The Territory

Corruption, Reform, and the end of the American Gilded Age

Joshua Mendelsohn

From ruthless robber barons to small-town heroes, this gripping history reveals the true story behind the collapse of the Gilded Age.

On a warm October night in 1905, a respected banker stepped out of his office and into the darkness. Hours later, he would take his own life, leaving behind a handwritten confession and its most devastating line: “Andrews has worked my ruin.” By morning, his bank had collapsed, taking the life savings of thousands of working people with it. Millions vanished. And the hidden machinery of the most corrupt, ruthless political empire in American history was instantly and violently exposed, confirming what had been whispered for years but never proven.

William “Bull” Andrews had spent decades learning the dark arts of power, as both the chief political operative of the Pennsylvania Republican machine, which ran its state like a crime syndicate, and a political agent for what The Atlantic called the "greatest, wisest, and meanest monopoly known to history." John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Now, he wanted an empire of his own. Setting his sights on the far-flung Territory of New Mexico, the Bull saw a place raw enough to be shaped politically and rich enough to be mined economically. He would flood it with misappropriated capital, maneuver it toward statehood, and handsomely benefit when it gained inclusion in a nation changing under his feet. He had the party bosses, the railroad money, and had even placed a reluctant Theodore Roosevelt on a presidential ticket against the candidate’s own wishes.

What Andrews hadn’t counted on was the age that had built him was on borrowed time. In Washington, a new generation of progressive senators, for reasons both earnest and cynical, sought to block his path to statehood. In Pennsylvania, a charismatic small-town mayor built a campaign to destroy the machine that had built men like Andrews. Then, the banker walked into the darkness. When his confession became public, it handed his enemies exactly the weapon they needed, on the eve of an election that would decide whether the old order would survive at all. It did not end the way anyone expected.

Filled with political intrigue and fresh insight into one of the most chaotic periods in American history, The Territory reveals how the Gilded Age came to an end—suddenly, and not at all.

Joshua Mendelsohn is Senior Labor Counsel at the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and a law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. His writing has appeared in the New York Times. His previous book, The Cap: How Larry Fleisher and David Stern Built the Modern NBA, was called “a legal thriller” by the Wall Street Journal and named a Wall Street Journal Holiday Gift Books selection. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and two daughters.

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Endorsements & Reviews

Praise for The Cap

"Understanding how the NBA has been able to secure so much cultural capital—and then use it so much more effectively than many other leagues—deserves attention as the sports industry looks to maintain its relevance in a post-pandemic world.” The New York Times

“To follow the NBA one must follow the money. To follow the money and to understand how and why players earn the staggering sums they do, intricate knowledge of the league’s labyrinthian salary cap is required. In The Cap, Joshua Mendelsohn delivers a most comprehensive and well-written history and breakdown of the NBA’s economic bylaws and, in effect, a compelling evolutionary tale of the professional game, its principal characters, and the guiding fiscal policies behind its explosive global growth.” Harvey Araton, author of When the Garden Was Eden

"A legal thriller of the account for the big play that eventually put both the NBA's players and the owners in the win column." The Wall Street Journal