you work at the missoni and. -- at the smithsonian. you just won a prize for 2017 at the smithsonian. what is this book based on? jon: it is based on the diaries of young men and women in the 19th century. seeing how they mixed public, political lives in their engagement with elections with of their private personal lives. and their hunt for adulthood, and romance, and jobs. the wave the public political world and the private lives and how they were mixed up together. susan: people could not vote until 21. so what made them interested in politics? jon: interest and legal participation are not the same thing. people who could never vote, women, african-americans, they could not vote but they were still interested. and children. 12 euros, 14 euros. and2-year-old's 14-year-old's. . politics is public culture at the time. it is a central entertainment culture at the time. there was no football. it was politics. political parties worked to get young people involved. young people find a way to turn out. it was also entertainment. these torch