis: Richard J Evans on the spectre of conspiracies These motives also played on a deeper division that had riven French society since 1789. There were those who, like Dreyfus himself, embraced the principles of the Revolution and its legacy as embodied in the Third Republic, founded in 1870. These included secularism, parliamentary democracy, civil equality and a world view exulting in science and human reason. Adherents of this strong current within French political culture generally became ‘Dreyfusards’ who supported the officer’s innocence. Their opponents saw 1789 as a fatal breach with France’s true historical destiny: Catholic, hierarchical and monarchical. More recently, this traditional conservatism had been joined by a new form of rightwing ideology promising social reform but which was also nationalist, authoritarian, antisemitic. Many of those with such views became ‘anti-Dreyfusard’, opposed to revisiting the case. These flames were stoked by a virulently partisan newspaper press that played a pivotal role in the battle for public opinion. Print media had experienced a boom stimulated by more rapid communications, the introduction of photographs into newspapers, an expansion in advertising, and new forms of printing technology that made periodicals quicker and cheaper to produce and more widely available. At that time, France had a particularly vibrant press. Free, compulsory and universal primary education for boys and girls from the early 1880s encouraged literacy, and a press law enacted in 1881 lifted almost all restrictions on what could be published, although this was rolled back in 1893 and 1894 after a spate of anarchist bombings. Journalists and publishers could be sued for slander, but cases were rarely successful. Between 1881 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the number of periodical titles mushroomed by 250 per cent. These publications included broadsheets and tabloid newspapers representing the whole range of political opinions from the radical left to the extreme right. Yet within this vibrant ecosystem of print lurked a danger that remains familiar in our age of social media, online news and artificial intelligence. It was all too easy to spread what we now call ‘fake news’ – misinformation (falsehoods spread unintentionally), disinformation (fabrications aimed at manipulating readers politically and socially) and malinformation (deception based on some truth, but twisted in such a way as to deceive). <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-1404448124cmykWeb-Ready-a0c4306.jpg" width="2374" height="1582" alt="A black and white photograph of a man wearing military uniform, including a hat with "74" written on the front. He has a large, heavy moustache" title="Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, the officer who really wrote the treasonous memorandum attributed to Dreyfus. He was acquitted by a tribunal in 1898 (Image by Getty Images)" /> Fake news During the Dreyfus Affair, the newspaper press was infused with ‘fake news’. Not for the last time, the episode exposed the friction between free speech on the one hand and, on the other hand, the challenges that arise when people of bad faith abuse that freedom, spreading falsehoods to manipulate public opinion, demonise certain groups of people, or undermine faith in the rule of law and democratic government. The Dreyfus case sparked a truly explosive public controversy after Walsin Esterhazy was finally tried – and acquitted with unseemly haste – by a military court in January 1898. On 13 January, novelist Émile Zola published J’Accuse…!, an open letter to the president of the Republic, in L’Aurore newspaper. He accused the government and army of committing a gross injustice and of conspiring to cover up the truth. He specifically highlighted and decried the antisemitism, militarism and authoritarianism behind the falsehoods: “It is a crime to lead public opinion astray,” Zola wrote, “to manipulate it for a death-dealing purpose and pervert it to the point of delirium. It is a crime to poison the minds of the humble, ordinary people, to whip reactionary and intolerant passions into a frenzy while sheltering behind the odious bastion of antisemitism… It is a crime to play on patriotism to further the aims of hatred.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-90758187cmykWeb-Ready-51ffbc8.jpg" width="2642" height="1761" alt="A yellow newspaper page with the headline "J'accuse!" written across the top" title="Émile Zola’s open letter to the president of the Republic, accusing the army and government of a cover-up in the Dreyfus Affair, exposed deep rifts in French society (Image by Getty Images)" /> Following Zola’s outburst, the Dreyfus Affair erupted into a full-scale public storm. Except on rare occasions, newspapers tended to reinforce the beliefs of their readership rather than challenge them with facts. Giving readers what they wanted to hear was partly driven by economics: the conservative Le Figaro, for example, had stopped publishing Zola’s articles towards the end of 1897 after he openly embraced the Dreyfusard cause, which hurt sales of the newspaper. Yet much of the fake news had an even more insidious purpose. Anti-Dreyfusard papers fuelled nationalist prejudices by targeting Jews; claimed to be defending the ‘honour’ of the army; and railed against the ‘unpatriotic’ manoeuvres of the Dreyfusards – all as a means of galvanising support for the assorted authoritarians, monarchists, nationalists and antisemites who loathed the Republic. It was not that the Dreyfusards were innocent of spreading fake news. Although much of what Zola wrote in J’Accuse…! turned out to be accurate, he did not get everything right, as he himself appeared to admit when he finished by saying that he would willingly submit to prosecution for defamation under the 1881 Press Law. Zola did, in fact, face prosecution in 1898, avoiding imprisonment only by slipping away in June to England and living there in exile for a year. Read more | “A tidal wave of digital material will overwhelm recordkeeping institutions”: the future of history Even some leftwing Dreyfusard newspapers tended to casually use the antisemitic trope of the Jew as capitalist to explain popular hostility against Jews. Anti-Dreyfusard publications saw Jews, socialists and leftwing republicans as a ‘Syndicate of Treason’ (as the vitriolic journalist Henri Rochefort put it). However, the Dreyfusard press was prone to sharing conspiracy theories of its own, seeing its opponents as part of an interwoven plot involving the Catholic church and the nationalists, aiming to destroy the Republic and the inheritance of 1789. Yet the anti-Dreyfusard press had most of the running: of the 55 dailies published at the time, only eight came out as Dreyfusard from February 1898, almost all of them with relatively low circulation numbers. The media was dominated by anti-Dreyfusard titles, which had an almost open field in which to bombard readers with a swirl of half-truths and outright lies, stoking prejudices and stirring up fears. Forgiveable forgery One of the most egregious moments came in the wake of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry’s death. After his colleague, Picquart, had exposed Esterhazy as the real traitor in 1896, Henry had tried to bolster the case against Dreyfus by forging a letter that ‘proved’ his guilt, introducing it into the dossier of evidence. The ruse was successful until, as the pressure mounted over the course of 1898, the government investigated and discovered that forgery, leading to Henry’s arrest and suicide. For anti-Dreyfusard journalists, Henry’s crime was forgiveable: it was ‘patriotic’ because it served a higher cause – the security of the nation. Dreyfus was guilty anyway, they claimed; and even if he were innocent, those who sought to clear his name were traitors working for Germany. The virulently nationalist La Patrie accused Zola of doing untold harm to the army: “And since that day, the damage has surged in like a torrent, roared like a tempest. Who has not recognised in this tactic the workings of Bismarckian [ie German] politics?” The idea that Henry was a martyr to the cause of patriotism gained traction when the explicitly and graphically antisemitic La Libre Parole opened a subscription for the Lieutenant-Colonel’s widow, Berthe, which received no fewer than 25,000 donations. The newspaper published the many antisemitic and anti-republican messages sent along with the money. La Libre Parole means ‘Free Speech’, making it a case study for how prejudice and anti-democratic forces cloak themselves in the very freedoms that they seek to destroy or to deny to others. The Dreyfus case was – rightly or wrongly – seen as connected with both national security and the country’s future, so both sides entrenched themselves deeply within their positions. The more that the problems with Dreyfus’s conviction trickled out, the more the anti-Dreyfusards reinvigorated strategies that rested less on facts than on what is today called ‘gaslighting’ and on deflection, both of which involved stoking prejudices and demeaning opponents. Gaslighting, by which the perpetrator seeks to cast doubt on the truth, was deployed by Édouard Drumont, editor of La Libre Parole, who in June 1898 assured his readers that Dreyfusards were merely “a clutch of cosmopolitans who always talk of pieces of paper and documents but never prove anything” – the term ‘cosmopolitan’ being a dog-whistle term denoting unpatriotic or Jewish people. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/RV185-14cmykWeb-Ready-bfe91fd.jpg" width="2464" height="1643" alt="The top image shows a man in a suit with a moustache sitting at a desk and looking to the right. The bottom image shows a bearded man wearing glasses attached to a string, looking directly into the camera" title="Nationalist writer Maurice Barrès (top) entreated readers to consider national security above the facts of the miscarriage of justice, in contrast with the moral arguments of Dreyfusard Émile Zola (Images by TopFoto and Getty Images)" /> Nationalist writer Maurice Barrès made a more sophisticated use of gaslighting. Nothing in the Dreyfus Affair was demonstrably true, he argued in Le Journal in February 1898, so “how do you intend… to undertake to solve the problem when you do not have all the data?” he demanded of the Dreyfusards. Barrès’ purpose was to cast doubt on the significance of the few facts that were, at that point, already public knowledge. He took this further by suggesting that there are some truths that are “foreign to individual reason”, and that national circumstances and interests were the true barometer of what was just and true. “It is necessary to judge things in the relative,” Barrès argued, opening the way for his readership to be secure in their prejudices – because for them the army’s honour and national security were more important than the facts of any miscarriage of justice. Anti-Dreyfusard newspapers tried in various ways to deflect their readers’ attention away from the question of the convicted man’s innocence and onto other targets. This was a strategy behind the argument that Henry’s forgery was ‘patriotic’: his crime was minor compared to the real danger, which would be the victory of the Dreyfusards, who were no better than traitors. La Patrie proclaimed in September 1898: “Let us leave those cosmopolitans from Frankfurt to howl with joy over the tomb of that modest child of French soil [Henry]… Let us turn away with disgust from the spectacle of the odious triumph of the worst enemies of the army and of the country.” In that one sentence, the newspaper connected the Dreyfusards with treason, with Germany and Jews (‘cosmopolitans’), and with the ignominy of defeat – ‘Frankfurt’ being a reference to the humiliating peace treaty with Germany at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Demeaning caricatures At the same time, the anti-Dreyfusard press demeaned their opponents, caricaturing them as effeminate wimps, sexually sterile and highly strung, and contrasted them with the muscular, virile masculinity of the army officers whom they were accused of attacking. Zola was frequently depicted with simian characteristics: hairy, fat, thick-lipped. Dreyfus and other Jewish figures were ascribed the whole range of antisemitic tropes. La Libre Parole compared the ‘French’ femininity of Henry’s widow, Berthe, with the Jewish Dreyfusard Joseph Reinach, who was “puffy, swarthy, sweaty, stomach bulging”. For some, it did not even matter that Dreyfus was innocent: he was Jewish, so for the nationalists the greater ‘truth’ was that he could never be French. The process of gaslighting and deflection combined to stoke prejudices and popular fears, fogging out the original question of Dreyfus’s innocence. Read more | How Napoleon (almost) destroyed the French Revolution Yet a denouement was eventually reached. In February 1899, President Félix Faure – who opposed reopening Dreyfus’s case – died of a brain haemorrhage. He was succeeded by a Dreyfusard, Émile Loubet, whose election by parliament prompted an unsuccessful coup attempt by the Ligue des Patriotes and the Ligue antisémitique, who provided the street muscle of the anti-Dreyfusard movement. In June, the appeals court quashed Dreyfus’s conviction and ordered a retrial, which took place in August and September 1899 in Rennes – Paris being deemed too dangerous. Shockingly, the military tribunal again found the captain guilty. President Loubet issued a formal pardon, but Dreyfus was not officially cleared until 1906. He returned to the army, serving with merit in the First World War. The Dreyfus Affair showed how, when the stakes were high and when divisions ran deep, a torrent of half-truths, lies, deflection, the stoking of fear and prejudices, and appeals to ‘patriotism’ made it difficult for citizens to make informed decisions. It also demonstrated that many citizens were content to have their prejudices reaffirmed rather than critically examined. This is why Barrès’ argument that the nation had needs that were above reason and truth was so corrosive to democratic politics. The principle that truth, justice and legality could be judged only according to national interests allowed readers to indulge in a kind of relativism that justified falsehoods and injustice in pursuit of a conception of France that excluded groups who were the bogeymen of the nationalist right: Jews, foreigners, Protestants, Freemasons, socialists and others. It also exposed the spiky question that every democracy faces when freedom of expression becomes a means of undermining confidence and trust in its institutions: how to defend itself without infringing the very liberties that are its essence. Ultimately, the lesson of the Dreyfus Affair is that, in an age of mass media, citizens not only need to be equipped to make the honest effort to assess critically their sources of information and to examine their positions with verifiable evidence: they have to be willing to do so. In December 1898, L’Aurore understood that this was essential to the survival of democracy: “It is for citizens to inform themselves, to think, to use their will; it is for them to reform their morals, to no longer let themselves be taken for fools or as things to be juggled with and to emancipate themselves, not by force, but by ideas.” We need, the newspaper concluded, to “enlighten [our] brains, not slice them open!” Mike Rapport is reader in modern European history at the University of Glasgow This article was first published in the November 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Did he photograph the ghost of a president? Meet the scheming Victorian who exploited a grieving America
In the aftermath of the American Civil War, a grieving nation turned towards spiritualism in the hope of seeing the dead once more. Facilitated by new technologies like photography, some unscrupulous fraudsters stepped in to manipulate the vulnerable
In the decades after the American Civil War ended in 1865, the United States was a nation still grappling with its own grief. As many as 750,000 people had died in the conflict as they fought their own countrymen. It was a scale of loss unprecedented since the inception of the United States as an independent nation. Families were torn apart, as many husbands, sons and fathers had died on American battlefields. Of course, with the widespread loss, many people were struggling to come to terms with their grief, which in turn created a vulnerability. And, for some less scrupulous individuals, that uncertainty and collective sadness presented a new opportunity for fame and wealth. Enter William Mumler, a so-called spirit photographer. Born in 1832, Mumler later became a fraudster who claimed to be able to reunite people with their dead loved ones via his photography. Mumler was only a small part of a quasi-religious movement, which, in the wake of the war, became a subject of fascination. “It was in the middle of the 19th century that ghost-hunting became a cultural obsession,” explains Alice Vernon, author and academic at Aberystwyth University, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “It swept across America as this new pseudo-scientific religion called spiritualism.” The rise of spiritualism was inseparable, says Vernon, from this wave of collective mourning. Science and spiritualism in the 19th century The idea of spiritualism offered many people a kind of conceptual comfort, and new technologies, including photography, were giving it a seemingly evidential backbone. “I think the reason why spirit photography became so popular at that moment,” Vernon says, “was because photography was a fairly new innovation, and it was something that people didn’t really understand.” Early photographs were incredibly precious. So when spiritualists claimed that cameras could record the unseen world – as well as the images of the dead – many saw it as a logical extension of what the technology was already offering. Read more | When a Victorian ghost hunter investigated Britain’s most haunted house, this is what he found The result was a wave of ‘spirit photographers’, who offered people a chance to be photographed beside the ghost of a dead loved one. Of course, it was all trickery, relying on the public’s lack of understanding of how photography worked. But some early photographers were able to master the chemistry of exposure, and worked on overlaying negatives, adjusting lighting and controlling depth of field – all to create convincing ‘ghosts’. Some of the resulting “ghost images” look crude today: translucent faces, faint white smears, or “a paper ghost behind them”, as Vernon describes. But in an age before image manipulation was common knowledge, such details were persuasive. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-515449646-1-cd96ac2-e1763739871308.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="President Abraham Lincoln visits General George B. McClellan at his headquarters near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on 3 October 1862—just weeks after the Battle of Antietam. Hoping to urge McClellan to press his advantage against Robert E. Lee, Lincoln found the general unwilling to act, a decision that soon cost McClellan his command. The photograph gathers key Union figures of the moment, capturing a pivotal clash of leadership in the midst of the Civil War." title="Lincoln Visits Civil War Headquarters" /> William Mumler and the business of grief The greatest example of the impact of spirit photography came from the hands of William Mumler. He was a Boston engraver who stumbled upon the technique of double exposure by accident. When he noticed that faint second images appeared on his negatives, he realised their ghostly potential. Soon, bereaved families were queuing at his studio. They posed for portraits and received photographs appearing to show the faint image of a deceased relative standing beside or behind them. Read more | History’s smallest billionaire? Meet the tiny titan who was, briefly, the richest man alive Mumler’s fame reached its height when he photographed Mary Todd Lincoln, widow of the assassinated president, with the spectral figure of Abraham Lincoln at her shoulder. “It’s literally just Mary Todd Lincoln with what looks like a glove on her shoulder,” Vernon says. “And then a double exposure of a photograph of Abraham Lincoln behind her. It looks terrible.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/mary-todd-william-mumler-spirit-photography-27f2fe5.jpeg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This William Mumler photograph shows Mary Todd Lincoln with the faint, ghostlike form of her assassinated husband behind her. One of the most famous examples of 19th-century spirit photography, it reflects both the era’s deep grief after the Civil War and the widespread fascination with attempts to capture the dead on camera." title="mary-todd-william-mumler-spirit-photography" /> Yet for many, the image was incredible proof of what they already wanted to believe: that all those who had died during the American Civil War might not really be so far away. William Mumler’s trial and controversy But not everyone was convinced. In 1869, Mumler was arrested and charged with fraud in New York, accused of exploiting the grief of the bereaved. Crowds packed the courtroom as expert witnesses demonstrated how the “spirits” could be produced through trick photography. And yet, Mumler was acquitted. “He was acquitted because so many people involved in the case – and people on the jury – were spiritualists,” Vernon explains. “It was such a widespread religion that people subscribed to. There were so many people biased towards spiritualism involved in prosecuting him.” Read more | Skip the office and give your money away: a Victorian billionaire’s guide to financial triumph His release spoke volumes about the power of spiritualism. The belief had spread far beyond fringe circles, and counted scientists, writers and politicians among its adherents. Spiritualism across the Atlantic After Mumler’s trial, spirit photography crossed the Atlantic, finding eager audiences in Victorian Britain (which was grappling with the changes caused by industrialisation, and increasing religious doubts) where spiritualism was also flourishing. The movement was bolstered by interest from the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir William Crookes, who believed the dead could be studied as scientifically as any natural phenomenon. Though Mumler’s name eventually faded, his pioneering techniques persisted. Spirit photography survived well into the 20th century, adapting to new technologies while also latching onto new explosions of grief brought about by the First World War. In all, Vernon concludes that there’s a very simple, and human, explanation for the rise of spiritualism, and the success of figures including Mumler. “Spiritualism came at a point in history where people were grieving on a mass scale and wanted to contact the dead.” Alice Vernon was speaking to Jon Bauckham on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation. More from us HistoryExtra members can explore more Victorian history with exclusive content from our archives Was Victorian life really so grim? 5 reasons why the Victorians were 'happy' An appointment at the house of death: the horror of the early Victorian hospital From murder bottles to arsenic wallpaper: 5 hidden killers in Victorian Britain Cricket, cocaine and cocoa houses: 5 ways Victorians spent their free time Not a HistoryExtra member? Explore our latest membership offers
Toilets through time: Victorian lavatories
David Musgrove and Jerry White revisit the avant-garde sewerage systems, shining porcelain cisterns, and unsanitary conditions of the Victorian era
In the fourth episode of Toilets Through Time, we’ve finally reached the age of avant-garde sewerage systems and shining porcelain cisterns: the Victorian era. David Musgrove is joined by historian and author Jerry White, who explains why the period nevertheless saw appalling sanitary conditions that sparked debates about the public health of Britain’s cities – and shares some surprising toilet-based euphemisms.
CW Goodyear introduces US president James Garfield, the 20th man to hold the office, who died after being shot in 1881
US president James Garfield's life is often overshadowed by his untimely death in 1881, as the second president to be assassinated in office. However, his story is now once again in the limelight, thanks to the new Netflix drama Death by Lightning. Historian and biographer CW Goodyear talks to Elinor Evans about a man who, though his time as leader was fleeting, remains a fascinating figure – and explains why there is much more to be remembered about him than simply his final days.
History’s sexiest revolutionary? Meet the mesmerising general whose charms helped win a war
Giuseppe Garibaldi’s courage and charisma made him a hero of Italian unification in the 19th century. Here’s how he became a celebrity who captivated the world
With his sun-bleached auburn hair, heroic exploits and easy charisma, Guiseppe Garibaldi was adored from London to New York, hailed as the man who turned the 19th-century dream of a united Italy into reality. His admirers wore his trademark red shirt, while poets and painters immortalised him in their works. Even Queen Victoria reportedly found him very handsome. But, as historian Dr David Laven explains on the HistoryExtra podcast, Garibaldi’s magnetism was more than skin-deep. His courage, compassion and populist flair made him not only a romantic icon, but the embodiment of the new Italian nation that was taking shape. The fracturing of Italy “Garibaldi is probably the most famous Italian of the 19th century,” says Laven. “He’s famous for a series of events from the late 1840s through to the 1860s, in which he’s one of the key drivers of Italian unification.” Understanding his importance to Italy depends on understanding what the region looked like before unification. “Italy in the 19th century had been divided into many smaller states for a very long while,” Laven explains. For centuries, the peninsula had been a mosaic of duchies, city-states and foreign-ruled territories. The north lay under Austrian control; the Papal States dominated the centre; and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ruled the south. Read more | When did Italian replace Latin as the language of Italy? “Briefly, it was semi-united under Napoleonic rule in the early 19th century, but basically it was a divided peninsula.” It was the fragmented nature of the region that caused the emergence of the Risorgimento (‘the resurgence’), a political and cultural movement seeking national rebirth. It blended liberal reform with revolutionary zeal, and its leaders included not only Garibaldi, but figures such as Giuseppe Mazzini and Camilo Benso, Count Cavour. Garibaldi, as a sailor-turned-soldier whose daring captured the public imagination, was by far the most recognisable face of the movement. But before he became a national hero, Garibaldi was an outlaw. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-526344372-445f05c-e1763032458737.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 19th-century engraving depicts the Battle of Milazzo (17–24 July 1860), fought during the Sicilian campaign of the Risorgimento. Garibaldi’s volunteers, bolstered by Hungarian veterans, clashed with troops of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, securing a crucial victory that opened the way for the unification of Italy." title="Risorgimento. Sicily Conquest. Batlle of Milazo. 17-24 July 1860. Engraving. 19th century." /> Garibaldi’s exile As a young man, Garibaldi joined Giuseppe Mazzini’s radical organisation Young Italy, which plotted to overthrow foreign influence and unite the peninsula under a republican flag. When a revolt failed in 1834, Garibaldi was condemned to death in absentia and fled to South America. But his revolutionary spirit was still very much alive. While in Brazil and Uruguay, Garibaldi fought for independence movements, commanding volunteer forces in small-scale but ferocious conflicts. Read more | 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Napoleonic Wars “He developed [a] reputation while in exile in Latin America …”, Laven explains, “he was a really effective guerrilla fighter and leader.” But that doesn’t mean he was a cold or ruthless guerilla warrior. “He really enjoyed fighting,” Laven notes, “but he’s not a bloodthirsty man. He’s an incredibly kind and decent man. Almost everyone agrees this about Garibaldi. He gets ever so upset about hurt animals.” That slightly strange combination of daring and decency became central to his image. The hero of Italian unification When multiple revolutions to secure constitutional liberty, individual rights, and unity for nations swept through Europe in 1848, Garibaldi returned home to join in. Over the next two decades, he became the military heart of Italian nationalism, leading volunteer armies against far larger foes. His most celebrated campaign came in 1860 with the Spedizione dei Mille (the Expedition of the Thousand), a daring campaign to liberate Sicily and southern Italy from Bourbon rule. With roughly a thousand poorly armed volunteers, Garibaldi defeated royal forces many times the size of their army, and handed control of the south to King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia. When Garibaldi met the man, saluting the monarch and declaring him ‘King of Italy’, it became the symbolic moment of unification that many regard as the birth of modern Italy. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-3353411-1b50bb2-e1763031994908.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 1860 image shows Giuseppe Garibaldi, the legendary nationalist whose daring campaigns helped unify Italy. Revered as the hero of the Risorgimento, Garibaldi became a symbol of popular revolution and the fight for a single Italian nation." title="Giuseppe Garibaldi" /> How the ‘people’s general’ became an unlikely sex symbol Garibaldi’s appeal reached far beyond the battlefield, but why was he so uniquely successful, and able to wield such power and influence? “He was not just a successful leader of men, he’s a successful leader of women too,” Laven says. “To start with, he was dead handsome. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, he has reddish-brown hair, he’s got a lovely smile. He’s sexy.” This particular part of his appeal, says Laven, caused a stir among the upper echelons of society upon his visits to Britain. “Lots of posh women think he’s the perfect bit of rough,” he says, describing Garibaldi as the “perfect sexy fantasy.” Read more | Peaceful war: was the 19th century a time of relative peace? But the revolutionary’s striking good looks weren’t his only weapon. “He also uses language well … he’s quite an inspiring speaker,” says Laven, and that was combined with his penchant for underdog fights. “He's also got this incredible record of bravely fighting against the odds. He was always fighting against bigger armies with ill-equipped troops and pulling it off” In all, Garibaldi was uniquely charismatic, courageous and intelligent. That combination turned him into an international sensation, and he found particular fame in Britain and the United States where bakers sold Garibaldi biscuits, and newspapers compared him to the first US president, George Washington. However, not all of his methods of leadership were so benign, and behind Garibaldi’s fame lay the hard realities of running a rebellion. His armies were volunteer forces, and that meant having the right enforcers around him. “He was very good at picking his lieutenants,” says Laven. “He gets good men around him.” One of those men was Nino Bixio, a fierce and pragmatic officer whose ruthlessness contrasted with Garibaldi’s idealism. “Bixio was basically a bit of a psychopath,” Laven remarks. “When Garibaldi needed someone to be nasty, he could get Bixio to be nasty.” When certain groups or people needed to be repressed, says Laven, “Garibaldi doesn’t go and shoot peasants; Bixio does it.” Delegating such brutality allowed Garibaldi to preserve his image as a noble revolutionary, which was necessary to maintain his power. Ultimately, Garibaldi lived long enough to see his dream realised. By the 1870s, Italy was officially unified under Victor Emmanuel II, and Garibaldi had become its most celebrated son. But, never willing to slot easily into authority, he remained restless, supporting democratic reforms and championing causes of national freedom abroad. Dr David Laven was speaking to Spencer Mizen on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Who was Roscoe Conkling? The real story of how US politics’ ‘spoils system’ met its match
In the turbulent Republican Party of the late 1870s and early 1880s, Roscoe Conkling loomed as the hard-edged master of machine politics. Who was Conkling, and how did he ‘go to war’ with James Garfield, sparking a chain of events that would end with the president’s untimely death?
Netflix drama Death by Lightning has revived interest in the turbulent politics that shaped James Garfield’s brief presidency, and at the heart of that drama stood two Republican powerbrokers – Roscoe Conkling and James Blaine. Their rivalry helped fracture their party and set the stage for Garfield’s rise and the collapse of a corrupt brand of politics known as the 'spoils system'. Conkling was charismatic, theatrical, and ruthless. More importantly, he controlled a powerful faction within the Republican party known as the Stalwarts, whose influence depended on the spoils system – an issue which had flourished unchallenged in the politics of the United States of America since the 1820s. While Death by Lightning is ultimately the story of Garfield’s untimely death in 1881, following his shooting by Charles Guiteau, much of the action derives from this seemingly unsurmountable rift in the Republican party of the time. What was this system, what was Conkling’s role in it, and why was it so important to the assassination of President James Garfield? Here’s the real history. The Stalwarts, the Half-Breeds, and the spoils system Speaking on an upcoming episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, historian and biographer CW Goodyear describes Conkling as “a colourful bantam rooster of a politician” who walked through Congress “like a bird of paradise amid a barnyard of DC fowl”. And as for the system in which he thrived, Goodyear explains that in this era “the civil service, all of the jobs in the federal government, were awarded by politicians to their cronies”. That arrangement allowed corrupt networks to flourish, and created something called the spoils system through which politicians could “basically rig elections” and “bribe people, and then reward places on the public payroll to their loyalists”. Read more | Your guide to the American Civil War These loyalists, in turn, would often “skim money from the public to enrich themselves and give money back to their political patron”. “It created machine-based politics,” says Goodyear, and the Stalwarts were the system’s unrepentant practitioners. The Stalwarts represented one faction of the Republican party of the late 1870s, while their opposition was called the Half-Breeds. “We know how to name them, don't we?” jokes Goodyear. And, as the Republican Convention of 1880 approached, along with a need to nominate the party’s presidential candidate, they were at loggerheads. Who was the real Roscoe Conkling? Roscoe Conkling was a New York senator who also courted controversy and attention in his personal life, explains Goodyear. “He was a ladies’ man who always dressed in myriad bright colours, polka dots and stripes and matching socks. He had his pages followed behind him in a single file like he was a priest.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-1371374203-50fc891-e1762872582952.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This portrait by John F Jarvis, taken after 1868, shows Roscoe Conkling, the influential US senator from New York. A powerful Republican figure of the Reconstruction era, Conkling was known for his commanding oratory and fierce defence of political patronage." title="Roscoe Conkling (1829-1888), American Politician, U.S. Senator from New York, half-length seated Portrait, John F. Jarvis, 1876 after 1868 negative" /> He also cut a distinctive figure with his hairstyle: “He had something they called a Hyperion curl, this single lock of hair that would kind of split his forehead.” Ultimately, says Goodyear, Conkling’s biggest impact was as the florid, eloquent, and incredibly brutal boss of the Stalwarts. And for Conkling and his cronies – who included politician and future US President Chester A Arthur – the spoils system was not corruption, but the proper way to wield power. They aimed to place former president Ulysses S Grant back in the White House for a then unprecedented third term, believing this would let them “extend their style of corruption to all branches of the federal government”. Opposing the Stalwarts were the Half-Breeds, led by a politician named James Blaine, along with other reform-minded Republicans who were desperate to professionalise government service. Senator James Blaine of Maine, a figure Goodyear calls “the first American politician to run on charisma and nothing else”, was widely assumed to be a future president because of his magnetism and charm. Yet, as Goodyear notes, Blaine ran for the Republican nomination for the Presidency five times, “and he never won.” Blaine’s personal feud with Conkling ran even deeper than the factional divide. According to Goodyear, Blaine and Conkling “personally hated each other, long before these factions became a thing”. Despite claiming to oppose Stalwart corruption, the Half-Breeds “also dabbled in spoils politics” and Blaine himself “was seen as being a very corrupt figure as well”. This left the Republican Party bitterly divided, while a third group of reformers insisted upon a need to clean up the civil service and get rid of “the practices that had led to people like Conkling and Blaine”. What happened at the 1880 Republican Convention? By 1880, with a Republican convention approaching, the party was on the verge of political collapse, and Goodyear notes that many Republicans felt their only hope was a universally respected unifier. They converged on one name – ‘The Man from Ohio’, Congressman James A Garfield. Garfield never sought the nomination. Yet at the 1880 convention, after dozens of deadlocked ballots, delegates began spontaneously switching to him. When Wisconsin unexpectedly assigned Garfield enough votes to place him in the running, the Ohio congressman rose and insisted that “no candidate can receive votes without their consent”. Read more | When was the White House built – and why is it white? This refusal, says Goodyear, delivered in the heat of chaos, made Garfield appear sincere and selfless. On the next ballot, delegates elevated him to the nomination. Yet the party remained divided, and Garfield still walked a fine line. To soothe Conkling, Garfield accepted a Stalwart running mate: Chester Arthur. Goodyear calls Arthur “one of the most notoriously corrupt Stalwarts,” noting that as Collector of Customs at the Port of New York Arthur had personally pocketed a proportion of import fees, a perk that (until President Rutherford B Hayes removed him from the post in 1878) had made him immensely wealthy. But while he gave a nod to the Stalwarts faction with Arthur’s appointment, on other fronts, Garfield was ready to play hard ball. Garfield vs Conkling: what happened? Garfield “was very much dancing on the heads of snakes,” says Goodyear, trying to keep both the Half-Breeds and the Stalwarts happy. “And then the predictable happened, which was that the Stalwarts didn't get the jobs they want. “And Roscoe Conkling, this embroidered turkey of a politician, basically waged war against Garfield.” Once Garfield entered the White House in March 1881, he refused to hand Conkling control of federal appointments. Conkling was basically “trying to use veto power to put his own cronies in the jobs he thinks Garfield promised him,” says Goodyear, and the Stalwart leader retaliated by trying to block Garfield’s nominees. But Garfield held firm. After conspiring with leading Stalwarts, including Arthur who by then was Vice President, Conkling responded with what Goodyear characterises as “a huge miscalculation”. “Conkling and one of his cronies, Tom Platt, resigned from the Senate,” says Goodyear. The pair were fully confident that the New York legislature would immediately reappoint them. But this did not have the desired effect of forcing Garfield’s hand. Instead, Garfield was able to rely on support from other Stalwarts who moved in defiance of Conkling, which allowed Garfield to appoint the people he wanted. Conkling and Platt were not re-elected, laying bare the extent of their misjudgement, and no longer beholden to the brutal politics of the Stalwarts, Garfield now had much freer rein. How the spoils system spawned a tragedy It was soon afterwards that tragedy struck. A mentally unstable office-seeker named Charles Guiteau, immersed in the logic of the spoils system, had convinced himself that murdering Garfield would make Arthur president and earn him diplomatic office. Goodyear notes that Guiteau was wrapped up in the belief that Arthur “would be so grateful” that he would reward Guiteau with a prestigious position as an ambassador. Guiteau shot Garfield in July 1881, and the president suffered for 80 days while being cared for by his wife, Lucretia Garfield, before dying from infection. Garfield’s death ignited national outrage. According to Goodyear, reformers used him as “a fallen saint, a fallen hero,” turning Garfield’s cause of civil service reform into “the grassroots fiery political movement in the United States”. How did the spoils system end? The final chapter in the story of the spoils system belonged to Chester Arthur. Expected to be Conkling’s puppet, he was instead transformed by grief and conscience. Goodyear explains that Arthur “used it as an opportunity to turn his life around”, ultimately championing and signing the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883, the first major law to professionalise federal employment and dismantle the old system that had created him. Read more | Who were the tycoons of the Gilded Age? Meet the ruthless 'robber barons' who made millions Arthur’s redemption was so complete that, as Goodyear describes, “no one ever entered the White House more widely distrusted and no one ever left it more generally respected.” CW Goodyear is the author of President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier (Simon and Schuster, 2023). Goodyear was talking to Elinor Evans on the HistoryExtra podcast Death by Lightning is streaming on Netflix now. For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians, history TV shows and films to stream tonight, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week
Trailblazing and fearless, Nellie Bly broke every rule in Victorian journalism. Bob Nicholson unpacks the life of a woman whose headline-grabbing exploits made her a household name
In the late 19th century, when female reporters were largely confined to newspapers' society pages, Nellie Bly's daring investigations and headline-grabbing exploits made her a household name. From her audacious exposé from inside a New York asylum – after convincing doctors she was insane – to becoming the 'real Phileas Fogg' by racing around the globe, Bly’s adventures captivated the world. Historian Bob Nicholson tells Kev Lochun more about her audacious brand of stunt journalism.
Frederick Douglass escaped enslavement in 1838 – but here's why he was still far from true freedom
When Frederick Douglass crossed the Mason-Dixon line, he had achieved his escape from enslavement. But the first years of his freedom were marked by fear, isolation and the lingering reach of the system from which he had fled
In the autumn of 1838, a young man in his early twenties boarded a northbound train from Maryland, USA. Dressed as a sailor and carrying borrowed identity papers, he looked to be just another person in the busy crowd of travellers who were heading out across the United States. Within a day he had reached New York. As he stepped out into the city in the northern state, he left behind a lifetime of enslavement. The man was Frederick Douglass (at the time still known by his birth name, Frederick Bailey). His escape would go on to become one of the best-known stories of the 19th-century abolitionist movement, but in the moment, it was a desperate risk. For a man like Douglass, freedom was certainly not a guarantee of safety. It wasn’t until nearly a decade later that Douglass would find himself living without the constant shadow of his history looming over him, threatening to pull him back in. In those first years, Douglass was still living in fear. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, academic Clare Elliott explains why. Frederick Douglass’s early years Frederick Douglass was born into enslavement, growing up in a plantation in Talbot County, Maryland, separated from his family. But when, precisely, he was born is uncertain. “He thought that he was born in 1818,” explains Elliott. “But there's always a question mark over the birth of enslaved people.” Douglass’s early years, up until the cusp of adulthood, were marked by shocking deprivation and violence. “There’s a horrible and often quoted passage,” Elliott notes, “where Douglass talks about himself and the other enslaved children eating mush from a trough like so many pigs.” Read more | The true story of Charles Guiteau and a president’s assassination Scenes like these, described vividly in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, demonstrate the physical and psychological hardship that Douglass was subjected to. By his teens, Douglass had been hired out to work in Baltimore for a white couple named Hugh and Sophia Auld, where Sophia began teaching him the alphabet. Subsequently, he continued to teach himself in secret using discarded newspapers and copybooks. For an enslaved person like him, literacy was absolutely an act of tacit rebellion. The plan for escape By his early twenties, Douglass had met Anna Murray, a free Black woman living in Baltimore. “She was able to provide some financial assistance for that [1838] escape,” Elliott says. “And he also borrowed merchant seamen’s papers, which allow him to posture as a free Black seaman.” Read more | History’s smallest billionaire? Meet the tiny titan who was, briefly, the richest man alive So, disguising himself as a sailor, Douglass embarked on a risky journey north via train and ferry. By 4 September 1838, Douglass had arrived in New York City. But freedom, he soon realised, had its own dangers. “In 1838, he was not free: he [had] escaped,” says Elliott. “And his response to that escape was not one of joy, not one of satisfaction. It was not even relief … he had a crushing sense of anxiety.” Even in the so-called free states, Fugitive Slave Laws allowed enslavers to reclaim runaways. Slave catchers operated openly, and many abolitionist safe houses were under surveillance. “He said that he felt insecure and deeply lonely,” Elliott explains, “and he was repeating this mantra to himself, saying: ‘Trust no man.’” Read more | Who was Chester Arthur – and what was his relationship with James Garfield? It was in New York that the fugitive Frederick Bailey would first change his name, choosing the surname Johnson, before becoming Frederick Douglass upon travelling to Massachusetts. “He took that name, Douglass, to change his identity,” says Elliott. The name was a reference to The Lady of the Lake, an 1810 romantic poem by Sir Walter Scott, and it also shielded him from capture. Still, Douglass lived in a state of anxiety for nearly a decade. “He was not really free,” Elliott says. “Not until his manumission was bought.” Douglass’ journey across the Atlantic In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, and it made him internationally famous. Though it brought some level of income, and attention to the cause of abolition, it also brough further threat; fame meant that capture was once again a real possibility. To protect himself, he travelled to Britain and Ireland to lecture on abolition. The journey was pivotal for two reasons. Foremost, it was in Britain that he officially became a free man. In Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the north of England, Douglass met two Quaker sisters-in-law, Anna and Ellen Richardson. They were driven to help his cause, and succeeded. “They wrote to his master, Thomas Auld, and asked to be able to raise funds and pay for his freedom,” Elliott says. “They sent him home to the US in 1847, a free man.” Read more | Who was the real Lucretia Garfield? Inside the forgotten life of a fleeting First Lady Second, he learned that the treatment of Black people across the Atlantic wasn’t the same as in the US. “He was treated much more like an equal,” Elliott explains. “He noticed a difference, and he went back with a fire in his belly to do more for the abolitionist cause.” Why was Britain so different? By the mid-19th century, slavery had been abolished across the British empire for over a decade, and public opinion (shaped by campaigns led by figures such as William Wilberforce) had turned decisively against it. Boston Tea Party: Igniting a Revolution Member exclusive | Discover the causes, tensions, and violent origins of the Boston Tea Party. Join leading experts as they explain the key players involved in the plan – and why tea was so important to the story. Listen to all episodes now The return to America When Douglass returned to the United States in 1847, he did as a newly free man and a public intellectual. And the contrast he observed between his reception in Britain versus his treatment in America sharpened his resolve. “His time as a lecturer, an orator and a campaigner for abolition picked up when he returned to the US, and he felt an obligation that came with this freedom,” Elliott says. In 1847, he founded his own newspaper, The North Star – a reference to the celestial marker that many enslaved people used for navigation when escaping from the South – and became one of the most prominent voices in the American abolitionist movement. His speeches often attacked the hypocrisy of a republic that was built on the idea of liberty, while upholding human bondage. Over the following decades, Douglass advised presidents – including Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield. He also campaigned for women’s suffrage, and served as a diplomat. Douglass knew what it meant to be enslaved and to be free, and the anxiety of the threshold in-between. With that experience, and with his gifts, he became one of the leading lights of the American abolitionist movement. Clare Elliott was speaking to Paul Bloomfield on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Who was the real Lucretia Garfield? Inside the forgotten life of a fleeting First Lady
Lucretia Garfield, also known as Crete, was the wife of US President James A Garfield and served briefly as First Lady in 1881. She was admired for her stoic devotion during the president’s long illness that followed his wounding by assassin Charles Guiteau (as depicted in the Netflix drama Death by Lightning), and for her later efforts to preserve his papers and legacy
When US President James A Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau in July 1881, the nation’s focus turned not only to the wounded president and his successor Chester A Arthur, but also to his wife, Lucretia Garfield, sometimes known to history as ‘Crete’. She was with him for more than two months as he died, dividing her time between his sickroom in Washington, DC, and the New Jersey seaside house where doctors hoped the air might help him recover. Contemporary newspapers heaped praise upon her for her strength and devotion, at a moment of personal and national anxiety. But her stoicism in the face of personal tragedy is just one part of Lucretia’s story – part of which is dramatised in the Netflix series, Death by Lightning, which follows the assassination of President Garfield. Behind her composure was a life of intellectual interest and loyalty that was present long before she became First Lady. Who was Lucretia ‘Crete’ Garfield? Lucretia Rudolph Garfield is remembered in history as the wife of James A Garfield, the 20th President of the United States. She served as First Lady for only six months before her husband died of fatal wounds following an attack by assassin Charles Guiteau. She had previously been a teacher and scholar, and retained passion for education and literature throughout her life. Her poise during his slow death earned wide admiration across the United States, and in the decades that followed she became a guardian of his papers and legacy. Read more | How many US presidents died in office? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-1410610111-5277a01-e1762429347504.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This late 19th-century portrait shows Lucretia Garfield, wife of U.S. President James A. Garfield. Known for her intellect and dignity, she brought refinement to the White House during her husband’s brief presidency in 1881." title="A portrait of Lucretia Garfield, wife of President Garfield." /> Lucretia Garfield’s early life and education Lucretia Rudolph was born on 19 April 1832 in Garrettsville, Ohio. She was the daughter of Zebulon and Arabella Rudolph. Her father, a carpenter-farmer and local politician, believed in the power of education and ensured that all his children studied beyond the basic level then available in rural Ohio. Early friends remembered her as a serious figure even from a young age. She was well-read and chose to spend her time studying. She was once quoted as saying: “Books are more faithful companions than the crowds that pass.” Read more | The 5 most notorious presidents in US history In 1850, in her late teenage years, she enrolled at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College), one of the few co-educational colleges in the region. Lucretia studied philosophy, literature and science, and impressed her teachers with her diligence and clarity of thought. Among her classmates was James A Garfield, a handful of months older and already known for his energy and oratory skills. Their friendship, formed through shared academic interests, soon began. Lucretia and James Garfield’s marriage and family life Lucretia and James’ relationship developed slowly and in a non-linear fashion. They were briefly engaged, then separated for several years before reconciling. They married on 11 November 1858 in Hiram, after a long and sometimes hesitant courtship, with his sociability and ambition often standing in contrast to her more reserved nature. The couple began married life in modest circumstances. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Garfield entered military service while Lucretia managed the household and their growing family. In his absence, she handled finances, kept detailed household accounts, and offered political observations to James via her letters. They had seven children, five of whom survived to adulthood: Harry, James, Mary, Irvin, and Abram. Their marriage wasn’t without challenge; during his service, Garfield had an extramarital affair with a woman named Lucia Calhoun in Washington, DC. He later admitted the indiscretion and was forgiven by his wife. By the 1870s, James having returned from war, their marriage had become close to an equal partnership. Garfield consulted her on political decisions and drafts of speeches, and she often edited his work. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-1177463808-b82af2f-e1762429745125.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 1881 print depicts President James A Garfield with his family, published with the permission of his wife, Lucretia, and was created shortly after his assassination." title="James A Garfield and Family, Respectfully Dedicated to and Published by the Permission of Lucretia R Garfield, Published by JH Buffords Sons, 1881" /> Lucretia’s time as First Lady of the United States When Garfield was elected president in 1880, Lucretia was reluctant to step into her new role as First Lady. She valued privacy and found the ‘high society’ of Gilded Age America artificial, though she soon established her own good reputation. Her receptions were smaller than those of her predecessors, but more personal. Read more | "Violence and American politics have gone hand in hand right from the beginning" She took particular interest in restoring and cataloguing the White House’s historical furnishings, many of which had fallen into disrepair. Her plans for preservation and displaying items anticipated later efforts to treat the residence as a national museum. She also began a small library, for the use of White House staff and guests. Shortly after her husband’s inauguration in March 1881, Lucretia contracted malaria and was sent to the seaside city of Long Branch, New Jersey, to recover. It was there, in July 1881, that she received a telegram containing news of an attack on her husband. Lucretia Garfield’s reaction to the assassination of President Garfield On 2 July 1881, President Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau at a Washington, DC, railway station. The president was seriously wounded but still alive as he was taken to the White House to recover. Despite her illness, Lucretia travelled immediately from New Jersey. For more than ten weeks she kept an almost continuous vigil at his side. She read aloud from Shakespeare and from the Bible, selecting passages that spoke to ideas of stoicism and courage. The public sympathy for Lucretia was immense. Newspapers bore reports of her composure, and thousands of telegrams of support arrived. Read more | 6 shocking presidential scandals that rocked the White House When Garfield was moved to Long Branch in September in the hope that sea air would aid his recovery, Lucretia oversaw the journey, travelling by his side when he was moved in his sickbed. On 19 September 1881, when Garfield died from infection caused by his wounds. Lucretia was by his bedside. Garfield was the first US president to die following an attack by an assassin since Abraham Lincoln. At the funeral in Cleveland, Ohio – Garfield had served on the Ohio state senate, forever cementing his link to the state – crowds lined the streets in solemn respect as her carriage passed. What was Lucretia Garfield’s life like after her husband’s death? Following her husband’s death, Lucretia withdrew from public life. She refused interviews and declined invitations to political events, focusing instead on being with their children, and tasking herself with the preservation of Garfield’s writings. Read more | 50 assassinations that changed the world In 1882, she purchased a home in Cleveland which she named Lawnfield. While there she began organising her husband’s papers and correspondence, creating the first presidential library. Her careful cataloguing efforts later provided the foundation for the James A Garfield Memorial Library. Lucretia also oversaw the design and construction of the James A Garfield Memorial in Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery, completed in 1890. She personally selected the artists and approved inscriptions, insisting that the building include both a tomb and a public museum. It became one of the first presidential monuments to incorporate an educational space. Lucretia Garfield’s later years Lucretia never commented publicly on Charles Guiteau, the assassin. Neither did she attend his trial, or his execution in 1882. In her later years she divided her time between Cleveland and the West Coast. She remained interested in education and social reform, supporting local schools and charities but avoiding public attention. During the First World War, she followed events closely and corresponded with her son Harry, who was involved in relief work. Lucretia Garfield died on 13 March 1918, aged 85, at her home in Pasadena, California. She was buried beside her husband in the Garfield Memorial. Death by Lightning is streaming on Netflix now. For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians, history TV shows and films to stream tonight, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week.
Who was the real Chester Arthur – and what was his relationship with James Garfield?
When US President James Garfield was assassinated in 1881, his Vice President, Chester A Arthur, assumed the presidency amid widespread distrust. But once viewed as a party insider tied to political corruption, Arthur surprised the nation
When US President James Garfield was shot in July 1881, few Americans expected his vice-president, Chester A Arthur, to be able to manage the crisis that followed. Known as a New York Republican party bureaucrat, with a background in patronage and machine politics, Arthur had little public confidence backing him. But when Garfield died of his wounds later that year, Arthur was thrust into the spotlight as the 21st President of the United States. Arthur story simmers in the background of Netflix’s 2025 drama Death by Lightning, the story of the assassination of Garfield (played by Michael Shannon) at the hands of frustrated political hopeful Charles Guiteau (played by Matthew Macfadyen). In Death by Lightning, Chester Arthur (played by Nick Offerman) is portrayed as something of a low man pushed in high office, a Republican enforcer famed for his carousing. But how does real history remember him? Who was the real Chester Arthur? Prior to becoming the 21st US President, serving from 1881–85, Chester Alan Arthur had been a lawyer and political organiser from New York, and was closely associated with the patronage system of the Republican Party. As president, however, his administration is perhaps best known for passing the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act – ending the easily abused ‘spoils system’ of political patronage that he had once supported. His presidency is often viewed as a meaningful step toward cleaner government and a more professional civil service. Arthur was born on 5 October 1829 in Fairfield, Vermont, as one of nine children. His father, Reverend William Arthur, was a Baptist minister from Northern Ireland. His mother, Malvina Stone Arthur, came from a New England farming family. He attended Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he graduated in 1848. He taught at a school for several years before studying law in New York City. In 1854, in his mid-twenties, he was admitted to the bar. Arthur’s early legal work included a notable civil rights case. In 1855, he represented Elizabeth Jennings, a Black schoolteacher who had been forced off a streetcar reserved for white passengers. Arthur won the case, helping to bring an end to racial segregation on New York’s public transit system. Why was Chester Arthur so powerful in the Republican party? When the American Civil War began in 1861, Arthur joined the Union cause and would be eventually appointed Quartermaster General for the State of New York, where he oversaw the supply and organisation of troops. He performed the role effectively and established a reputation for reliability and administrative skill. His work brought him into contact with New York’s Republican political machine, led by Senator Roscoe Conkling, who headed the Stalwart faction of the party. The Stalwarts believed in the traditional system of political patronage (known as the spoils system) under which party loyalty was rewarded with public appointments. In 1871, Arthur was appointed Collector of the Port of New York, one of the most powerful federal positions in the country. The office was responsible for collecting customs revenues and appointing thousands of employees. Arthur used the post to strengthen his political connections, and became a well-known figure in New York society. Though some critics accused him of using the office to entrench party interests, he was never personally accused of corruption. In 1878, the incumbent US President, Rutherford B Hayes, who had promised reform, removed Arthur from the position as part of his efforts to reduce the influence of politics over what should have been administrative positions. Though a political setback, Arthur remained loyal to Conkling and the Stalwart faction. How did Chester Arthur become Garfield’s running mate? By 1880, the Republican Party was divided. The Stalwarts, led by Conkling, supported the return of former president Ulysses S Grant for a third term. The reform-minded Half-Breed faction, led by Maine senator James Blaine, wanted new leadership and a move away from patronage politics. When the Republican convention in Chicago rolled around in June 1880, there was deadlock. Days passed. So did 35 ballots. A canny compromise was needed, and that was ‘The Man From Ohio’, James Garfield: a senior congressman and former Union general. Read more | The 5 most notorious presidents in US history When Garfield was nominated for president, Arthur, representing the Stalwart faction, was chosen as his running mate to balance the ticket. The compromise proved successful. The Garfield–Arthur ticket won the 1880 election by a narrow margin, defeating the Democratic nominee, Winfield Scott Hancock, and securing a Republican victory after a closely contested campaign. Arthur’s nomination had helped unite the party’s factions, at least temporarily, behind a single ticket. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/Death-by-Lightning-Split-WL-AN-1-afd7447-e1762441343700.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="US President James Garfiled as played by Michael Shannon in Netflix drama Death by Lightning, and a photo of the real James Garfield" title="US President James Garfiled as played by Michael Shannon in Netflix drama Death by Lightning, and the real James Garfield (Photos via Netflix & Getty)" /> James Garfield and Chester Arthur’s relationship: did they get along? Though James Garfield and Chester Arthur were allies on the Republican ticket, they had little in common. Garfield was in favour of party and government reform, and sought to reduce the power of party bosses, while Arthur was deeply entrenched within the political system that Garfield wanted to change. The two men had a distant working relationship. Arthur’s main duty as vice-president was to preside over the Senate, and he had little influence on administration policy. After the election, tensions between Garfield and Arthur’s Stalwart faction came to the fore over the appointment of the Collector of the Port of New York (the same office that Arthur had once held). Garfield nominated William H Robertson, a Half-Breed reformer, to the position. Conkling and his allies opposed the nomination, arguing that it undermined their influence in New York politics. Arthur, out of past loyalty to Conkling and seeking to protect his own reputation as a Stalwart, supported the protest against Garfield’s decision. The dispute became public, and was damaging to the party unity, but ultimately Conkling’s protest failed. The episode weakened the Stalwarts and left Arthur politically isolated. He might have remained that way, had it not been for the actions of a man named Charles Guiteau. On 2 July 1881, only four months after taking office, Garfield was shot at a Washington DC railway station. The shooter, Guiteau, was a political office-seeker who claimed to be acting on behalf of the Stalwart cause. “I am a Stalwart,” Guiteau shouted, “Arthur is now President of the United States.” Read more | 50 assassinations that changed the world How did Chester Arthur react to Garfield’s assassination? Although Chester Arthur had no connection to the assassin, many Americans recognised that he stood to benefit from the crime. Public suspicion turned toward him, and he received hostile letters and threats. He was hurt by the accusations and strongly denied any sympathies for Guiteau, rejecting the idea that he wished Garfield harm. Garfield survived for almost three months after the shooting, before succumbing to his wounds on 19 September 1881. News of the president’s death reached Arthur in New York, and he was sworn in at his home in the early hours of the next morning. But, from all his disagreements with Garfield, public confidence in Arthur was on the floor. Read more | Who was the real Lucretia Garfield? Inside the forgotten life of a fleeting First Lady How did Garfield’s assassination shape Chester Arthur’s time as president? Aware of the doubts surrounding him after Garfield's assassination, Chester Arthur actively sought to position himself as a unifying figure of fairness and restraint. His administration was moderate, orderly and more independent than had been expected. His most significant reform was his support for the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. This introduced competitive examinations for many federal jobs, and made it illegal to dismiss employees for political reasons. It marked the beginning of a professional civil service in the United States. Although it was Garfield’s supporters who had pushed for reform, it was Arthur, once a beneficiary and proponent of the patronage system, who signed the bill and enforced it. It was a sign of his seriousness to protect Garfield’s wishes after his death. Read more | "Violence and American politics have gone hand in hand right from the beginning" In other measures, Arthur began rebuilding the US Navy, which had fallen into decline since the Civil War. His administration authorised the construction of new steel warships and established the basis for a modern fleet. He also undertook a renovation of the White House, bringing a new sense of formality and remaking it as a symbol of political and social importance. Arthur also vetoed an early version of the Chinese Exclusion Act that would have imposed a 20-year ban on immigration, which he argued violated treaty agreements. Congress later passed a revised version with a 10-year ban, which Arthur signed into law. In all, Arthur was widely regarded as a careful and pragmatic president. His administration was free of major scandal, and his measured style served to restore some measure of public trust in the political system. Arthur’s declining health and the end of his presidency In 1882, Arthur was diagnosed with Bright’s disease, a chronic kidney condition that was then incurable. He kept the diagnosis private, but it affected his energy and outlook. Figures close to him noted that he seemed tired and subdued. By 1884, his political position had weakened further. Despite his best efforts, reformers remained suspicious of his past, while Stalwarts felt betrayed by his role in the reform. Recognising the facts at hand, Arthur made little effort to seek re-nomination. The Republican Party chose James G Blaine as its presidential nominee instead, who went on to lose to Grover Cleveland. Arthur then retired to New York City, living quietly in a brownstone on Lexington Avenue. He died soon afterwards, on 18 November 1886, aged 57. Upon his death, even his former critics acknowledged the integrity and restraint that he had brought to the highest office of the United States of America. For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians and ranked by you, history TV shows and films to stream tonight, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week