Leon Fink
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834503
- eISBN:
- 9781469603322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877807_fink.7
- Subject:
- History, Economic History
This chapter shows how nineteenth-century American seamen and their advocates had long called for “emancipation” from coercive regulations. By the end of the century, workers in this most “unfree” of ...
More
This chapter shows how nineteenth-century American seamen and their advocates had long called for “emancipation” from coercive regulations. By the end of the century, workers in this most “unfree” of occupations were still subjected to various forms of physical punishment from superiors and denied the “right to quit” work without facing potential criminal prosecution. Famously, the seamen finally won their freedom in one of the hallmarks of Progressive Era legislation, the U.S. Seamen's Act, signed by President Woodrow Wilson on March 4, 1915, a date that Senator Robert M. La Follette, the bill's chief author, called the seamen's “emancipation day.” Upon reexamination, the La Follette Act was both more and less than it appeared. Though initially presented as a catch-up measure for matters of freedom, rights, and safety at sea, both the legislation and the contemporary debate that enveloped it tilted at larger, more forward-looking issues.Less
This chapter shows how nineteenth-century American seamen and their advocates had long called for “emancipation” from coercive regulations. By the end of the century, workers in this most “unfree” of occupations were still subjected to various forms of physical punishment from superiors and denied the “right to quit” work without facing potential criminal prosecution. Famously, the seamen finally won their freedom in one of the hallmarks of Progressive Era legislation, the U.S. Seamen's Act, signed by President Woodrow Wilson on March 4, 1915, a date that Senator Robert M. La Follette, the bill's chief author, called the seamen's “emancipation day.” Upon reexamination, the La Follette Act was both more and less than it appeared. Though initially presented as a catch-up measure for matters of freedom, rights, and safety at sea, both the legislation and the contemporary debate that enveloped it tilted at larger, more forward-looking issues.
J. Kevin Corder and Christina Wolbrecht
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- February 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190265144
- eISBN:
- 9780190265175
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190265144.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics, Democratization
How did the first female voters use their ballots? Focusing on the presidential election of 1924—in which Progressive Robert M. La Follette secured 17% of the vote—this chapter examines the ...
More
How did the first female voters use their ballots? Focusing on the presidential election of 1924—in which Progressive Robert M. La Follette secured 17% of the vote—this chapter examines the expectation that women would be particularly likely to support candidates associated with the Progressive movement. Employing new strategies to estimate women’s vote choice using aggregate data, the findings show that female voters were not uniquely likely to support the Progressive candidate. Rather, in a small number of Republican-dominated midwestern states, female voters were more Republican than men, and men were more Progressive than women, in their voting choices. As a result, the presence of female voters actually stabilized the electorate, reinforcing the Republican advantage in most states and dampening the Progressive surge in the Midwest in particular. The conclusion places these findings in the broader perspective of the nearly one hundred years of female electoral participation that has followed.Less
How did the first female voters use their ballots? Focusing on the presidential election of 1924—in which Progressive Robert M. La Follette secured 17% of the vote—this chapter examines the expectation that women would be particularly likely to support candidates associated with the Progressive movement. Employing new strategies to estimate women’s vote choice using aggregate data, the findings show that female voters were not uniquely likely to support the Progressive candidate. Rather, in a small number of Republican-dominated midwestern states, female voters were more Republican than men, and men were more Progressive than women, in their voting choices. As a result, the presence of female voters actually stabilized the electorate, reinforcing the Republican advantage in most states and dampening the Progressive surge in the Midwest in particular. The conclusion places these findings in the broader perspective of the nearly one hundred years of female electoral participation that has followed.
Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- December 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190055349
- eISBN:
- 9780190055387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190055349.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture, Science, Technology and Environment
Chapter 2, Bringing the Outside In, examines the industrial infrastructures within which the burgeoning profession of public relations coalesced: rail, steel, and coal, and the simultaneous ...
More
Chapter 2, Bringing the Outside In, examines the industrial infrastructures within which the burgeoning profession of public relations coalesced: rail, steel, and coal, and the simultaneous development of information infrastructures to situate these industries as paragons of democracy in the American imagination. It was in struggles over labor rights, workers’ rights, employee welfare, and industrial reform that the practice of public relations forged its methods, as scions of power and privilege attempted to manage the “external environment” of public and political opinion to reduce friction for the machinations of heavy industry. While the “external environment” does not directly map onto the natural environment, we see in these struggles the porousness of the boundaries between the inside and the outside of industrial production, allowing industrial leaders to control the outside world in addition to the one within their walls.Less
Chapter 2, Bringing the Outside In, examines the industrial infrastructures within which the burgeoning profession of public relations coalesced: rail, steel, and coal, and the simultaneous development of information infrastructures to situate these industries as paragons of democracy in the American imagination. It was in struggles over labor rights, workers’ rights, employee welfare, and industrial reform that the practice of public relations forged its methods, as scions of power and privilege attempted to manage the “external environment” of public and political opinion to reduce friction for the machinations of heavy industry. While the “external environment” does not directly map onto the natural environment, we see in these struggles the porousness of the boundaries between the inside and the outside of industrial production, allowing industrial leaders to control the outside world in addition to the one within their walls.
