Synopses & Reviews
To many reformers of the early twentieth century, “Tammany Hall” came to symbolize all that was baleful and corrupt in American politics.
A Response to Progressivism vigorously challenges this view as it applies to “Boss” Charlie Murphy's own "czardom," the city, and, for a time, the state of New York. More than that, the study offers an analysis of the New York Democratic party against a background of profound economic and social change and a truly complex political environment—a political culture, broadly speaking—that embraced a competitive two-party system; a polity divided along sectional and ethnocultural lines; and a fickle, skeptical electorate.
Key figures such as Murphy and his youthful lieutenants, Alfred E. Smith and Robert F. Wagner, often battled fellow Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas Mott Osborne as much as the Republicans, Theodore Roosevelts Progressives, and the emergent Socialist party in their continuing efforts to accommodate the currents of reform then sweeping across the state.
The author concludes the book with the election of Al Smith as governor in 1918, a momentous event not only in the transformation of the Democratic party in New York as the main vehicle for political, economic, and social change, but also in the development of modern American liberalism itself.
Besides reassessing the role of "bossism" and the political machine in the early twentieth century, A Response to Progressivism also documents the political history of the era. It will therefore have substantial appeal not only to historians of New York but also to political historians, political scientists, and to readers interested in the history of reform.
Review
"C. Wright Mills used the term "sociological imagination" to describe the insight a person has who "understand[s] the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and external career of a variety of individuals." In this regard McGinity's book reveals her own strong sociological imagination." "Throughout her analysis, McGinity shows how the lives of Jewish women who intermarried demonstrate the complexity of Jewish identity in the United States."
"McGinity's story has great poignancy. Still Jewish demonstrates how, from insular beginnings surrounded by anti-Semitism to a world of inevitable intermarriage, Jewish women with gentile partners negotiated a new way to be Jewish in America."
"If you thought there was nothing new to say about Jews and intermarriage, think again. McGinity's well-researched study focuses on American Jewish women who intermarried during the twentieth century and demonstrates that many of them not only remained Jewish but, paradoxically, became more Jewish, perhaps in response to the challenge of having a non-Jewish spouse. An invaluable addition to the scant scholarly literature on intermarriage, this volume shows that in intermarriage, as in so much else, gender matters."
"This compelling, impeccably researched book should make a huge difference in how we understand the contentious issue of intermarriage in the Jewish community. By putting Jewish women into the center of the story, McGinity offers a fresh perspective that challenges standard interpretations. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of Jewish life in America as well as for all those concerned with present-day patterns, policies, and outreach programs."
Review
“Historian McGinity (Brown) makes an effort to evoke new perspectives on the intermarriage of US Jewish women during the 20th century.The author offers a brief candid assessment of her own experience, which seems contrary to accepted views that marrying "out" is a prescription for diminished religious and social identity, leading to assimilation.”
-CHOICE,
Review
“McGinity's work makes clear the need for further study of intermarriage including experiences of Jewish men; comparisons of intermarried and in-married Jewish women; consideration of same-sex intermarriages; and, finally, larger sociological studies of contemporary women.”
-Lilith,
Synopsis
Over the last century, American Jews married outside their religion at increasing rates. By closely examining the intersection of intermarriage and gender across the twentieth century, Keren R. McGinity describes the lives of Jewish women who intermarried while placing their decisions in historical context. The first comprehensive history of these intermarried women,
Still Jewish is a multigenerational study combining in-depth personal interviews and an astute analysis of how interfaith relationships and intermarriage were portrayed in the mass media, advice manuals, and religious community-generated literature.
Still Jewish dismantles assumptions that once a Jew intermarries, she becomes fully assimilated into the majority Christian population, religion, and culture. Rather than becoming “lost” to the Jewish community, women who intermarried later in the century were more likely to raise their children with strong ties to Judaism than women who intermarried earlier in the century. Bringing perennially controversial questions of Jewish identity, continuity, and survival to the forefront of the discussion, Still Jewish addresses topics of great resonance in the modern Jewish community and beyond.
About the Author
Robert F. Wesser is Professor of History at the State University of New York at Albany, where he has been a faculty member since 1966. He also holds a joint appointment at the Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. Wesser is the author of Charles Evans Hughes: Politics and Reform in New York, 1905-1910, the first of his projected three-volume set on the period. A Response to Progressivism is the second book, and Wesser is now at work on the final volume, a biography of Al Smith.