Introduction
Chapter 1: Lester Frank Ward and Reform Darwinism
Chapter 2: Henry George's Democratic Economics
Chapter 3: Charles W. Macune's Cooperative Vision
Chapter 4: Ida B. Wells's Crusade Against Racism
Chapter 5: Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel
Chapter 6: Jane Addams and the Settlement House Idea
Chapter 7: Florence Kelley's Quest for Humane Labor Legislation
Chapter 8: Louis Brandeis, the Law, and Social Change
Chapter 9: Lincoln Steffens Muckrakes the Business of Politics
Chapter 10: Harvey W. Wiley and the Ethics of Pure Food and
Drugs
Chapter 11: John Randolph Haynes and Direct Democracy
Chapter 12: Alice Paul and the Campaign for Human Rights
Steven L. Piott is professor of history at Clarion University. He is the author of Giving Voters a Voice: The Origins of the Initiative and Referendum in America, Holy Joe: Joseph W. Folk and the Missouri Idea, and The Anti-Monopoly Persuasion: Popular Resistance to the Rise in Big Business in the Midwest.
Steven L. Piott's vigorous biographies of this select group of
reformers, and his probing analysis of their work, illuminate the
mosaic that was the Age of Reform. This volume should become a
staple in college classes, but anyone interested in American
history will profit from reading it.
*Christopher Gibbs, author of The Great Silent Majority: Missouri's
Response to World War One*
American Reformers is a valuable book for students of the Gilded
Age and Progressive Eras. Steven Piott brings to life the enormous
challenges facing American society from 1870 to 1920 and explores
solutions offered by a diverse array of intellectuals and activists
who shared a common faith in humanity's innate desire to better the
world. Demolishing the stereotype of Progressive Reform as the
exclusive product of the urban middle-class, Piott shows that the
activists who thought up the reform agenda came from all walks of
American life, and if anything, were more likely to have lived on
the margins of American society rather than at its affluent center.
Reformers included muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, who got
his start as a wagon train scout, and anti-lynching crusader Ida
Wells who was born into slavery during the Civil War. Reform causes
ran the gamut from the equitable tax system developed by itinerant
printer Henry George to the campaign for international peace and
human rights waged by Quaker feminist Alice Paul. Evocatively
written and readily adaptable for classroom use, American Reformers
uses the life stories of twelve social critics to shed light on the
deep roots and broad constituency of America reform at the turn of
the nineteenth century. Students new to the period as well as
veteran scholars will profit by reading American Reformers.
*Frank Towers, author of The Urban South and the Coming of the
Civil War*
Piott has authored a fine, short book.
*The Historian*
In American Reformers, Steven Piott takes the reader behind the
politics of reform during the period, 1870–1920, by discussing the
ideas and organizations that spurred the politicians to act. He
succeeds in this ambitious task by writing the biographies of
twelve key individuals in the reform movement, including the father
of sociology, Lester Frank Ward, Henry George, Charles Macune of
Farmer's Alliance fame, Ida B. Wells, the African American woman
who made the act of lynching well known, Walter Rauschenbusch, Jane
Adams, Florence Kelly, Louis Brandeis, Lincoln Steffens, Harvey W.
Wiley of Pure Good and Drugs legislation, John Randolph Hayes,
developer of direct democracy in California, and Alice Paul, the
most militant suffragette. Some of these names are familiar to
students. Piott's important contribution is in putting these people
together to show the complexity and far-reaching impact of the
reform effort. These significant thinkers and activists provided
the rationale for reform. Piott brings each of them to life and
places them in the context of this exciting period of
industrialization and urbanization. Few historians are as
well-equipped as Piott to tackle this difficult task. His deep
knowledge of this period and his ability to write clearly and
succinctly makes it a pleasure to learn from this mature scholar.
Teachers and students who are interested in the Populist and
Progressive movements in American history will find this book
indispensable.
*Lawrence O. Christensen, Curators Teaching Professor, Emeritus and
Thomas Jefferson Fellow of the University of Missouri*
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