The Progressive Era in the USA: 1890–1921

The Progressive Era in the USA: 1890–1921
Author: Kristofer Allerfeldt
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 785
Release: 2017-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351883488

Few periods in American history have been explored as much as the Progressive Era. It is seen as the birth-place of modern American liberalism, as well as the time in which America emerged as an imperial power. Historians and other scholars have struggled to explain the contradictions of this period and this volume explores some of the major controversies this exciting period has inspired. Investigating subjects as diverse as conservation, socialism, or the importance of women in the reform movements, this volume looks at the lasting impact of this productive, yet ultimately frustrated, generation's legacy on American and world history.

Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development

Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development
Author: Gwendolyn Mink
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2019-06-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501742698

Why have American politics developed differently from politics in Europe? Generations of scholars and commentators have wondered why organized labor in the United States did not acquire a broad-based constituency or form an autonomous labor party. In this innovative and insightful book, Gwendolyn Mink finds new answers by approaching this question from a different angle: she asks what determined union labor's political interests and how those interests influenced the political role forged by the American Federation of Labor. At bottom, Mink argues, the demographic dynamics of industrialization produced a profound racial response to economic change among organized labor. This response shaped the AFL's political strategy and political choices. In her account of the unique role played by labor in politics prior to the New Deal, Mink focuses on the ways in which the organizational and political interests of the AFL were mediated by the national issue of immigration and links the AFL's response to immigration to its conservative stance in and toward politics. She investigates the political impact of a labor market split between union and nonunion, old and new immigrant workers; of dramatic demographic change; and of nativism and racism. Mink then elucidates the development of trade-union political interests, ideology, and strategy; the movement of the AFL into established state and party structures; and the consequent separation of the AFL from labor's social base.

Capital, Labor, and State

Capital, Labor, and State
Author: David Brian Robertson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2000
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780847697298

Capital, Labor, and State is a systematic and thorough examination of American labor policy from the Civil War to the New Deal. David Brian Robertson skillfully demonstrates that although most industrializing nations began to limit employer freedom and regulate labor conditions in the 1900s, the United States continued to allow total employer discretion in decisions concerning hiring, firing, and workplace conditions. Robertson argues that the American constitution made it much more difficult for the American Federation of Labor, government, and business to cooperate for mutual gain as extensively as their counterparts abroad, so that even at the height of New Deal, American labor market policy remained a patchwork of limited protections, uneven laws, and poor enforcement, lacking basic national standards even for child labor.

Labor Histories

Labor Histories
Author: Eric Arnesen
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2022-10-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0252054709

Is class outmoded as a basis for understanding labor history? This collection emphatically answers, "No!" These thirteen essays delve into subjects like migrant labor, religion, ethnicity, agricultural history, and gender. Written by former students of preeminent labor figure and historian David Montgomery, the works advance the argument that class remains indispensable to the study of working Americans and their place in the broad drama of our shared national history.

A Government by the People

A Government by the People
Author: Thomas Goebel
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2003-04-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807860182

Between 1898 and 1918, many American states introduced the initiative, referendum, and recall--known collectively as direct democracy. Most interpreters have seen the motives for these reform measures as purely political, but Thomas Goebel demonstrates that the call for direct democracy was deeply rooted in antimonopoly sentiment. Frustrated with the governmental corruption and favoritism that facilitated the rise of monopolies, advocates of direct democracy aimed to check the influence of legislative bodies and directly empower the people to pass laws and abolish trusts. But direct democracy failed to achieve its promises: corporations and trusts continued to flourish, voter turnout rates did not increase, and interest groups grew stronger. By the 1930s, it was clear that direct democracy favored large organizations with the financial and organizational resources to fund increasingly expensive campaigns. Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of direct democracy, particularly in California, where ballot questions and propositions have addressed such volatile issues as gay rights and affirmative action. In this context, Goebel's analysis of direct democracy's history, evolution, and ultimate unsuitability as a grassroots tool is particularly timely.

A Broad and Ennobling Spirit

A Broad and Ennobling Spirit
Author: Ronald Mendel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2003-10-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0313058032

With the introduction of new production methods and technological innovation, tradesmen and workers encountered new challenges. This study examines the development of trade unions as a manifestation of working class experience in late Gilded Age America. It underscores both the distinctive and the common features of trade unionism across four occupations: building tradesmen, cigar makers, garment workers, and printers. While reactions differed, the unions representing these workers displayed a convergence in their strategic orientation, programmatic emphasis and organizational modus operandi. As such, they were not disparate organizations, concerned only with sectional interests, but participants in an organizational-network in which cooperation and solidarity became benchmarks for the labor movement. Printers coped with the mechanization of typesetting by promoting greater cooperation among the different craft unions within the industry, with the aim of establishing effective job control. Building tradesmen exerted a pragmatic militancy, which combined strikes with overtures to the employers' business sense, to uphold the standards of craft labor. Cigar makers, especially handicraftsmen who found their position threatened by machinery and the growth of factory production, debated the merits of a craft-based union against the possible advantages of an industrial-oriented organization. Garment workers, caught in the snare of a sweating system of labor in which wages and work loads were inversely related, organized unions to mount strikes during the busy season in the hope of securing higher wages, only to see them whither in the midst of slack periods.

America in the Age of the Titans

America in the Age of the Titans
Author: Sean Dennis Cashman
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 624
Release: 1988-08-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0814772064

Detailing the events of the Progressive Era and World War I (1901-20), America in the Age of the Titans is the only interdisciplinary history covering this period currently available. The book contains the results of research into primary sources an drecent scholarship with an emphases on leading personalities and anecdotes about them. Sean Dennis Cashman's sequesl to America in the Gilded Age gives special attention to industry and inventions, and social and cultural history. He covers developments in science, technology, and industry; the Progressive movement and the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, immigration, the new woman, and labor, including the Industrial Workers of the World and the Great Red Scare; the transportation and communications revolution in radio and motion pictures; the cultural contribuation of artists, architects, and creatice writers; and America's foreign policies across the world. Written in a lively, accessible style with over sixty illustrations, this book is an excellent introduction to these momentous years. It provides an assessment of the contributions of the titans - political, scientific, and industrial.

American Progressives and German Social Reform, 1875-1920

American Progressives and German Social Reform, 1875-1920
Author: Axel R. Schäfer
Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9783515074612

This study recreates the intellectual climate and transatlantic setting of turn-of-the-century American reform. It examines the influence and meaning of German social thought and reform in the American Reform Movement prior to World War I. The American Progressives used the German theories in order to develop and establish new concepts of reform and to base democracy on principles other than possessive individualism, utilitarian ethics, and market ideology that liberalism held in stock. However, due to the war these reforms lost their radical character. In the end, the progressive quest for a broader sphere of public control, participatory models of reform, and social ethics yielded to the liberal model of regulation, business co-operation, and administrative efficiency, and to the moralistic agenda of prohibition and immigration control. "Axel R. Sch�fer's fine study of what American progressives learned from their German counterparts adds to the growing literature illuminating the cosmopolitan breadth and ideological daring of turn-of-the-century reform. [�] It is a testament to the argumentative force of this insightful work that it so clarifies and deepens the vital debate over the progressive legacy in our new Gilded Age." The Journal of American History "Sch�fer did not intend to offer an exhaustive treatment; instead, he wished to show that part of progressive thought was not merely home grown, ,a relection of narrow, moralistic Protestantism� (220), but had some German roots, too. This he did well, and readers may mine his chapters for other insights�" German Studies Review "Axel R. Sch�fers kenntnisreiche, methodisch reflektierte und quellenges�ttigte Untersuchung legt die bis vor kurzem nur wenig beachteten transatlantischen Bezuege der ,progressiven Bewegung� an der Wende vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert frei und bettet dieses, als ,sehr amerikanisch� geltende Reformph�nomen st�rker in seinen weltlichen Gesamtzusammenhang ein. Sch�fer wird daher nicht nur von Amerikaspezialisten mit Gewinn gelesen werden, sondern auch von Historikern, die sich mit interkulturellen Austauschprozessen besch�ftigen." Das Historisch-Politische Buch "Selten jedenfalls ist die Krise des Progressivism im Ersten Weltkrieg so klar analysiert worden wie hier�" Historische Zeitschrift "Anachronismen vermeidend und mit gro�er F�higkeit zur Empathie zeichnet Sch�fer die Motive und Vorstellungswelten der Akteure nach, ohne sie von vornherein zu verurteilen. Auf diese Weise gelingt ihm eine sehr differenzierte Darstellung�" Neue Politische Literatur.

The Ideology of the Socialist Party of America, 1901T1917

The Ideology of the Socialist Party of America, 1901T1917
Author: Anthony V. Esposito
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2020-09-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135640017

Examining the propaganda literature issued by the Socialist Party before World War I, this study investigates how the party shaped its appeal to an American audience. With the rise of an anti-monopoly reform movement after 1908 that rejected all notions of class, and socialist success in some city elections after 1910, the party confronted growing liberal strength. By 1912-13 this confrontation affected the ideological appeal and unity of the party by pitting the loyalties of class and citizenship against each other. By the time the U.S. entered WWI, the idea of class had become taboo in American politics, driving a wedge between radicals and reformers that persists until today. (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Connecticut, 1992; revised with new preface and index)

The New York Irish

The New York Irish
Author: Ronald H. Bayor
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 772
Release: 1997-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801857645

As one of the country's oldest ethnic groups, the Irish have played a vital part in its history. New York has been both port of entry and home to the Irish for three centuries. This joint project of the Irish Institute and the New York Irish History Roundtable offers a fresh perspective on an immigrant people's encounter with the famed metropolis. 37 illustrations.