Congress and the King of Frauds: Corruption and the Credit Mobilier Scandal at the Dawn of the Gilded Age

The Credit Mobilier scandal rocked Washington in 1873. It ruined reputations, contributed to a massive Republican defeat in the 1874 congressional elections, and colored the Mark Twain-Charles Dudley Warner novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. It validated anxieties about corruption and concentrated economic power as America staggered toward industrialization. Few other political scandals have been so consequential. "Mitchell has written a compelling, in-depth narrative of the first great modern American political scandal." -- Robert McCartney, former associate editor, The Washington Post.