Rutherford B. Hayes - Bibliography

Ari Hoogenboom, Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President (Lawrence, Kans., 1995), is the best biography of the nineteenth president, as Hoogenboom's The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes (Lawrence, Kans., 1988), is the best overall account of his administration. Arthur Bishop, ed., Rutherford B. Hayes, 1822–1893 (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., 1969), contains a useful chronology of Hayes's life and lengthy excerpts from his most important state papers. T. Harry Williams, ed., Hayes: The Diary of a President, 1875–1881 (New York, 1964), affords the best insight into his character and personality.

Keith Ian Polakoff, The Politics of Inertia: The Election of 1876 and the End of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge, La., 1973), details the disputed election of 1876 and its settlement. William Gillette, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869–1879 (Baton Rouge, La., 1979), is critical of Hayes's southern policy. Terry L. Seip, The South Returns to Congress: Men, Economic Measures, and Intersectional Relationships, 1868–1879 (Baton Rouge, La., 1983), compares the voting records of southern Democrats and Republicans of the Reconstruction era. James M. McPherson, "Coercion or Conciliation? Abolitionists Debate President Hayes's Southern Policy," in New England Quarterly 39 (1966), illustrates how frustrating this intractable problem could be for those who cared deeply about it. Vincent P. De Santis, Republicans Face the Southern Question: The New Departure Years, 1877–1897 (Baltimore, 1959), is an excellent account of the Republican attempts to find a substitute for their failed Reconstruction program.

Ari Hoogenboom, Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement, 1865–1883 (Urbana, Ill., 1961), is the best general account of the civil service reform movement from 1865 through the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883. John G. Sproat, The Best Men: Liberal Reformers in the Gilded Age (New York, 1968), incisively analyzes the liberal reformers who had so much influence on Hayes. Hans L. Trefousse, Carl Schurz: A Biography (Knoxville, Tenn., 1982), is an excellent biography of the cabinet member closest to Hayes. David M. Jordan, Roscoe Conkling of New York: Voice in the Senate (Ithaca, N.Y., 1971), ably portrays one of Hayes's principal opponents.

Robert V. Bruce, 1877: Year of Violence (Indianapolis, Ind., 1959), is a lively account of the great railroad strike. Walter T. K. Nugent, Money and American Society, 1865–1880 (New York, 1968), presents the most lucid account of the currency debates after the Civil War. Milton Plesur, America's Outward Thrust: Approaches to Foreign Affairs, 1865–1890 (DeKalb, Ill., 1971), treats Hayes as one of the forerunners of the more aggressive McKinley and Roosevelt.

Recent works include Ari Hoogenboom, Rutherford B. Hayes: One of the Good Colonels (Abilene, Tex., 2000), and Hans L. Trefousse, Rutherford B. Hayes (New York, 2002).