James A. Garfield: The American Presidents Series: The 20th President, 1881 [Hardcover]

Ira Rutkow (Author), Arthur M. Schlesinger (Editor)

Book Description

Series: American Presidents | Publication Date: May 30, 2006

The ambitious self-made man who reached the pinnacle of American politics--only to be felled by an assassin's bullet and to die at the hands of his doctors

James A. Garfield was one of the Republican Party's leading lights in the years following the Civil War. Born in a log cabin, he rose to become a college president, Union Army general, and congressman--all by the age of thirty-two. Embodying the strive-and-succeed spirit that captured the imagination of Americans in his time, he was elected president in 1880. It is no surprise that one of his biographers was Horatio Alger.

Garfield's term in office, however, was cut tragically short. Just four months into his presidency, a would-be assassin approached Garfield at the Washington, D.C., railroad station and fired a single shot into his back. Garfield's bad luck was to have his fate placed in the care of arrogant physicians who did not accept the new theory of antisepsis. Probing the wound with unwashed and occasionally manure-laden hands, Garfield's doctors introduced terrible infections and brought about his death two months later.

Ira Rutkow, a surgeon and historian, offers an insightful portrait of Garfield and an unsparing narrative of the medical crisis that defined and destroyed his presidency. For all his youthful ambition, the only mark Garfield would make on the office would be one of wasted promise.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One of America's least remembered Presidents, Garfield (1831-1881) is convincingly but briefly sketched in this fascinating account of his life and death. Garfield was born in a Cuyahoga County, Ohio log cabin, and his father died when he was two. After a variety if menial jobs in childhood, a rigorous determination to be educated, and a short stint as a Civil War officer, Garfield embarked on a a Congressional career. The intricacies of post- Reconstruction politics dominated his stint there, as well as his presidential campaign, and Rutkow gives an accomplished narrative of the debates of the day. What sets this book apart from other accounts is its its rigorous analysis of the assassination attempt, and the attendant medical mishandlings which led to his death a mere six months after taking office in January of 1881. Rutkow (Bleeding Blue and Grey: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine) is a clinical professor of surgery; he offers a brilliant summary of contemporary medical practices, and chronicles the decline of the President's health with informative (if gory) exactness. The material of the final third of the book is clearly the area of Rutkow's expertise, and the vibrant details and analysis contained there is what makes this an unorthodox but ultimately intriguing example of minor Presidential biography.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

James A. Garfield was part of a string of generally forgotten, late-nineteenth-century presidents bookended between war hero U. S. Grant and charismatic Teddy Roosevelt. His was one of the briefest administrations; the second murdered president, he died (1881) only six months after assuming the office. This latest entry in the American Presidents series is by an unexpected author, a professor of surgery. Consequently, what is not unexpected is his emphasis on medical practice: specifically, the cause and protraction of Garfield's dying--as reconstructed here, truly a horror story. The author cogently tracks the ambitious Garfield's life from Ohio farm boy, to college student and teacher, to scholar, to politician, and to president. Garfield's lengthy death struggle, following his shooting in a Washington, D.C., train station, stemmed from widespread infection, a direct result of unclean doctor's fingers and instruments. As Garfield lay for weeks on what would be his deathbed, "he was rotting from the inside out." Although Garfield's "accomplishments as president were few," he did hold the supreme office in the land and thus deserves this sensitive biography. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; 1 edition (May 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080506950X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805069501
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ira Rutkow is a general surgeon and medical historian. After graduating from Union College (NY), he earned his medical degree from St. Louis University. While completing training as a general surgeon, Rutkow also received a master and doctorate in public health from the Johns Hopkins University.

He is the author of seven books, most recently Seeking the Cure: A History of Medicine in America (Scribner, 2010). Rutkow's other works include James A. Garfield (2006), part of Times Books' American Presidents series edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr; Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine (2005); American Surgery: An Illustrated History (1998); Surgery: An Illustrated History (1993), named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; and the two volume The History of Surgery in the United States (1992 and 1988). In addition to his historical writings, he has edited numerous medical textbooks, including Socioeconomics of Surgery (1989), and authored journal articles and book chapters on various surgical techniques.

Rutkow is a recipient of the 1994 American Medical Writers Association "Medical Book Award," and the 2005 Fletcher Pratt Literary Award of the Civil War Round Table of New York, Rutkow has been inducted into The Johns Hopkins University's "Society of Scholars," and awarded Union College's Founders' Medal. He is listed in Marquis Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare.

He and his wife divide their time between New York City and their farm in the Hudson Valley.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Garfield: A Presidency Unfulfilled, July 9, 2006

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T. Whalen (Allentown, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: James A. Garfield: The American Presidents Series: The 20th President, 1881 (Hardcover)

In the grade school litany of the names of our nation's leaders, James Garfield does not even merit a pause. Amidst Washington, Adams, Jackson and Lincoln, then Roosevelt and Eisenhower later, the twentieth President gets little more in even High School U.S. History than does Pierce or Fillmore. Yet he was a complex and accomplished individual, a General in the Army and a most skilled politician.

Rutkow is a physician, and an accomplished author. He brings the eye of the surgeon to the treatment of the President after the assassination attempt while concisely reviewing his early life and run to the presidency with aplomb. At a time when the subject of errors in medicine is much with us, it is sobering to read of the "treatment" of the highest elected official. Rutkow validly makes the point that President Garfield was not simply maltreated: he was killed by the physicians watching over him, primarily one eclectic and ego-driven surgeon. Had Garfield suffered the same bullet wound in 2006 he might have been discharged from the emergency room and lived to a ripe old age.

Beyond this tome, the entire "American Presidents" series edited by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. now numbers 33 volumes and is a collective treasure providing brief but well written biographies of the men who have led our country.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Garfield's Lost Legacy Explored, July 27, 2006

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Craig M. Farnham (Waterbury, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: James A. Garfield: The American Presidents Series: The 20th President, 1881 (Hardcover)

Once again I found myself enjoying the strange politics of America's Gilded Age as I was introduced to a man who, up to this point, had remained a dim figure in my mind: someone who was famous only for his very short term as one of this nation's Chief Executives. It turns out that James A. Garfield did exist, and he was more than a footnote in history. He was a leading Republican (always a party man) who stood for a brief moment as the chosen voice of "the people" (or at least the voice of a very splintered Republican party).

Party politics was the defining, big-picture issue as Garfield came into the Presidency. Following U.S. Grant's term, which was tarnished by scandals, the men who held the highest office were by necessity forced to discuss (if not actually devote themselves to) civil service reform. Of course this only led to further deal-making and intrigue as both parties (a demoralized Democratic party that hadn't had a president in the White House since Andrew Johnson, and a Republican party at odds with itself over which faction should be in control) tried to vie for offices of importance. Enter James A. Garfield, a man who would, by his assassination, become a martyr to civil service reform.

All this is easily found in most grade school history books though. What the author, Ira Rutkow, does in this fine biography is outline not only the political forces at work behind the rise and fall of the Garfield presidency, but the conditions of American medicine at the time...conditions that directly impacted the death of America's 20th President. The chapters that immediately follow the attempt made on Garfield's life examine the care he was given by his doctors and the unsanitary methods used (methods that, as a reader, I found both interesting and grueling). One wonders how Garfield would have faired had he lived in a later century.

Mr. Rutkow has done a very good job of bringing this unknown, little-remembered president back to life, if only for awhile. "For who was Garfield," Thomas Wolfe asked, "and who had seen him in the streets of life?" Here, finally, we have an answer.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, if different entry in this series., February 26, 2011

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J. Dykstra (Roswell, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: James A. Garfield: The American Presidents Series: The 20th President, 1881 (Hardcover)

As many have pointed out, this entry in the series is somewhat different because it was written by a doctor, and as such, focuses a good deal on the medical issues that led to President Garfield's death. I really enjoyed this somewhat different take on a president. To be sure, the introductory material dealing with President Garfield's youth and pre-presidential days was fairly standard and informative. He was an amazing character who came from humble beginnings to be a very well-read and eloquent politician. Most people probably don't realize that he was one of those presidents like Hoover who was seen as sort of a genius or star figure that held a lot of potential. Unfortunately, he had one of the shortest tenures as president because of the assassination attempt that happened so early in his tenure. The event and its results are well-detailed in this book. As it turns out, the President suffered what today would have been a non-fatal shot. Due to the relative lack of acceptance of medical advances at the time, a string of unfortunate treatments and procedures took place that led to infection and a prolonged painful and unfortunate decline towards death for President Garfield. The coverage of all of this, while sad, is also interesting. An additional side topic that gets briefly mentioned is the difference of opinion between Garfield and Vice President Arthur who was not well thought of but gained some respect in his own right after becoming president after the death of Garfield. All in all, this is one of the more informative entries to the American President Series and a good summary of a very interesting but mostly-forgotten president.