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Landlord William Scully
Homer E. Socolofsky
This one-stop reference work is a governors’ hall of fame—a compendium of information about the 51 men who have held the chief executive post since the opening of the Kansas Territory in 1854. Using both primary and secondary sources, historian Homer Socolofsky sketches a concise biography of each governor and compares their roles in Kansas history. He also provides comparative election and demographic data, as well as suggestions for additional reading. Supplementing the text are 93 historic photographs, including each chief executive’s portrait and autograph. Twelve maps and tables depict and compare aspects of the governors’ lives, showing occupational background, birthplace, and residence. Kansas Governors brings together in a single volume a far more complete treatment of both territorial and state governors—as well as acting governors—than can be found in other biographical dictionaries. It will be a useful tool for Kansas history buffs, and an essential reference for school and public libraries. Description Homer E.Socolofsky (1922–2005) was professor emeritus of history at Kansas State University and a leading authority on Kansas history. His many publications include Arthur Capper: Publisher, Politician, Philanthropist and Landlord William Scully. Virgil W. Dean is an independent historian and consulting editor who was editor of the journal Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains for almost thirty years. A former historian for the Kansas State Historical Society, he is the author or editor of four books, including John Brown to Bob Dole: Movers and Shakers in Kansas History. With a New Foreword by Virgil W. Dean. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Leaders of Reform: Progressive Republicans in Kansas, 1900-1916
Robert Sherman La Forte
In Leaders of Reform Robert Sherman La Forte examines the intricacies of shifting factions within the state majority party over a two decade period, from the Boss-Busters and political machines of the early 1900s through the formation of a new party behind Theodore Roosevelt in 1913. He discusses the motives, activities, accomplishments, and failures of the progressive Republicans. He provides excellent vignettes of major leaders such as William Allen White, Arthur Capper, Joseph L. Bristow, and Charles Curtis, as well as lesser-known characters such as Walter Roscoe Stubbs, Edward H. Hoch, and Cy Leland, Jr. In providing a detailed analysis of virtually all Kansas progressive Republican leaders during the era, La Forte has made a valuable contribution to both state and national political history. Description Robert Sherman La Forte was professor of history at the University of North Texas, where he taught for thirty years. In addition to this book, he coauthored three books on World War II history and the authorized history of the University of North Texas. With a New Foreword by Charles Delgadillo. Charles Delgadillo is lecturer in history at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and Norco College, in California. He is the author of Crusader for Democracy: The Political Life of William Allen White. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Life at Four Corners: Religion, Gender, and Education in a German-Lutheran Community, 1868–1945
Carol K. Coburn
Defined less by geography than by demographic character, Block, Kansas, in many ways exemplifies the prevalent yet seldom-scrutinized ethnic, religion-based community of the rural Midwest. Physically small, the town sprang up around four corners formed by crossroads. Spiritually strong and cohesive, it became the educational and cultural center for generations of German-Lutheran families. Block provided a religious and cultural oasis-a welcome transition for German-Lutheran immigrants faced with a new language and unfamiliar customs. Yet the tight bond between an ethnic society and a religion that shunned Americanism and the English language paradoxically slowed the transition and maintained a culturally isolated community well into the twentieth century. In Life at Four Corners, Carol Coburn analyzes the powerful combination of those ethnic and religious institutions that effectively resisted assimilation for nearly 80 years only to succumb to the influences of the outside world during the 1930s and 1940s. Emphasizing the formal and informal education provided by the church, school, and family, she examines the total process of how values, identities, and all aspects of culture were transmitted from generation to generation. Description With a New Preface by the Author. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Lucius Polk Brown and Progressive Food and Drug Control: Tennessee and New York City, 1908-1920
Margaret Ripley Wolfe
Lucius Polk Brown was a professional chemist who became a bureaucrat in the field of public health during the Progressive era, when middle-class reformers first attempted to order American society through integrated systems. In his native state of Tennessee, between 1908 and 1915 Brown created a public health enforcement agency, began educating the masses to public health needs, waged flamboyant campaigns against those who violated the laws, and attracted widespread support for pure food and drug control. Moving on to become director of the Bureau of Food and Drugs in the New York City Department of Health in 1915, he continued his battle for public health reform amidst the maze of government agencies and political power struggles surrounding Tammany Hall. In Many respects Brown was typical of Progressive reformers. A middle-class, Anglo-Saxon Protestant and a professional, he represented a link between the nineteenth-century agrarian and the twentieth-century urbanite. More importantly, Brown exemplified a new character on the American scene: a scientist out of the agricultural-experiment-station mold entering public life, ready to challenge politicians on their own ground. This book contains fresh insights on the history of the public health movement in America, one area of reform that has not received the attention it deserves. Except for incidental references, the major figures of food and drug regulation at the local level have been largely ignored by historians. Lucius Polk Brown’s quest for pure food and drugs is representative of what municipal and state officials, as scientific people, encountered when they fought for the passage of new laws, struggled to enforce existing ones, and battled with the politicians, quacks, ignorance that threatened their efforts. Brown’s diversified career provides a unique opportunity for studying a scientific reformer caught up in the political turmoil of the Progressive era. His experience in government service spanned twelve years and touched on two dissimilar political systems. In focusing on Brown’s struggles, achievements, and failures, Margaret Ripley Wolfe provides a comparative study of state and municipal health administrations, of bureaucratic development in a rural southern state and a northern metropolis. For that reason this book should be of interest to political scientists and public health officials as well as to social historians and students of the Progressive era. Description Margaret Ripley Wolfe retired as professor of history at East Tennessee State University, Kingsport Center, in 2004. She is the author or coauthor of several books, including Daughters of Canaan: A Saga of Southern Women and Kingsport, Tennessee: A Planned American City. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Marcuse: From the New Left to the Next Left
John Bokina and Timothy J. Lukes
Marcuse brings back to center stage one of the most celebrated and controversial philosophers of the turbulent 1960s, the man Time magazine called the "guru of the New Left." In Reason and Revolution, Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man, and other notable works, Herbert Marcuse crystallized the essence of counterculture philosophy. His neo-Marxist critique of Western capitalism was widely embraced by revolutionaries, "hippies," and an entire generation of academics who condemned political, economic, and sexual repression in American society. So complete was Marcuse's identification with the New Left that, with its demise, he and his works fell out of favor. But, as this volume persuasively demonstrates, Marcuse remains vitally relevant for us today. Returning to Marcuse may recall the clash of idealistic exuberance and tragic violence associated with Woodstock, Haight-Ashbury, the Vietnam War, 1968 Democratic Convention, Kent State, and Earth Day, as well as the passionate voices of anti-war and civil rights protesters, environmentalists, feminists, and free love advocates. But this volume does not cater to the simplistic nostalgia of aging baby-boomers. Fifteen leading Marcuse scholars, including Marcuse's son Peter, assess the philosopher's ideas in the radically different theoretical and political contexts of the 1990s. The range of topics covered is distinctly contemporary—Foucault and postmodern theories, analytical Marxism and the demise of the Soviet Union, women's studies and feminist psychoanalytic theory, aesthetic consciousness and postmodern art, radical ecology and cybernetic technology—and includes Douglas Kellner's revealing first look at the unpublished manuscripts in the Marcuse Archives in Frankfurt. Sure to excite liberal as well as irritate conservative culture warriors, these provocative essays illuminate the outlines of a Marcuse revival and the Next Left as both emerge to confront the complex challenges of our times. Description John Bokina is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Texas-Pan American and adjunct professor of political science and public administration at Central Michigan University. He is the author of Images of Spartacus and Opera and Politics: From Monteverdi to Henze. Timothy J. Lukes is professor of political science at Santa Clara University and has authored, coauthored, or edited five books, most recently Politics and Beauty in America: The Liberal Aesthetics of P. T. Barnum, John Muir, and Harley Earl. With a New Preface by the Authors. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Montesquieu's Comparative Politics and the Spirit of American Constitutionalism
Anne M. Cohler
“American republicans,” notes Forrest McDonald, “regarded selected doctrines of Montesquieu’s as being virtually on par with Holy Writ.” But exactly how the French jurist’s labyrinthian work, The Spirit of the Laws, with was published in 1748, influenced the eighteenth-century conception of the republic is not well understood by historians or theorists. Anne M. Cohler undertakes to show the importance of Montequieu’s teaching for modern legislation and for modern political prudence generally, with specific reference to his impact on The Federalist and Tocqueville. In so doing, she delineates Montequieu’s contribution to political philosophy and suggests new ways to think about the formation of the American Constitution. To analyze the comparative politics found in the Spirit of the Laws, Cohler focuses on four fundamental principles underlying Montesquieu’s view of government: spirit, moderation, liberty, and legislation. In this endeavor she is guided by the conviction that the philosopher hews to the spirit of the laws rather than to the laws themselves—that is, to internal rather than external principles. Montesquieu, in Cohler’s argument, addresses the problem posed by the tendency to see human beings in light o universal abstractions at the expense of particular relationships, distinctions, and forms. To counter this tendency, which can be fostered by religion, Montesquieu develops a theory of prudence designed to support the world of politics and political life, necessarily an intermediate world occupying a space between universal abstractions and individual particularities. Cohler suggest that the Federalists and Tocqueville were most influenced by this preoccupation with spirit and moderation. James Madison and other Federalists, for example, were not drawn to limited government as a principled notion but rather as a consequence of understanding the context within which a moderate government must act not to become despotic. Similarly, Tocqueville extols democracy as self-government as an antidote to the dangers of democracy as a rule; the character of the governed shapes the nature of the governors. These and other conclusions will prove valuable to intellectual historians, political theorists, and students of religion. Description Anne M. Cohler (1940–1989) was an instructor in the Basic Program in Continuing Education at the University of Chicago and received her doctorate in political philosophy from Harvard University. She is the author of Rousseau and Nationalism and co-edited the first modern translation of Montequieu’s The Spirit of the Laws; this was her second and final book. Sarah Burns is associate professor of political science at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She is the author of The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism. With a New Foreword by Sarah Burns This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Multiculturalism and American Democracy
Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman
Multiculturalism: is it the face of twenty-first century America or merely a passing intellectual fad? With its celebration of ethnic diversity and strong advocacy of tolerance, this contemporary movement provides philosophical justification for many who seek to correct social inequities. But while its proponents see it as a means of promoting self-esteem among marginalized groups, its critics see it as a dangerous form of relativism that culminates, paradoxically, in a new form of intolerance. The fourteen essays in this volume address the pros and cons of multiculturalism and explore its relationship with liberal democracy. A team of stellar contributors—C. Vann Woodward, Linda Chavez, Stanley Fish, and others—offers viewpoints on multiculturalism from the perspectives of political theory, history, philosophy, and fiction. The editors first help explain multiculturalism by contrasting it with the Sixties counterculture. How is it, they ask, that yesterday's radicals, so concerned with economic justice, have given way to the multiculturalist preoccupation with identity politics? The contributors then explore different facets of the multiculturalism issue: they present disparate views of the stakes involved as older notions of pluralism and assimilation give way to multiculturalism; examine it in its relation to the principles of liberal democracy; and assess its place in public education. In a final section, the role of the arts in the multiculturalism debate is addressed by celebrated novelists J. M. Coetzee and Mario Vargas Llosa. Because multiculturalism is a movement without a leader or guiding document, its tenets remain difficult to define. This book not only tells what the controversy is about but also clarifies the concerns it should raise for thoughtful citizens. The points of view expressed here will prove helpful to those who are trying to frame their own opinions about multiculturalism—and they are guaranteed to spark new debate among those who have already chosen sides. Description Arthur Melzer is professor of political science at Michigan State University. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of eleven books, including The Supreme Court and the Idea of Constitutionalism. Jerry Weinberger is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of political science at Michigan State University. He has written, edited, and coedited several books on political thought, including Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought. M. Richard Zinman is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of political theory in James Madison College at Michigan State University. With Melzer and Weinberger, he has co-edited several books on democracy and modern politics. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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New Governance for Rural America: Creating Intergovernmental Partnerships
Beryl A. Radin, Robert Agranoff, Ann O'M. Bowman, C. Gregory Buntz, J. Steven Ott, Barbara S. Romzek, and Robert Wilson
Throughout the 1990s public demand for a fundamental shift in the relationship between government and its citizens has intensified. In response, a "new governance" model has emerged, emphasizing decreased federal control in favor of intergovernmental collaboration and increased involvement of state, local, and private agencies. As the authors of this volume show, one of the best examples of "new governance" can be found in the National and State Rural Development Councils (NRDC and SRDC), created in 1990 as the result of President Bush's Rural Development Initiative and now called the Rural Development Partnership. This effort was part of a move within policymaking circles to redefine a rural America that was no longer synonymous with family farming and that required innovative new solutions for economic revival. By 1994 twenty-nine states had created and ten other states were in the process of forming such councils. In this first detailed analysis of the NRDC and SRDCs, the authors examine the successes and failures of the original eight councils in Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington; as well as eight other councils subsequently created in Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Vermont, New York, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. Combining empirical analysis with current theories about networks and inter-organizational relations, this volume should appeal to academics and practitioners interested in rural development policy, public administration, public policy and management, and intergovernmental relations. Description Beryl A. Radin is professor of Public Administration and Policy in the Graduate School of Public Affairs at Rockefeller College of the State University of New York at Albany. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Nontimber Forest Products in the United States
Eric T. Jones, Rebecca J. McLain, and James Weigand
A quiet revolution is taking place in America's forests. Once seen primarily as stands of timber, our woodlands are now prized as a rich source of a wide range of commodities, from wild mushrooms and maple sugar to hundreds of medicinal plants whose uses have only begun to be fully realized. Now as timber harvesting becomes more mechanized and requires less labor, the image of the lumberjack is being replaced by that of the forager. This book provides the first comprehensive examination of nontimber forest products (NTFPs) in the United States, illustrating their diverse importance, describing the people who harvest them, and outlining the steps that are being taken to ensure access to them. As the first extensive national overview of NTFP policy and management specific to the United States, it brings together research from numerous disciplines and analytical perspectives-such as economics, mycology, history, ecology, law, entomology, forestry, geography, and anthropology—in order to provide a cohesive picture of the current and potential role of NTFPs. The contributors review the state of scientific knowledge of NTFPs by offering a survey of commercial and noncommercial products, an overview of uses and users, and discussions of sustainable management issues associated with ecology, cultural traditions, forest policy, and commerce. They examine some of the major social, economic, and biological benefits of NTFPs, while also addressing the potential negative consequences of NTFP harvesting on forest ecosystems and on NTFP species populations. Within this wealth of information are rich accounts of NTFP use drawn from all parts of the American landscape—from the Pacific Northwest to the Caribbean. From honey production to a review of nontimber forest economies still active in the United States—such as the Ojibway "harvest of plants" recounted here—the book takes in the whole breadth of recent NTFP issues, including ecological concerns associated with the expansion of NTFP markets and NTFP tenure issues on federally managed lands. No other volume offers such a comprehensive overview of NTFPs in North America. By examining all aspects of these products, it contributes to the development of more sophisticated policy and management frameworks for not only ensuring their ongoing use but also protecting the future of our forests. Description Eric T. Jones is an instructor and research professor in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University. Rebecca J. McLain is director of research at the National Policy Consensus Center at Portland State University. Susan Charnley is a research social scientist at the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the USDA Forest Service. James Weigand is an ecologist at the US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management. With a New Preface by Eric T. Jones, Rebecca J. McLain, Susan Charnley, and James Weigand. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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On Turner's Trail: 100 Years of Writing Western History
Wilbur R. Jacobs
Should Frederick Jackson Turner be revered as “the father of western history” or reviled as a misguided advocate of a frontier spirit and rugged individualism that denied cultural diversity and produced widespread environmental destruction? Dividing into campus over the issue, western historians place him everywhere from one end of the spectrum to the other. In this provocative new interpretation of Turner’s life, work, and legacy, Wilbur Jacobs challenges the views of traditionalists and views of traditionalists and revisionists alike. From extensive research in the Turner archives, a nationwide search for additional Turner correspondence, interviews with historians, and a lifetime of collecting Turner anecdotes, Jacobs chronicles Turner’s professional (and sometimes personal) bequest through 100 years of Western historical writing. Jacobs adds his voice to the heated debate by mixing a sophisticated critique of historical writing with stories of professional intrigue—the fights to protect Turner’s legacy, limit access to the Turner archives, and control the Western history Association. He traces the intellectual development of Turner’s frontier theory; explores the intense rivalry between two major Turnerian disciples, Frederick Merk and Ray A. Billington, as they vied for control of Turner’s legacy; and analyzes the efforts of new western historians who seek to erase Turner and Billington from the landscape of what is now called the history of the “West.” Balanced in his assessments, Jacobs treats Turner and his disciples with a sympathetic yet critical eye. He points out Turner’s limitations in dealing with environmental, racial-ethnic, and urban themes as well as the shortcomings of Merk, Billington, and other Turnerians. At the same time, however, Jacobs illuminates the major contributions of their work. Despite their intense differences, Jacobs argues, all western historians remain inextricably linked by Turner’s legacy. Description Wilbur R. Jacobs (1918–1998) was Research Scholar at the Huntington Library and professor of history emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His many books include Francis Parkman, Historian as Hero: The Formative Years; Dispossessing the American Indian; Frederick Jackson Turner’s Legacy; and The Historical World of Frederick Jackson Turner. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Our Limits Transgressed: Environmental Political Thought in America
Bob Pepperman Taylor
Emphatically revisionist, Bob Pepperman Taylor reveals a Thoreau most people never knew existed. Contrary to conventional views, Taylor argues that Thoreau was one of America's most powerful and least understood political thinkers, a man who promoted community and democratic values, while being ever vigilant against the evils of excessive or illegitimate authority. Still widely viewed as a remarkable nature writer but simplistic philosopher with no real understanding of society, Thoreau is resurrected here as a profound social critic with more on his mind than utopian daydreams. Rather than the aloof and very private individualist spurned by conservatives and championed by radicals and environmentalists, Taylor portrays Thoreau as a genuinely engaged political theorist concerned with the moral foundations of public life. Like a solicitous "bachelor uncle" (a self-referential phrase from his journals), Thoreau persistently prodded his fellow citizens to remember that they were responsible for independently evaluating the behavior of their government and political community. Taylor contends that, far from being confined to a few political essays ("Civil Disobedience," "Slavery in Massachusetts," and "A Plea for Captain John Brown"), Thoreau's political critique was a lifetime project that informed virtually all of his work. Taylor's persuasive study should send readers back to Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, and the 14-volume Journal, among many other writings, for a provocative new look at one of America's most influential writers. Description Bob Pepperman Taylor is Elliott A. Brown Green and Gold Professor of Law, Politics and Political Behavior at the University of Vermont. He is the author of six books, including Horace Mann’s Troubling Legacy: The Education of Democratic Citizens. With a New Preface by the Author. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Passions and Interests: Political Party Concepts of American Democracy
Gerald M. Pomper
Bridging analysis of political parties and political philosophy, Passions and Interests presents eight conceptual models of political parties with particular relevance to American democracy. Gerald Pomper, an internationally recognized scholar, asks three questions: What meanings are attributed to parties? Empirically, to what extent do American parties fit these concepts? How well do these different models serve democratic interests? The analysis encompasses a broad range of individuals, including party theorists from Michels to Downs, practitioners such as Martin Van Buren and Woodrow Wilson, and political philosophers from Burke to Lenin. Beginning with Madison's definition, Pomper views parties as varying combinations of passions and interests. He examines, both empirically and normatively, models of party as bureaucratic organization, governing caucus, cause advocate, ideological community, social movement, urban machine, rational office-seeking team, and personal faction. In further explorations, he analyzes these party models in the light of the historical record and empirical data on American voting behavior, then compares them to proposals for party reform in the United States. In conclusion, Pomper evaluates the contributions of U.S. political parties to democratic values and presents a program to strengthen the parties as institutions of American democracy. "The growth of political parties and the extension of democracy proceed along parallel tracks," Pomper contends. "Competitive political parties facilitate, although they do not guarantee, a considerable measure of popular involvement, control, and policy determination. Without them, government is more likely to evidence authoritarianism, violence, and repression." Description Gerald M. Pomper is Board of Governors Professor of Political Science at the Eagleton Institute of Politics of Rutgers University (Emeritus). He is the author or editor of twenty-one books, including On Ordinary Heroes and American Democracy. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Presidential Lightning Rods: The Politics of Blame Avoidance
Richard J. Ellis
H. R. Haldeman, President Nixon's former chief of staff, is said to have boasted: "Every president needs a son of a bitch, and I'm Nixon's. I'm his buffer and I'm his bastard. I get done what he wants done and I take the heat instead of him." Richard Ellis explores the widely discussed but poorly understood phenomenon of presidential "lightning rods"-cabinet officials who "take the heat" instead of their bosses. Whether by intent or circumstance, these officials divert criticism and blame away from their presidents. The phenomenon is so common that it's assumed to be an essential item in every president's managerial toolbox. But, Ellis argues, such assumptions can oversimplify our understanding of this tool. Ellis advises against indiscriminate use of the lightning rod metaphor. Such labeling can hide as much as it reveals about presidential administration and policymaking at the cabinet level. The metaphor often misleads by suggesting strategic intent on the president's part while obscuring the calculations and objectives of presidential adversaries and the lightning rods themselves. Ellis also illuminates the opportunities and difficulties that various presidential posts-especially secretaries of state, chiefs of staff, and vice presidents-have offered for deflecting blame from our presidents. His study offers numerous detailed and instructive examples from the administrations of Truman (Dean Acheson); Eisenhower (Richard Nixon, John Foster Dulles, Herbert Brownell, and Ezra Taft Benson); LBJ (Hubert Humphrey); Ford (Henry Kissinger); and Reagan (James Watt). These examples, Ellis suggests, should guide our understanding of the relationship between lightning rods and presidential leadership, policymaking, and ratings. Blame avoidance, he warns, does have its limitations and may even backfire at times. Nevertheless, President Clinton and his successors may need to rely on such tools. The presidency, Ellis points out, finds itself the object of increasingly intense partisan debate and microscopic scrutiny by a wary press. Lightning rods can deflect such heat and help the president test policies, gauge public opinion, and protect his political power and public image. Ellis's book is an essential primer for helping us understand this process. Description Richard J. Ellis is Mark O. Hatfield Professor of Politics, Policy, Law and Ethics at Willamette University. He is the author and coauthor of nineteen books, most recently Old Tip vs. the Sly Fox: The 1840 Election and the Making of a Partisan Nation. With a New Preface by the Author. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Quest and Response: Minority Rights and the Truman Administration
Donald R. McCoy and Richard T. Ruetten
Here is a thorough treatment of every important aspect of minority affairs during the Truman administration. The authors trace the significant developments in the quest for minority rights from 1945 to 1953, show the interrelatedness to the struggle waged by Americas racial minorities, and assess the role of the Truman administration in that struggle. The quest of minority peoples for civil rights was a scattered, meager movement until the beginning of the Second World War. Minority group members were segregated, intimidated, poverty-ridden, and undernourished, and their struggle suffered from these weaknesses. This situation changed to an unprecedented extent during the years between 1945 and 1953. Under President Harry S. Truman, the executive branch of the federal government listened to minority groups as never before and often responded to their entreaties and pressures. Civil-rights victories were won in the courts. Educational levels rose and employment opportunities increased. Legal segregation began to crumble, and the campaign for better housing inched forward. Alliances were forged among racial minorities, Jews, organized labor, and political and religious liberals. Sizable elements among the minority group ranks developed a modicum of economic power and political influence for the first time during the Truman administration. This rudimentary power was among the bases for civil-rights and racial developments after 1953. Although the civil-rights story of the Truman administration is one relating mainly to blacks, this study deals with other minority groups, including Indians, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Japanese- and Chinese-Americans, and Jews. Based on extensive research in primary source materials, it is a balanced, in-depth analysis of the power of minorities in eliciting change. It is a valuable addition to the study of social as well as political history. Description Donald R. McCoy was professor of history at the University of Kansas. During 1967-1972 he was Director of the Special Research Project at the Harry S. Truman Library institute. He has been Fulbright Professor at the University of Bonn, has served as President of the Kansas History Teachers Association and has received the Byron Caldwell Smith Award for distinguished writing by a Midwesterner. Richard T. Ruetten is professor of history at California State University, San Diego. He was Research Associate of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute during 1967-1969 and has served as a member of the Editorial Board of The Historian. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Quipus and Witches’ Knots: The Role of the Knot in Primitive and Ancient Cultures
Cyrus Lawrence Day
This essay in cultural anthropology provides a comprehensive view of the way primitive people in all parts of the world once utilized knots; mnemonic knots—to record dates, numbers, and cultural traditions; magic knots—to cure diseases, bewitch enemies, and control the forces of nature; and practical knots—to tie things and hold things together. In his discussion of mnemonic knots, the author analyzes the Peruvian quipus (or knot-calendars and knot-records) and suggests that the Inca astronomer-priests, known to have been accurate observers of the movements of the planets, may also have been able to predict the dates of lunar eclipses; and he shows how it is possible to manipulate the Ina abacus in accordance with the decimal system. His treatment of magic knots includes instances from Babylonian times to the present, with curious examples of the supernatural power attributed to the Hercules knot (i.e., the square knot) in Egypt, Greece, and Rome. His analysis of a little-known treatise on surgeons’ slings and nooses, written by the Green physician Heraklas, is the first detailed account of the specific practical knots used by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Quipus and Witches’ Knots, which is abundantly illustrated, often surprises the reader with the unexpected ways in which the once universal dependence of men on knots has left its mark on the language, customs, and thought of modern peoples. Description Cyrus Lawrence Day (1900–1968) was professor emeritus of English at the University of Delaware. His publications include The Songs of John Drydenand The Art of Knotting and Splicing. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Randolph Bourne and the Politics of Cultural Radicalism
Leslie J. Vaughan
In the "little rebellion" that swept New York's Greenwich Village before World War I, few figures stood out more than Randolph Bourne. Hunchbacked and caped—the "little sparrowlike man" of Dos Passos' U.S.A.—Bourne was an essayist and critic most remembered today for his opposition to U.S. military involvement in Europe and his assertion that "war is the health of the state." A frequent contributor to The New Republic, he died in 1918 at the age of 32, arguing that a "military-industrial" complex would continue to shape the policies of the modern liberal state. Bourne is also recognized as one of the founders of American cultural radicalism, revered in turn by Marxists, anti-fascists, and the New Left. Through his writings, he debated issues that were cultural as well as political from a position he described as "below the battle," rejecting the either/or political options of his day in favor of a viewpoint that argued outside the terms set by the establishment. In her new study of Bourne's political thought, Leslie Vaughan maintains that this position was not, as others have contended, a retreat from politics but rather a different form of political engagement, freed from the suppositions that impede genuine debate and democratic change. Her analysis challenges previous readings of Bourne's politics, showing that he offered non-statist, neighborhood-based politics in America's modern cities as a practical alternative to involvement in the national state and its militarism. By demonstrating Bourne's emphasis on politics as local, multi-ethnic, and intergenerational, Vaughan shows that his thought offered a new political discourse and set of cultural possibilities for American society in an era he was the first to label as "post-modern." Returning to the influence of Nietzsche on his thought, she also explores the role Bourne played in the creation of his own myth. Eighty years later, Bourne can be seen to stand at the cusp of the modern and the post-modern worlds, as he speaks to today's multiculturalist movement. In reexamining Bourne's writings, Vaughan has located the roots of twenthieth-century radical thought while repositioning Bourne at the center of debates about the nature and limits of American liberalism. Description Leslie J. Vaughan is visiting assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. She teaches and writes in the areas of American political thought, law, and culture. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Requiem: Variations on Eighteenth-Century Themes
Forrest McDonald and Ellen Shapiro
In eleven provocative essays Forrest McDonald and his wife, Ellen Shapiro McDonald, cover a wide range of the intellectual, political, military, and social history of the eighteenth century to present both a picture of the age in which our Constitution was crafted and commentary on developments that have caused American government to stray from the Founders’ principles. Appearing here in print for the first time is Forrest McDonald’s widely acclaimed 1987 NEH Jefferson lecture, “The Intellectual World of the Founding Fathers.” In other essays the McDonalds examine such topics as the writing of the Constitution, the central role of such little-known Founders as John Dickinson (“the most underrated of all the Founders”), and the constitutional principles of Alexander Hamilton. Also presented is an exploration of the ritualistic aspects of eighteenth-century warfare and an analysis of Shays’ Rebellion as a tax revolt. In chapters focusing on the separation of powers, the political economy, and the death of federalism, the McDonalds argue the urgent need to “return to limited government under law.” Description Forrest McDonald (1927–2016) was professor of history at the University of Alabama for more than twenty-five years. He is the author or coauthor of fourteen books, including Novus OrdoSeclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in history. Joining him formally as coauthor is his wife and longtime intellectual partner, Ellen Shapiro McDonald. Though she worked with her husband on all of his publications, she chose to only be formally credited as coauthor on this project and as coeditor of Confederation and Constitution, 1781–1789. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Revolt Against Modernity: Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and the Search for a Post-Liberal Order
Ted V. McAllister
Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss are two of the most provocative and durable political philosophers of this century. Ted McAllister's superbly written study provides the first comprehensive comparison of their thought and its profound influence on contemporary American conservatism. Since the appearance in the 1950s of Strauss's Natural Right and History and Voegelin's Order and History, conservatives like Russell Kirk, Irving Kristol, and Allan Bloom have increasingly turned to these thinkers to support their attacks on liberalism and the modernist mindset. Like so many conservatives, Strauss and Voegelin rebelled against modernity' amorality—personified by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche—and its promotion of individualism and materialism over communal and spiritual responsibility. While both disdained the reductionist "conservative" label, conservatives nevertheless appropriated their philosophy, in part because it restored theology and classical tradition to the moral core of civil society. For both men, modernity's debilitating disorder revealed surprising and disturbing relations among liberal, communist, and Nazi ideologies. In their eyes, modernity's insidious virus, so apparent in the Nazi and communist regimes, lies incubating within liberal democracy itself. McAllister's thorough reevaluation of Strauss and Voegelin expands our understanding of their thought and restores balance to a literature that has been dominated by political theorists and disciples of Strauss and Voegelin. Neither reverential nor dismissive, he reveals the social, historical, political, and philosophical foundations of their work and effectively decodes their frequently opaque or esoteric thinking. Well written and persuasively argued, McAllister's study will appeal to anyone engaged in the volatile debates over liberalism's demise and conservatism's rise. Description Ted V. McAllister is Edward L. Gaylord Chair and associate professor of public policy at Pepperdine University. An intellectual historian, he has lectured frequently on the nature and future of American conservatism and is one of the series editors for Rowman & Littlefield’s book series, American Intellectual Culture. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Shaping Modern Liberalism: Herbert Croly and Progressive Thought
Edward A. Stettner
American ideals—liberty, equality, democracy, national unity—are bandied about by liberal politicians as a package deal, inseparably intertwined. But the words often flow together better as rhetoric than they mold together in theory. But, as Herbert Croly and his turn-of-the-century contemporaries found, jelling these appealing yet often conflicting concepts into a liberal philosophy was not nearly as easy as embracing them in a campaign speech. In this first full-length study of Herbert Croly's political theory, Edward Stettner analyzes Croly's writings and examines the events, experiences, and people who influenced Croly's thinking. In the process, he reveals Croly's significant influence on modern liberalism as classical liberal theory merged with progressive philosophy. Croly, founder of The New Republic, expounded on issues from the nationalization of railroads to the Espionage Act in his search for a middle way between socialism and capitalism. Stettner illustrates how Croly's political theory influenced the editorial position of one of the leading liberal journals and how his thought in turn was modified in reaction to national and world events, such as presidential elections and World War I. Stettner portrays Croly as a modest and conscientious intellectual who wholeheartedly came to embrace the progressive movement and consequently helped establish the framework for modern liberalism. In doing so, Stettner emphasizes how Croly's philosophy evolved and how Croly was drawn to the conclusion that a strong national government and individual rights could indeed coexist—if not always serenely—in a democratic society. Description Edward A. Stettner (1940–2013) was Ralph Emerson and Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of Political Science, Emeritus at Wellesley College, where he taught for more than forty years. He was the editor of Perspectives on Europe. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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Slave Women in the New World: Gender Stratification in the Caribbean
Marietta Morrissey
In this innovative study, Marietta Morrissey reframes the debate over slavery in the New World by focusing on the experiences of slave women. Rich in detail and rigorously comparative, her work illuminates the exploitation, achievements, and resilience of slave women in the British, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Danish colonies in the Caribbean from 1600 through the mid 1800s. Morrissey examines a wide spectrum of experience among Caribbean slave women, including their work at home, in the fields, and as domestics; their roles as wives and mothers; their health, sexuality, and fertility; and their decline in status with the advent of industrialization and the abolition of slavery. Life for these women, Morrissey shows, was much more hazardous, brutal, and fragmented than it was for their counterparts in the American South. These women were in a constant, dynamic struggle with men—both masters and fellow slaves—over the foundations of their social experience. This experience was defined both by their status as slaves and by gender inequality. On the one hand, their slave status gradually robbed them of their domain—the household economy—and created a kind of perverse equality in which slave women—like slave men—became “units of agricultural labor.” One the other hand, slave women were denied the access that slave men eventually gained to skilled agricultural work. The result of this gender inequality, as Morrissey convincingly demonstrates, was a further erosion of the status and authority of slave women within their own culture. Morrissey’s study, which addresses significant issues in women's history and black history, will go far toward reshaping our perceptions of slave life in the new world. Description Marietta Morrissey is professor emerita of sociology at the University of Toledo and an independent consultant on higher education. She is a former professor of sociology and dean of humanities and social sciences at Montclair State University. With a New Preface by the Author. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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The American Deists: Voices of Reason and Dissent in the Early Republic
Kerry S. Walters
Challenging carved-in-stone tenets of Christianity, deism began sprouting in colonial America in the early eighteenth century, was flourishing nicely by the American Revolution, and for all intents and purposes was dead by 1811. Despite its hasty demise, deism left a theological legacy. Christian sensibility would never be quite the same. Bringing together the works of six major American deists—Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Ethan Allen, Thomas Paine, Elihu Palmer, and Philip Frenau—an dthe Frechman Comte de Volney, whose writings greatly influenced the American deists, Kerry Walters has created the fullest analysis yet of deism and rational religion in colonial and early America. In addition to presenting a chronological collection of several works by each author, he provides a description of deisms historical roots, its major themes, its social and political implications, and the reasons for its eventual demise as a movement. Essential readings from the three major deistic periodicals of the period—Temple of Reason, Prospect, and the Theophilanthropist—also are included in the volume. This is the first time they have been reprinted since their original publication. American deism is more than merely an antiquated philosophical position possessing only historical interest, Walters contends. Its search for a religion based upon the ideals of reason, nature, and humanitarianism, rather than the blind faith, scriptural inerrancy, and miracles preached by Christian churches at the time, continues to offer insight of real significance. Description Kerry S. Walters is professor emeritus of philosophy at Gettysburg College. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of 48 books, including Revolutionary Deists: Early America’s Rational Infidels and Harriet Tubman: A Life in American History. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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The Black Towns
Norman L. Crockett
From Appomattox to World War I, Black Americans continued their quest for a secure position in the American system. The problem was how to be both black and American—how to find acceptance, or even toleration, in a society in which the boundaries of normative behavior, the values, and the very definition of what it meant to be an American were determined and enforced by whites. A few black leaders proposed self-segregation inside the United States within the protective confines of an all-Black community as one possible solution. The Black-town idea reached its peak in the fifty years after the Civil War; at least sixty Black communities were settled between 1865 and 1915. Norman L. Crockett has focused on the formation, growth and failure of five such communities. The towns and the date of their settlement are: Nicodemus, Kansas (1879), established at the time of the Black exodus from the South; Mound Bayou, Mississippi (1897), perhaps the most prominent Black town because of its close ties to Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee Institute: Langston, Oklahoma (1891), visualized by one of its promoters as the nucleus for the creation of an all-Black state in the West; and Clearview (1903) and Boley (1904), in Oklahoma, twin communities in the Creek Nation which offer the opportunity observe certain aspects of Indian-Black relations in this area. The role of Blacks in town promotion and settlement has long been a neglected area in western and urban history, Crockett looks at patterns of settlement and leadership, government, politics, economics, and the problems of isolation versus interaction with the white communities. He also describes family life, social life, and class structure within the black towns. Crockett looks closely at the rhetoric and behavior of blacks inside the limits of their own community—isolated from the domination of whites and freed from the daily reinforcement of their subordinate rank in the larger society. He finds that, long before “Black is beautiful” entered the American vernacular, Black-town residents exhibited a strong sense of race price. The reader observes in microcosm Black attitudes about many aspects of American life as Crockett ties the Black-town experience to the larger question of race relations at the turn of the century. This volume also explains the failure of the Black-town dream. Crockett cites discrimination, lack of capital, and the many forces at work in the local, regional, and national economies. He shows how the racial and town-building experiment met its demise as the residents of all-Black communities became both economically and psychologically trapped. This study adds valuable new material to the literature on black history, and makes a significant contribution to American social and urban history, community studies, and the regional history of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. Description Norman L. Crockett (1934–2015) was professor emeritus of history at the University of Oklahoma, where he taught from 1969 until his retirement in 1998. He wrote, co-edited, and coauthored several books, including The Power Elite in America and The Woolen Industry of the Midwest. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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The Cattle Guard: Its History and Lore
James F. Hoy
With this study the cattle guard joins the sod house, the windmill, and barbed wire as a symbol of range country on the American Great Plains. A U.S. folk innovation now in use throughout the world, the cattle guard functions as both a gate and a fence: it keeps livestock from crossing, but allows automobiles and people to cross freely. The author blends traditional history and folklore to trace the origins of the cattle guard and to describe how, in true folk fashion, the device in its simplest form—wooden poles or logs spaced in parallel fashion over a pit in the roadway—was reinvented and adapted throughout livestock country. Hoy traces the origins of the cattle guard to flat stone stiles unique to Cornwall, England, then through the railroad cattle guard, in use in this country as early as 1836, and finally to the Great Plains where, probably in 1905, the first ones appeared on roads. He describes regional variations in cattle guards and details unusual types. He provides information on cattle-guard makers, who range from local blacksmiths and welders to farmers and ranchers to large manufacturers. In addition to documenting the economic and cultural significance of the cattle guard, this volume reveals much about early twentieth-century farm and ranch life. It will be of interest not only to folklorists and historians of agriculture and Western America, but also to many Plains-area farmers, ranchers, and oilmen. Description Jim Hoy is professor emeritus of English at Emporia State University, where he also directed Center for Great Plains Studies. Hoy is the author of numerous books about cowboy life, including Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales from the Tallgrass Prairie and My Flint Hills: Observations and Reminiscences from America’s Last Tallgrass Prairie. With a New Preface by the Author. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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The Constitution of the People: Reflections on Citizens and Civil Society
Robert E. Calvert
To be a U.S. citizen is to be a member of a constitutional order that requires political unity but is also committed to social and cultural diversity. How do we solve the riddle of the one and the many? What is, in Tom Paine's words, "the constitution of the people"? This is a perennial question that goes to the heart of American society and that increasingly shapes public debates about the health of our body politic. To answer it, Robert Calvert, a political scientist, has collected original essays by six distinguished scholars who are among the most influential interpreters of the American scene today. The essays included in this book are united by the effort to understand America's identity in a way that does justice to the paradoxes and pluralities of its politics. Each seeks to find some middle ground between a government too intrusive and citizens too removed from public life, a balance between particular freedom and common purpose. Vigorously argued, lively, and accessible to the general reader, these essays challenge much of contemporary thought on the meaning of American constitutionalism. Description Robert E. Calvert is professor emeritus of political science at DePauw University. He is the editor of To Restore American Democracy: Political Education and the Modern University. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
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The Dance with Community: The Contemporary Debate in American Political Thought
Robert Booth Fowler
Contemporary intellectuals have rushed to embrace the concept of "community.” What does this tell us about American political thought? Why are intellectuals uneasy with modern liberal individualism and its institutional policy results? Why is political intellectual discourse dominated today by complaint? In The Dance with Community Robert Booth Fowler reflects upon these and related questions. “My goal,” he writes, “is to present contemporary political thought about community for what it is—a conversation interactive, spirited, and sometimes tough.” There have been many interpretations of the much-discussed decline in community spirit. Rather than offer another, Fowler steps back to look at the debate itself. He examines from the perspective of an intellectual historian the attention to community in current American political thought and explores the setting of that attention. He also identifies five alternative models of community integral to the current debates and sketches a clear image of each—its relationship to others, the logic of its appeal, and its emphases and problems. In each instance he places the model into the larger conversation over alternative communities and the value of community itself. Description Robert Booth Fowler is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught from 1967 until his retirement in 2002. His books include The Dance with Community: The Contemporary Debate in American Political Thought and Unconventional Partners: Religion and American Liberal Culture. With a New Foreword by Susan McWilliams Barndt. This Kansas Open Books title is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.
The Kansas Open Book collection has been funded by a grant from the National Endowment for Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. The collection has been provided here courtesy of the University Press of Kansas.
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