Synopses & Reviews
In entries such as Jane Addams and the Settlement House Movement, Booker T. Washington and Black Self-Help, and Betty Friedan and the National Organization for Women, this dictionary provides in-depth examination of major American reformers and the movements they defined. With coverage extending from the early republic to today, the book considers abolitionism, women's rights, temperance, the social gospel, birth control, pacifism, civil rights, environmentalism, consumerism, and other controversial movements. Each entry combines biography with historical analysis to show the historical context and character of the movement and person. Individually, the entries provide modern, interpretive treatments of their subjects. Collectively, they reveal the direction and dynamics of American reform over two centuries.
Emphasizing social reform over civic reform, the book gives special attention to reformers and reforms that have significantly altered the social order. Written by prominent scholars, the entries show the importance of personality and historical context in reform movements and the relationship between particular reforms and the temperament of an age. With full-bodied biographies of the reformers and their movements, a time-line on American reform, up-to-date interpretations and bibliographies, and a wide range of subjects, this book provides the most comprehensive and cogent view of American reform and reformers anywhere. It also provides the fullest treatment to date of post-World War II reform activity and personalities.
Review
...to understand how these extraordinary individuals came to the fore in their fields, the challenges they faced, and the legacies they left, only American Reform and Reformers will do.Rettig on Reference
Review
...to understand how these extraordinary individuals came to the fore in their fields, the challenges they faced, and the legacies they left, only American Reform and Reformers will do.Rettig on Reference
Review
Recommended for college and university libraries at liberal arts institutions and as a book of supplemental readings for courses in recent US social history.Choice
Review
A highly informative biographical dictionary for both the student of history and the general public. Recommended.Reference Book Review
Synopsis
Provides in-depth profiles of major American reformers and the reforms they created and sustained from the early republic to today.
About the Author
RANDALL M. MILLER is Professor of History and Director of American Studies at Saint Joseph's University.PAUL A. CIMBALA is Associate Professor of History at Fordham University.
Table of Contents
American Reform and Reformers: An Introduction by Randall M. Miller
Acknowledgments
Jane Addams and the Settlement House Movement by Louise W. Knight
Jessie Daniel Ames and the White Women's Anti-Lynching Campaign by Robert F. Martin
Roger Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union by Samuel Walker
Catharine Beecher and Domestic Relations by Kathleen C. Berkeley
Charles Loring Brace and Children's Uplift by Eric C. Schneider
Earl Browder and American Communism by James G. Ryan
Cesar Chavez and Migrant Workers by Richard Griswold del Castillo
Barry Commoner and Environmentalism by Douglas H. Strong
Dorothy Day and the American Catholic Worker Movement by Anne Klejment
Eugene Victor Debs and Radical Labor Reform by Scott Molloy
John Dewey and Pragmatic Education by George Cotkin
Dorothea Dix and Mental Health Reform by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn
W.E.B. Du Bois, the NAACP, and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Cary D. Wintz
Mary Baker Eddy and Theological Reform by Mary Farrell Bednarowski
Charles G. Finney and the Evangelical Reform Impulse by Nancy A. Hardesty
Betty Friedan and the National Organization for Women by Barbara McGowan
William Lloyd Garrison and Abolitionism by Merton L. Dillon
Henry George and Utopia by Geoffrey Blodgett
Washington Gladden and the Social Gospel by Jacob H. Dorn
Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor by Brian Greenberg
Sylvester Graham and Health Reform by Vincent J. Cirillo
Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Modern Civil Rights Movement by Ralph E. Luker
Rachel MacNair and Feminists for Life by Suzanne Schnittman
Horace Mann and Common School Reform by William W. Cutler III
Russell Means and Native-American Rights by Raymond Wilson
Harvey Milk and Gay Rights by R. Lane Fenrich
A. J. Muste and Pacifism by Charles E. Chatfield
Ralph Nader and Consumer Politics by Martha May
Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement by Ellen Chesler
Carl Schurz and Radical Reconstruction by Brooks D. Simpson
Joseph Smith, Mormonism, and Religious Communitarianism by Newell G. Bringhurst
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Woman's Rights Movement by Ann D. Gordon
Norman M. Thomas and American Socialism by James C. Duram
Booker T. Washington and Black Self-Help by Loren Schweninger
Tom Watson and Populism by Barton C. Shaw
Ida Wells-Barnett and the African-American Anti-Lynching Campaign by Linda O. McMurry
Harvey Washington Wiley and Pure Food Reform by James Harvey Young
Frances Willard and Temperance by Ian R. Tyrrell
Reform Chronology by Paul A. Cimbala
Index