num_pages: 369
description: Stewart Holbrook, who wrote the 2nd in the Mainstream of America Series books, The Age of Moguls, has added a 10th volume with his assembly of personalities who left their mark on America. Visionaries, crackpots, fanatics, dreamers, suffragettes, temperance workers, be-sloganned devotees of betterment in marriage, religion, sex, alcohol, labor relations, penal codes &amp; the treatment of mental illness rub shoulders in a book which encompasses the American dream of Utopia, sobriety &amp; the pursuit of happiness. The shouting &amp; axe-swinging reformer, Carrie Nation, splintered saloon mirrors. At Sherrill, NY, John Humphrey Noyes, founder of the Putney Corporation of Perfectionists, fostered "complex marriage"--an apt description, since fidelity &amp; exclusiveness in matrimony were frowned upon. Laura Bridgman, Louis Dwight, Dorothea Dix, Susan B. Anthony &amp; Mrs Stanton fought their mercurial &amp; protracted battles--usually in defense of the rights of others: the deaf, the blind, the insane &amp; the weaker sex. Holbrook's summation of these prophets of Excelsior should interest anyone with even a flickering interest in the history of the country &amp; the evolution of the society we know.--Kirkus (edited)
language: English
title: Dreamers of the American Dream
titlecomplete: Dreamers of the American Dream
genres: History
ratings_count: 7
series: Mainstream of America
publisher: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (Garden City, NY)