The Refuge of Affections: Family and American Reform Politics, 1900–1920

Eric Rauchway

Published by Columbia University Press 2001

The Refuge of Affections

Family and American Reform Politics, 1900–1920

Eric Rauchway

In the series Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History

https://doi.org/10.7312/rauc12146

Overview
Contents

About this book

The Progressives—those reformers responsible for the shape of many American institutions, from the Federal Reserve Board to the New School for Social Research—have always presented a mystery. What prompted middle-class citizens to support fundamental change in American life? Eric Rauchway shows that like most of us, the reformers took their inspiration from their own lives—from the challenges of forming a family.

The Progressives—those reformers responsible for the shape of many American institutions, from the Federal Reserve Board to the New School for Social Research—have always presented a mystery. What prompted middle-class citizens to support fundamental change in American life? Eric Rauchway shows that like most of us, the reformers took their inspiration from their own lives—from the challenges of forming a family.

Following the lives and careers of Charles and Mary Beard, Wesley Clair and Lucy Sprague Mitchell, and Willard and Dorothy Straight, the book moves from the plains of the Midwest to the plains of Manchuria, from the trade-union halls of industrial Britain to the editorial offices of the New Republic in Manhattan. Rauchway argues that parenting was a kind of elitism that fulfilled itself when it undid itself, and this vision of familial responsibility underlay Progressive approaches to foreign policy, economics, social policy, and education.

Author / Editor information

Eric Rauchway is University Lecturer in American History at the University of Oxford.

Reviews

K. Walter Hickel:
Original and elegantly written.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Aknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Abbreviations and manuscript citations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Dorothy Whitney and Willard Straight Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
2. Mary Ritter and Charles Beard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
3. Lucy Sprague and Wesley Clair Mitchell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
4. War and the Progressive Family Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
5. The Narrative of Progress versus the Logic of Events Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Epilogue: The Rise and Fall of The Rise of American Civilization; or, A Further Parable on the Narrative of Progress and the Logic of Events Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Works cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 322

eBook

Published: March 29, 2001
ISBN: 9780231506168