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Introduction

in Germans into Jews: Remaking the Jewish Social Body in the Weimar Republic

This introductory chapter presents an overview of the present book, which is about the Weimar Jewish paradox. It traces how social workers and physicians, lay people and religious leaders transformed ... More

This introductory chapter presents an overview of the present book, which is about the Weimar Jewish paradox. It traces how social workers and physicians, lay people and religious leaders transformed the postwar Jewish crisis into an opportunity for Jewish revitalization. In the overlapping realms of family, welfare, and reproduction, Jewish reformers saw not only the threat of social disorder and potentially dangerous instability, but also the prospect for enlisting those very institutions in the drive to reconstitute a strengthened and more vibrant Jewish population. The book also builds on a body of literature that has substantially reassessed older notions of assimilation by examining the emergence of what the Zionist leader Kurt Blumenfeld first identified as a post-assimilation Jewish identity.Less

America's National Game

Peter Levine

in To Ebbets Field: Sport and the American-Jewish Experience

This chapter examines Jewish Americans' participation in baseball games in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. Though basketball remained the most popular participatory team sport, ... More

This chapter examines Jewish Americans' participation in baseball games in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. Though basketball remained the most popular participatory team sport, baseball was played informally played in the streets and in more organized settings. It has always attracted its share of Jewish youth and this interest was encouraged by capitalists of leisure and social reformers.Less

The Darkening City, 1850–1920

in American Sunshine: Diseases of Darkness and the Quest for Natural Light

This chapter describes the reformers in New York city. The perception that darkness was a problem in the maintenance of morals, health, and property values was growing. Blackened skies had begun ... More

This chapter describes the reformers in New York city. The perception that darkness was a problem in the maintenance of morals, health, and property values was growing. Blackened skies had begun capturing reformers' attention, but many still saw pollution as an indicator of progress, evidence that the nation was an industrial powerhouse. Tenement reformers utilized a new language in expressing compelling concerns about slum conditions. Sunlight was a clear concern for urban Americans. Businessmen had decided that sunshine was worth paying for, and natural light now came at a premium. In general, social reforms prevailed in the early sunlight thinking by undoing the slum, redesigning the school, and reshaping the city. By the 1930s, securing sunlight had become the responsibility of the individual, and scientists, not planners, were providing the necessary tools.Less

Among the Early Socialists

Jonathan Beecher

in Victor Considerant and the Rise and Fall of French Romantic Socialism

This chapter examines Victor Considerant's relationship with other early socialists in France. It explains that during the 1840s, radical social reformers were divided into sectarian movements, each ... More

This chapter examines Victor Considerant's relationship with other early socialists in France. It explains that during the 1840s, radical social reformers were divided into sectarian movements, each with its own particular remedy and its own theoretical jargon. Some of the most prominent reformers during this period include Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Etienne Cabet, and Louis Blanc. This chapter discusses the work of the Ecole Saint-Simonienne and explains how Considerant influenced the development of socialist ideology through his insistent contrasting of the socialist ideal with the existing system of competition, egoism, and individualism.Less

“A Missing Sense of Maleness”: Male Heterosexuality, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, and the Crisis of American Masculinity

Miriam G. Reumann

in American Sexual Character: Sex, Gender, and National Identity in the Kinsey Reports

Kinsey's study encouraged a national referendum on sexual behavior, prompted new research on related topics, and provided ammunition for social reformers of all stripes. The report also affected ... More

Kinsey's study encouraged a national referendum on sexual behavior, prompted new research on related topics, and provided ammunition for social reformers of all stripes. The report also affected Americans' understanding of gender norms and relations, focusing popular attention on the relation between ideal codes of masculinity and actual male sexual behavior, and promoting discussion of what it meant to be a man in the atomic age. Few kinds of men—heterosexual, white, able-bodied, and financially comfortable—held unquestioned title to masculinity, with more problematic modes of masculinity represented by those whose sexuality, race, body, or class placed them outside of the normative ideal. However, the postwar years saw attention paid to maleness that was unprecedented in its scope. Theories of marriage and family, patterns of class formation and consumption, and mass culture all focused popular and expert attention on the shifting boundaries and meanings of masculinity.Less

Changing of the Guard

Felix L. Armfield

in Eugene Kinckle Jones: The National Urban League and Black Social Work, 1910-1940

This chapter discusses Eugene Kinckle Jones's resignation from the position of executive secretary of the Urban League in 1940 and his assumption of the title of general secretary until 1950, as well ... More

This chapter discusses Eugene Kinckle Jones's resignation from the position of executive secretary of the Urban League in 1940 and his assumption of the title of general secretary until 1950, as well as the profound changes to the social-work paradigm that occurred during this period. Following the Great Depression, the complexity of state and federal intervention drastically changed social-work programs. Particularly following the adoption of the Social Security Act in 1935, many social reformers, black and white, began looking to government- rather than community-initiated relief. By the 1930s, there was a gradual move away from the community settlement-house concept toward the establishment of government welfare agencies. The chapter concludes with an overview of Jones's work and life from 1940 until his retirement in 1950.Less

Social engineering versus democracy

Bryan Fanning

in Three Roads to the Welfare State: Liberalism, Social Democracy and Christian Democracy

This chapter highlights how the power of experts and technocrats — those who saw themselves as best qualified to govern — continued to vie with a commitment to government by democratic means. The ... More

This chapter highlights how the power of experts and technocrats — those who saw themselves as best qualified to govern — continued to vie with a commitment to government by democratic means. The discussion opens with the emergence of feminist advocacy of birth control and contraception in the late nineteenth century alongside campaigns for the rights to vote for women. By then, preoccupations with reducing the birth rate were joined by obsessions with eugenics among some influential social reformers in Britain, in several European countries, and in the United States. The underlying presumption of eugenics was that there were significant inheritable differences between individuals and that if undesirables could be prevented from having children, then social problems associated with these could be ameliorated. Champions of eugenic social engineering variously advocated contraception, restrictions on the rights of the unfit to marry and the sterilisation of the unfit. In Britain and in other democratic countries, eugenics came to be intellectually challenged by arguments that social problems could be better explained in terms of environmental factors rather than by biological ones.Less

Devotion and Dissent*: Rāmānuja as a ‘Social Reformer’

Ranjeeta Dutta

in From Hagiographies to Biographies: Ramanuja in Tradition and History

This chapter discusses how the Śrīvaiṣṇava hagiographical narratives on Rāmānuja treated the issues of social hierarchy. The ways in which these issues travelled through many layers of history to ... More

This chapter discusses how the Śrīvaiṣṇava hagiographical narratives on Rāmānuja treated the issues of social hierarchy. The ways in which these issues travelled through many layers of history to enter the modern biographical domain, effecting a collapse of the distinction between the hagiographies and biographies, are also discussed. Though the biographies eulogized him as a 'social reformer', it needs to be pointed out that the hagiographical tropes on Rāmānuja and the social system have never been unanimous in their representations and were influenced by the particular genre of religious literature, the intentions of the authors, and the social groups they were representing. The context of late nineteenth and twentieth centuries are discussed briefly, when the Indian middle class emerged and ‘rediscovered’ its past as well as its intellectual tradition. Especially in the context of Tamil—speaking regions, the rise of the Dravidian movement created a need for constructing brahmana heroes who fought against the caste hierarchy in history.Less

Retrenchment

David Koistinen

in Confronting Decline: The Political Economy of Deindustrialization in Twentieth-Century New England

One response to deindustrialization in New England was a campaign by corporate interests to roll back social legislation and cut business taxes and government spending. The effort is known here as ... More

One response to deindustrialization in New England was a campaign by corporate interests to roll back social legislation and cut business taxes and government spending. The effort is known here as “retrenchment.” Retrenchment advocates argued that cutbacks were necessary to enhance the competitiveness of textiles and other troubled New England industries. The chapter focuses on events in Massachusetts in the 1920s and 30s. It closely examines business associations’ drive to ease the state’s hours of work laws for women in manufacturing. The chapter also considers the campaign by Massachusetts business interests to reduce government spending and corporate taxes. The business push for retrenchment in post–World War I Massachusetts had mixed results. Due to concerted resistance from unions and reformers, the state’s labor laws and other social protections were unchanged or even strengthened. However, business groups eventually secured substantial reductions in corporate taxes.Less

Epilogue

Matthew J. Grow

in "Liberty to the Downtrodden": Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer

This chapter focuses on the death of Thomas L. Kane in December 1883. It explains that eulogies in various papers reveal the perceptions of Kane as an heroic social reformer and that he was even ... More

This chapter focuses on the death of Thomas L. Kane in December 1883. It explains that eulogies in various papers reveal the perceptions of Kane as an heroic social reformer and that he was even compared tearlier and remoter figures of the heroic type. It also discusses the expression of extreme grief in the Mormon press for their persistent advocate. This chapter also highlights the success of Kane's reform career in addressing and influencing the debate on enduring questions involving the relationship between reform, society, and the individual.Less

Ethics in Hinduism

M.V. Nadkarni

in Ethics for Our Times: Essays in Gandhian Perspective

This chapter examines the place of ethics in Hinduism. It shows that though Hinduism has shown a strong inclination to metaphysics and spiritualism, it has certainly not ignored ethics. It explains ... More

This chapter examines the place of ethics in Hinduism. It shows that though Hinduism has shown a strong inclination to metaphysics and spiritualism, it has certainly not ignored ethics. It explains that ethics as dharma comes first among the goals of human beings in Hinduism and the scriptures insisted that other goals are to be pursued according to dharma. This chapter also discusses the misunderstandings about ethics in Hinduism, the ethics in the Vedas and Upanishads, the contribution of the Bhagavadgita to Hindu ethics, and the ethics of sants and social reformers.Less

Jamnalal Bajaj

B. R. Nanda

in In Search of Gandhi: Essays and Reflections

This chapter discusses Mahatma Gandhi’s relationship with industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj who had a natural aversion to politics. He became close to Gandhi because Gandhi seemed to him, as to most other ... More

This chapter discusses Mahatma Gandhi’s relationship with industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj who had a natural aversion to politics. He became close to Gandhi because Gandhi seemed to him, as to most other observers, a religious and social reformer rather than a political leader. Jamnalal’s bond with Gandhi had become so strong during the 1920s that he could not but follow him into the political vortex, though he was immeasurably more vulnerable to official vindictiveness than the eminent lawyers who supported Gandhi. This chapter suggests that Bajaj would have inherited the non-political legacy of the Mahatma: the regeneration of rural India through voluntary workers, but fate had willed otherwise.Less

Restaging Transgressive Commensality

Jon Keune

in Shared Devotion, Shared Food: Equality and the Bhakti-Caste Question in Western India

This chapter follows the two stories discussed in Chapter 5 into the 20th century, considering how they were represented in plays and films. Three main factors reshaped how the stories appeared on ... More

This chapter follows the two stories discussed in Chapter 5 into the 20th century, considering how they were represented in plays and films. Three main factors reshaped how the stories appeared on Marathi stage and screen: the narratological demands within and across media formats, equality language that had taken hold in 19th-century Marathi discourse, and the changing landscape of caste politics in the 20th century, especially the rise of non-brahman movements. Playwrights and film producers were inspired by late 19th-century biographers who had become fascinated with the social ethical dimension of stories about Eknāth. In this context, the double vision story’s transgressive commensality became especially popular in plays and films, as producers often sought to resolve the bhakti-caste question by depicting Eknāth as a social reformer.Less