American Labor and Economic Citizenship: New Capitalism from World War I to the Great Depression [Hardcover]

This book argues that the period from World War I to the Great Depression was an incubating era when innovative and lasting policy paradigms emerged.In the 1920s, a diverse group of social investigators and policy makers addressed a range of long-standing and seemingly intractable problems, confident that the period provided a unique moment full of opportunities. Led by Herbert Hoover, the group came to understand that a new, fair, and prosperous version of capitalism could be achieved through steady economic growth. At the same time, demographic change brought on by the war provided an opportunity for the emerging group of reformers to challenge assumptions about female, African-American, and Mexican workers and to lay claim to the benefits of a new economic system for all workers.In the 1920s, a diverse group of social investigators and policy makers addressed a range of long-standing and seemingly intractable problems, confident that the period provided a unique moment full of opportunities. Led by Herbert Hoover, the group came to understand that a new, fair, and prosperous version of capitalism could be achieved through steady economic growth. At the same time, demographic change brought on by the war provided an opportunity for the emerging group of reformers to challenge assumptions about female, African-American, and Mexican workers and to lay claim to the benefits of a new economic system for all workers.Once viewed as a distinct era characterized by intense bigotry, nostalgia for simpler times, and a revulsion against active government, the 1920s have been rediscovered by historians in recent decades as a time when Herbert Hoover and his allies worked to significantly reform economic policy. In American Labor and Economic Citizenship, Mark Hendrickson both augments and amends this view by studying the origins and development of New Era policy expertise and knowledge. Policy-oriented social scientists in government, trade union, academic, and nonprofit agenlã‚