author
Alfred Byron Cruikshank
1847–1933
A Canadian-born lawyer who spent most of his career in New York, he is remembered for a forceful early-20th-century critique of American politics and voting. His best-known book, Popular Misgovernment in the United States, offers a sharp window into the political anxieties of its time.
1 Audiobook
Popular misgovernment in the United States
by Alfred Byron Cruikshank
About the author
Born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on September 8, 1847, Alfred Byron Cruikshank later moved to the United States and studied law at New York University, earning his law degree in 1874. During the final year of the American Civil War, he served as a private in the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry.
Cruikshank practiced law in New York City for decades, reportedly from 1874 until his retirement in 1919. Alongside his legal career, he wrote on public affairs, and he is chiefly known today for Popular Misgovernment in the United States (1920), a political work arguing that flaws in democratic practice had opened the way to corruption and weak government.
He died on October 9, 1933. Although not a widely known literary figure now, his writing survives as a period piece from an era of intense debate over democracy, suffrage, and the direction of American government.