Reinventing "The People": The Progressive Movement, the Class Problem, and the Origins of Modern Liberalism (Working Class in American History) - Softcover

Stromquist, Shelton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252072693 ISBN 13: 9780252072697

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2006

Synopsis

A comprehensive study of the Progressive movement, Reinventing "The People"contends that the persistence of class conflict in America challenged the very defining feature of Progressivism: its promise of social harmony through democratic renewal. 

Shelton Stromquist profiles the movement's work in diverse arenas of social reform, politics, labor regulation and so-called race improvement. While these reformers emphasized different programs, they crafted a common language of social reconciliation in which an imagined civic community--"the People"--would transcend parochial class and political loyalties. But efforts to invent a society without enduring class lines marginalized new immigrants and African Americans by declaring them unprepared for civic responsibilities. In so doing, Progressives laid the foundation for twentieth-century liberals' inability to see their world in class terms and to conceive of social remedies that might alter the structures of class power.

About this title

About the Author

Shelton Stromquist is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Iowa. He is editor of Labor's Cold War: Local Politics in a Global Context and coeditor of Frontiers of Labor: Comparative Histories of the United States and Australia.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252072693
• ISBN 13: 9780252072697
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304