The conventional wisdom about today's young voters is that they're inherently unreliable and therefore have earned the lack of courtship from politicians.
It is true millennials are significantly less likely to vote than their counterparts were in the 1980s or the first wave of postwar baby boomers in the mid-60s. Moreover, today's older generations have become substantially more engaged over the decades.
But it wasn't always this way, said Jon Grinspan, author and historian at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Throughout the 19th century, young people voted en masse in wild and spectacular fashion, and were by far the most coveted demographic in politics.
In his book, "The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century," Grinspan puts together a glimpse of the political engagement of children and the party bosses who relied on them by drawing on hundreds of diaries and letters of young Americans of various socioeconomic backgrounds between the years 1840 and 1900.
"People know the names to some of these presidents and maybe some of these elections, but they know very little about the on-the-ground life of American democracy," he said. "And as I read these diaries of young people living in Wisconsin, or upstate New York, or Florida, there's just this whole political world that was really relevant to 15-year-olds that I wanted to study and understand more."
Those teenage worlds, said Grinspan, involved showing up at rowdy rallies, wild one-room schools and raucous salons – all of them a nexus to partisan politics as it was absolutely central to life back then.
Parents taught their children – many of whom were being named after the earliest office holders – to sing campaign songs and to jeer at members of the rival party years before they could read the hyperpartisan newspapers of the era or cast a ballot. From an early age, people were primed to be politically active.
"They do a great job getting young people involved early, and that's why they're such great voters when they can legally vote," Grinspan said.
The undecided voter was a bit of a unicorn in the mid-19th century. Most people weren't on the fence about who to vote. Instead, Grinspan said Americans were dyed-in-the-wool party members for life. He added that more than 90 percent of voters stayed true to one party throughout their lives.
"You give your first vote and it's called your virgin vote, and you lost your political virginity. And there's a sense you're supposed to be monogamous to that party after that. Which is what makes these young people so valuable to politicians. They need to bring in these young people in these incredibly close elections if they want that life long voter on their side," Grinspan said.
Part of that courtship and political persuasion relied on women. It would be a mistake, said Grinspan, to assume that because women could not yet vote meant that they were deaf and uninterested in politics.
"When you read these diaries and letters, women, young women in particular, are really fascinated and engaged because it's what their families are talking about," Grinspan said. "It's a way to reach out and court other young men in their communities. So there are these ways other than voting to be interested and engaged in politics then and now. And women work as hard as they can to have influence and follow their interests."