Synopses & Reviews
The University and the People chronicles the influence of Populism—a powerful agrarian movement—on public higher education in the late nineteenth century. Revisiting this pivotal era in the history of the American state university, Scott Gelber demonstrates that Populists expressed a surprising degree of enthusiasm for institutions of higher learning. More fundamentally, he argues that the mission of the state university, as we understand it today, evolved from a fractious but productive relationship between public demands and academic authority.
Populists attacked a variety of elites—professionals, executives, scholars—and seemed to confirm academia’s fear of anti-intellectual public oversight. The movement’s vision of the state university highlighted deep tensions in American attitudes toward meritocracy and expertise. Yet Populists also promoted state-supported higher education, with the aims of educating the sons (and sometimes daughters) of ordinary citizens, blurring status distinctions, and promoting civic engagement. Accessibility, utilitarianism, and public service were the bywords of Populist journalists, legislators, trustees, and sympathetic professors. These “academic populists” encouraged state universities to reckon with egalitarian perspectives on admissions, financial aid, curricula, and research. And despite their critiques of college “ivory towers,” Populists supported the humanities and social sciences, tolerated a degree of ideological dissent, and lobbied for record-breaking appropriations for state institutions.
Review
“Gelber shows that the farmer’s movement was not hostile to higher education, but that it wanted public colleges and universities to behave differently—favoring greater access for underprepared and underfunded students, a heightened emphasis on practical rather than theoretical education, greater responsiveness to public opinion, and social science education that reflected Populist understandings of political economy.”—David Danbom, author of The World of Hope: Progressives and the Struggle for an Ethical Public Life
Review
“This well-written, well-organized, and well-argued book offers the first complete analysis of Populist influence on public higher education in the United States in the late nineteenth century.”—Adam R. Nelson, author of Education and Democracy
Review
“This impressively researched, well-written first book breaks genuinely new ground in one of the most thoroughly studied areas in US history.”— CHOICE
Review
“An invaluable contribution for all disciplines engaged in the study of education.”—John L. Thelin, Educational Researcher
Review
andquot;At last, a study that puts the saga of the 1960s New Left at the University of Wisconsinandndash;Madison campus into proper context! Matthew Levin has done a marvelous job, and this book deserves the widest attention both from scholars and from veterans of the experience.andquot;andmdash;Paul Buhle, editor of History and the New Left: Madison, Wisconsin, 1950andndash;1970
Review
andquot;A wonderful and provocative read. Matthew Levin provides a compelling portrait of how Madison, Wisconsin, became an enduring hotbed for creative political activism. By capturing the complexity of a campus that combines intellectual elitism with populist commitments and progressive inspirations with conservative Midwestern inhibitions, Levin shows how motivated students remain connected to a long history that transfers ideas and practices across generations.andquot;andmdash;Jeremi Suri, author of Libertyandrsquo;s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama
Review
andldquo;The author examines how the UW tolerated political dissent, even at the height of McCarthyism, and charts the emergence of an intellectual community that encouraged new directions in radical politics.andrdquo;andmdash;
On Wisconsin MagazineReview
andldquo;Examines how andlsquo;going to collegeandrsquo; became that quintessential middle-class experience and, moreover, how it reshaped the archetype of the American businessman for the emergent economic base of corporate capitalism.andrdquo;andmdash; John Pettegrew, author of Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890-1920
Review
andldquo;A valuable contribution to the scholarship on the several areas it pulls together: the histories of popular magazines, the success ethic, business, higher education, and intercollegiate athletics.andrdquo;andmdash;Michael Oriard, author of Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle
Review
andldquo;[A]n engaging contribution to the history of the mass media that provides evidence of the power of magazines to shape our mental lives.andrdquo;andmdash;Bookforum
Review
andldquo;Clarkandrsquo;s book is a valuable addition to the growing historical literature on the meaning and significance of higher education in America. . . .[I]t clearly and thoroughly illuminates crucial sources of popular images of college life.and#160; Such images remain familiar to this day and, whether we realize it or not, shape our own expectations and perceptions of what college is and should be about.andrdquo;andmdash;The Cutting Edge
Review
andldquo;Articulate and engaging. . . .the findings here are significant and timely, suggesting how college education acquired its democratic value and even utility, less from curricular changes than from larger norms and narratives attached to it by educators, editors, and advertisers.andrdquo;andmdash;Thomas Augst, Journal of American History
Review
andldquo;The book is rich in reflections about these magazineandrsquo;s representations of college curricula and extracurricular life, and the linkages between these and both the newly developing ideals of masculinity and the world of corporate capitalism.andrdquo;andmdash;
Historical Studies in EducationSynopsis
As the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated in the 1950s and 1960s, the federal government directed billions of dollars to American universities to promote higher enrollments, studies of foreign languages and cultures, and, especially, scientific research. In Cold War University, Matthew Levin traces the paradox that developed: higher education became increasingly enmeshed in the Cold War struggle even as university campuses became centers of opposition to Cold War policies. The partnerships between the federal government and major research universities sparked a campus backlash that provided the foundation, Levin argues, for much of the student dissent that followed. At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, one of the hubs of student political activism in the 1950s and 1960s, the protests reached their flashpoint with the 1967 demonstrations against campus recruiters from Dow Chemical, the manufacturers of napalm.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Levin documents the development of student political organizations in Madison in the 1950s and the emergence of a mass movement in the decade that followed, adding texture to the history of national youth protests of the time. He shows how the University of Wisconsin tolerated political dissent even at the height of McCarthyism, an era named for Wisconsin's own virulently anti-Communist senator, and charts the emergence of an intellectual community of students and professors that encouraged new directions in radical politics. Some of the events in Madisonandmdash;especially the 1966 draft protests, the 1967 sit-in against Dow Chemical, and the 1970 Sterling Hall bombingandmdash;have become part of the fabric of andquot;The Sixties,andquot; touchstones in an era that continues to resonate in contemporary culture and politics.
Synopsis
How did a college education become so vital to American notions of professional and personal advancement? Reared on the ideal of the self-made man, American men had long rejected the need for college. But in the early twentieth century this ideal began to change as white men born in the U.S. faced a barrage of new challenges, among them a stultifying bureaucracy and growing competition in the workplace from an influx of immigrants and women. At this point a college education appealed to young men as an attractive avenue to success in a dawning corporate age. Accessible at first almost exclusively to middle-class white males, college funneled these aspiring elites toward a more comfortable and certain future in a revamped construction of the American dream.
and#160;and#160;and#160; In Creating the College Man Daniel A. Clark argues that the dominant mass media of the eraandmdash;popular magazines such as Cosmopolitan and the Saturday Evening Postandmdash;played an integral role in shaping the immediate and long-term goals of this select group of men. In editorials, articles, fiction, and advertising, magazines depicted the college man as simultaneously cultured and scientific, genteel and athletic, polished and tough. Such depictions underscored the college experience in powerful and attractive ways that neatly united the incongruous strains of American manhood and linked a college education to corporate success.
About the Author
Matthew Levin teaches high school social studies in McFarland, Wisconsin. He received his PhD in history from the University of Wisconsinandndash;Madison.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgmentsand#160;and#160;and#160;
Introduction. Piggy Goes to Harvard: Mass Magazines, Masculinity and College Education for the Corporate Middle Classand#160;and#160;and#160;
1 The Crisis of the Clerks: Magazines, Masculine Success, and the Ideal Businessman in Transitionand#160;and#160;and#160;
2 The College Curriculum and Business: Re-Conceptualizing the Pathways to Power in a Corporate Worldand#160;and#160;and#160;
3 Athletes and Frats, Romance and Rowdies: Re-Imagining the Collegiate Extracurricular Experienceand#160;and#160;and#160;
4 Horatio Alger Goes to College: College, Corporate America, and the Reconfiguration of the Self-Made Idealand#160;and#160;and#160;
5 From Campus Hero to Corporate Professional: Selling the Full Vision of the College Experienceand#160;and#160;and#160;
Conclusion: College and the Culture of Aspirationand#160;and#160;and#160;
Appendixand#160;and#160;and#160;
Notesand#160;and#160;and#160;
Indexand#160;and#160;and#160;