The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era

In response to the growing absence of unions from the private sector, community-based organizations known as worker centers have emerged as a new front in protecting and organizing workers. Scholars generally argue that worker centers have converged on a model of combining service provision with organizing and advocacy, supported primarily by funding from foundations and government agencies. I draw on interviews conducted with worker center staff, a dataset compiled from their public materials, and secondary research to add to the existing literature and to argue that a clear categorization of worker centers can be derived by attention to their primary workplace strategies. First, worker centers can be meaningfully distinguished by whether they attempt to raise standards in specific industries versus responding to problems in individual workplaces. But they can also be distinguished based on the extent to which they view public policy or winning agreements with employers as the primary route to systemic improvements. These divergences in strategy echo Progressive-era debates about the role for the state in redressing workplace ills. Similar to that era, strategic differences among today’s worker centers are driven less by ideology and more by the distinct structural challenges facing workers in particular political and economic contexts.

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New Perspectives on Socialism II Socialism and Capitalism Reconsidered

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era ◽

10.1017/s1537781400000487 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 2 (4) ◽

pp. 351-360

Author(s):

Richard Schneirov

Keyword(s):

Progressive Era ◽

American Politics ◽

Gilded Age ◽

Socialist Party ◽

Special Issue ◽

Political Movement ◽

Social Democratic ◽

History Of ◽

Socialist Party Of America

The July 2003 special issue of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era revisited the history of the Socialist Party of America during the Progressive Era. This second issue on “New Perspectives on Socialism” examines socialism largely outside the party context, thereby challenging the tendency of scholars and non-scholars alike to identify socialism with a party-based political movement. To the degree that the essays collected here examine party-based socialism, they focus on the gradualist or revisionist wing of the party, whose socializing and democratic reforms, programs, and ideas helped establish a context for the Progressive Era and thereafter, when a “social democratic” type of politics became intrinsic to the mainstream American politics.

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Tempest

10.5810/kentucky/9780813180649.003.0005 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 78-106

Author(s):

James C. Nicholson

Keyword(s):

Progressive Era ◽

Presidential Election ◽

American Politics ◽

Business Climate ◽

Oil Reserves ◽

Teapot Dome ◽

The Us ◽

Us Navy

Chapter four explores Harry Sinclair's involvement in the notorious Teapot Dome oil scandal. Republican Warren G. Harding's landslide victory in the 1920 presidential election marked a new direction in American politics, ending the Progressive Era and ushering in a pro-business climate that would further enrich men like Sinclair and facilitate the return of American horseracing to national prominence. New secretary of the interior Albert B. Fall transferred oil reserves held by the US Navy in Wyoming to Sinclair. As news of the shady deal spread, Sinclair debuted his colt Zev, named after the oilman's attorney, William Zevely, who was a facilitator of the corrupt bargain. Zev would surpass Man o' War's all-time American earnings record, and his twenty-three career wins would include scores in the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, and the Race of the Century against English champion Papyrus.

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