Bibliograph

The refuge of affections, family and American reform politics, 1900-1920, Eric Rauchway

Type

Label

The refuge of affections, family and American reform politics, 1900-1920, Eric Rauchway

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

The refuge of affections

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Responsibility statement

Eric Rauchway

Series statement

Columbia studies in contemporary American history

Sub title

family and American reform politics, 1900-1920

Summary

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

Target audience

adult

Classification