This book provides a historical examination of everyday life to reveal how and why Americans during the Progressive Era structured their world and made their lives meaningful. The Progressive Era represented a tumultuous time for Americans as they attempted to come to terms with a rapidly emerging modern, urban, and industrial society, and ultimately the dislocations caused by World War I. Steven L. Piott's Daily Life in the Progressive Era tells the story of how all Americans-black and white, women and men, rural inhabitants and urban residents, workers and employers, consumers and producers-contended with new cultural attitudes, persistent racial and class tensions, and the power struggles of evolving classes. This book provides a broad examination of American society between 1900 and 1920. Organized thematically, it covers rural and urban America, the changing nature of work, race relations, popular culture, citizen activism, and society during wartime. Appropriate for general readers as well as students of history, Daily Life in the Progressive Era provides an informed and compelling narrative history and analysis of daily life within the context of broad historical patterns. Includes a chronology of major events between 1890 and 1920 Presents numerous photographs and images that illustrate important points throughout the narrative Provides a detailed bibliography of sources Includes both a detailed index and a brief glossary of key terms

Once assumed to be a driver or even cause of conflict, commemoration during Ireland's Decade of Centenaries came to occupy a central place in peacebuilding efforts. The inclusive and cross-communal reorientation of commemoration, particularly of the First World War, has been widely heralded as signifying new forms of reconciliation and a greater "maturity" in relationships between Ireland and the UK and between Unionists and Nationalists in Northern Ireland. In this study, Jonathan Evershed interrogates the particular and implicitly political claims about the nature of history, memory, and commemoration that define and sustain these assertions, and explores some of the hidden and countervailing transcripts that underwrite and disrupt them. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Belfast, Evershed explores Ulster Loyalist commemoration of the Battle of the Somme, its conflicted politics, and its confrontation with official commemorative discourse and practice during the Decade of Centenaries. He investigates how and why the myriad social, political, cultural, and economic changes that have defined postconflict Northern Ireland have been experienced by Loyalists as a culture war, and how commemoration is the means by which they confront and challenge the perceived erosion of their identity. He reveals the ways in which this brings Loyalists into conflict not only with the politics of Irish Nationalism, but with the "peacebuilding" state and, crucially, with each other. He demonstrates how commemoration works to reproduce the intracommunal conflicts that it claims to have overcome and interrogates its nuanced (and perhaps counterintuitive) function in conflict transformation.

A new compendium of firsthand reminiscences of life on the American home front during World War II. America's Home Front Heroes: An Oral History of World War II brings together in one rich resource the voices of those whom history often leaves out-the ordinary men, women, and children caught up in an extraordinary time. America's Home Front Heroes is divided into four sections: A Time for Heightened Passion, A Time for Caution and Prejudice, A Time for Flag Waving, and A Time for War Plant Women. The 34 brief oral histories within these sections capture the full diversity of the United States during the war, with contributions coming from men, women, and children of all backgrounds, including Japanese Americans, conscientious objectors, African Americans, housewives, and journalists. A treasure trove for researchers and World War II enthusiasts, this remarkable volume offers members of "the greatest generation" an opportunity to relive their defining era. For those with no direct experience of the period, it's a chance to learn firsthand what it was like living in the United States at a pivotal moment in history. 34 concise oral histories describing everyday life in the United States during World War II Four sections: A Time for Heightened Passion, A Time for Caution, A Time for Flag Waving, and A Time for War Plant Women Based entirely on primary sources-letters, journals, correspondence, interviews, etc-from people who lived through World War II on the American home front Photographs that capture the look and feel of how life changed for Americans at home during World War II Includes contributions and photographs from Martha Kostyra, mother of Martha Stewart

After 1898 the United States not only solidified its position as an economic colossus, but by annexing Puerto Rico and the Philippines it had also added for the first time semi-permanent, heavily populated colonies unlikely ever to attain statehood. In short order followed a formal protectorate over Cuba, the "taking" of Panama to build a canal, and the announcement of a new Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, proclaiming an American duty to "police" the hemisphere. Empire had been an American practice since the nation's founding, but the new policies were understood as departures from traditional methods of territorial expansion. How to match these actions with traditional non-entanglement constituted the central preoccupation of U.S. foreign relations in the early twentieth century. International lawyers proposed instead that the United States become an impartial judge. By becoming a force for law in the world, America could reconcile its republican ideological tradition with a desire to rank with the Great Powers. Lawyers' message scaled new heights of popularity in the first decade and a half of the twentieth century as a true profession of international law emerged. The American Society of International Law (ASIL) and other groups, backed by the wealth of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, held annual meetings and published journals. They called for the creation of an international court, the holding of regular conferences to codify the rules of law, and the education of public opinion as to the proper rights and duties of states. To an extent unmatched before or since, the U.S. government-the executive branch if not always the U.S. Senate-embraced this project. Washington called for peace conferences and pushed for the creation of a "true " international court. It proposed legal institutions to preserve order in its hemisphere. Meanwhile lawyers advised presidents and made policy. The ASIL counted among its first members every living secretary of state (but one) who held office between 1892 and 1920. Growing numbers of international lawyers populated the State Department and represented U.S. corporations with business overseas. International lawyers were not isolated idealists operating from the sidelines. Well-connected, well-respected, and well-compensated, they formed an integral part of the foreign policy establishment that built and policed an expanding empire.

"Ye cannot serve God and mammon," the Bible says. But conservative American Protestants have, for at least a century, been trying to prove that adage wrong. While preachers, activists, and politicians have all helped spread the gospel, Darren Grem argues that evangelicalism owes its strength to the blessings of business. Grem offers a new history of American evangelicalism, showing how its adherents strategically used corporate America-its leaders, businesses, money, ideas, and values-to advance their religious, cultural, and political aspirations. Conservative evangelicals were thus able to retain and expand their public influence in a secularizing, diversifying, and liberalizing age. In the process they became beholden to pro-business stances on matters of theology, race, gender, taxation, free trade, and the state, making them well-suited to a broader conservative movement that was also of, by, and for corporate America. The Blessings of Business tells the story of unlikely partnerships between champions of the evangelical movement, such as Billy Graham, and largely forgotten businessmen, like R.G. LeTourneau; he describes the backdrop against which the religious right's pro-business politics can be understood. The evangelical embrace of corporate capitalism made possible a fusion with other conservatives, he finds, creating a foundation for the business-friendly turn in the nation's economy and political culture. But it also transformed conservative evangelicalism itself, making it as much an economic movement as a religious one. Fascinating and provocative, The Blessings of Business uncovers the strong ties Americans have forged between the Almighty and the almighty dollar.

Red Bird, Red Power tells the story of one of the most influential - and controversial - American Indian activists of the twentieth century. Zitkala-Sa (1876-1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a highly gifted writer, editor, and musician who dedicated her life to achieving justice for Native peoples. Here, Tadeusz Lewandowski offers the first full-scale biography of the woman whose passionate commitment to improving the lives of her people propelled her to the forefront of Progressive-era reform movements. Lewandowski draws on a vast array of sources, including previously unpublished letters and diaries, to recount Zitkala-Sa's unique life journey. Her story begins on the Dakota plains, where she was born to a Yankton Sioux mother and a white father. Zitkala-Sa, whose name translates as ""Red Bird"" in English, left home at age eight to attend a Quaker boarding school, eventually working as a teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School. By her early twenties, she was the toast of East Coast literary society. Her short stories for the Atlantic Monthly (1900) are, to this day, the focus of scholarly analysis and debate. In collaboration with William F. Hanson, she wrote the libretto and songs for the innovative Sun Dance Opera (1913). And yet, as Lewandowski demonstrates, Zitkala-Sa's successes could not fill the void of her lost cultural heritage, nor dampen her fury toward the Euro-American establishment that had robbed her people of their land. In 1926, she founded the National Council of American Indians with the aim of redressing American Indian grievances. Zitkala-Sa's complex identity has made her an intriguing - if elusive - subject for scholars. In Lewandowski's sensitive interpretation, she emerges as a multifaceted human being whose work entailed constant negotiation. In the end, Lewandowski argues, Zitkala-Sa's achievements distinguish her as a forerunner of the Red Power movement and an important agent of change.

Today, 1913 is inevitably viewed through the lens of 1914: as the last year before a war that would shatter the global economic order and tear Europe apart, undermining its global pre-eminence. Our perspectives narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is reduced to its most frivolous features--last summers in grand aristocratic residences--or its most destructive ones: the unresolved rivalries of the great European powers, the fear of revolution, violence in the Balkans.
In this illuminating history, Charles Emmerson liberates the world of 1913 from this "prelude to war" narrative, and explores it as it was, in all its richness and complexity. Traveling from Europe's capitals, then at the height of their global reach, to the emerging metropolises of Canada and the United States, the imperial cities of Asia and Africa, and the boomtowns of Australia and South America, he provides a panoramic view of a world crackling with possibilities, its future still undecided, its outlook still open.
The world in 1913 was more modern than we remember, more similar to our own times than we expect, more globalized than ever before. The Gold Standard underpinned global flows of goods and money, while mass migration reshaped the world's human geography. Steamships and sub-sea cables encircled the earth, along with new technologies and new ideas. Ford's first assembly line cranked to life in 1913 in Detroit. The Woolworth Building went up in New York. While Mexico was in the midst of bloody revolution, Winnipeg and Buenos Aires boomed. An era of petro-geopolitics opened in Iran. China appeared to be awaking from its imperial slumber. Paris celebrated itself as the city of light--Berlin as the city of electricity.
Full of fascinating characters, stories, and insights, "1913: In Search of the World before the Great War" brings a lost world vividly back to life, with provocative implications for how we understand our past and how we think about our future.

This book argues that Franklin D. Roosevelt's work-of which the New Deal was a prime example-was rooted in a definitive political ideology tied to the ideals of the Progressive movement and the social gospel of the late 19th century. Roosevelt's New Deal resulted in such dramatic changes within the United States that it merits the label "revolutionary" and ranks with the work of Washington and Lincoln in its influence on the American nation. The New Deal was not simply the response to a severe economic crisis; it was also an expression of FDR's well-developed political ideology stemming from his religious ideas and his experience in the Progressive movement of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Third American Revolution describes the unfolding of his New Deal response to the crisis of the Depression and chronicles the bitter conservative opposition that resisted every step in the Roosevelt revolution. The author's analysis of Roosevelt's political thought is supported by FDR's own words contained in the key documents and various speeches of his political career. This book also documents FDR's recognition of the dangers to democracy from unresponsive government and identifies his specific motivations to provide for the general welfare. Provides a chronology of FDR's career Contains photographs of FDR and New Deal moments as well as edited versions of FDR's documents and speeches Includes a bibliography of works and documents cited

This oral history of the air war in Vietnam includes the stories of more than thirty pilots who all had one thing in common-after returning from Southeast Asia and separating from the service, they were hired as pilots by Western Airlines. As the chapters begin, Bruce Cowee tells his story and introduces us to each pilot. The interesting theme is that all of these men served in Southeast Asia and in most cases never knew each other until they came home and went to work for Western Airlines. Each of the pilots featured in this book is the real thing, and in an age of so many "Wannabees," it is reassuring to know that each of them was a pilot for Western Airlines and someone who Bruce worked with or knew professionally. The stories span a 9 year period, 1964 - 1973, and cover every aspect of the Air War in Southeast Asia. These 33 men represent only a small fraction of the Vietnam veterans hired as pilots by Western Airlines, but this book pays tribute to all of them.

Titoist Yugoslavia is a particularly interesting setting to examine the integrity of the modern nation-state, especially the viability of distinctly multi-ethnic nation-building projects. Scholarly literature on the brutal civil wars that destroyed Yugoslavia during the 1990s emphasizes divisive nationalism and dysfunctional politics to explain why the state disintegrated. But the larger question remains unanswered-just how did Tito's state function so successfully for the preceding forty-six years. In an attempt to understand better what united the stable, multi-ethnic, and globally important Yugoslavia that existed before 1991 Robert Niebuhr argues that we should pay special attention to the dynamic and robust foreign policy that helped shape the Cold War.