scholarly journals From Good Time Girl to Damsel in Distress: Protecting the British War Bride in the United States, 1944–1950

Genealogy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Gail Savage

During the Second World War, the United Kingdom became an epicenter of transnational, especially transatlantic, marriages, but not all these marriages proved successful. As one disappointed English war bride on her way back home expressed herself, she was “Too shocked to bring her baby up on the black tracks of a West Virginia mining town as against her own home in English countryside of rose-covered fences.” This essay examines the government program developed to provide financial aid and legal advice to British women estranged from or abandoned by their American husbands from the passage of the 1944 Matrimonial Causes (War Marriages) Act to its winding down in 1950. The analysis draws upon a wide range of documents to survey the formulation and implementation of the government response and to consider some illustrative cases dealt with by British consular officials in the United States. These examples illuminate the gap between human behavior envisioned by policy-makers and the more varied behavior encountered by those who carried out the duties charged to them. The cases thus represent the nexus between state intervention and the individual experience of larger-scale social dynamics set off by war and the global movement of populations.

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Paul MacLennan

In the winter of 2015, as this review is being written, the price of gasoline is plummeting in the United States and what this will mean for the individual, community, and country for the immediate future but also in years to come is unknown. There are a wide range of implications in politics, economics, and international relations as well as effects on what the individual pays for everyday groceries. It is therefore important that libraries provide their communities with the resources that include information and discussion on how energy and its monetary value interact with society.


Author(s):  
Martha Minow

Usually left out of discussions of school desegregation, the historic treatments of American Indians and Native Hawai’ians in the development of schooling in the United States was a corollary of conquest and colonialism. As late as the 1950s, forced assimilation and eradication of indigenous cultures pervaded what was considered the “education” of students in these groups. The social, political, and legal civil rights initiatives surrounding Brown helped to inspire a rights consciousness among Indian and Native Hawai’ian reformers and activists, who embraced the ideal of equal opportunity while reclaiming cultural traditions. Between the 1960s and 2007, complex fights over ethnic classification, separation, integration, and self-determination emerged for both American Indians and Native Hawai’ians. Their struggles, crucial in themselves, also bring to the fore a challenging underlying problem: are distinct individuals or groups the proper unit of analysis and protection in the pursuit of equality? The centrality of the individual to law and culture in the United States tends to mute this question. Yet in this country as well as elsewhere, equal treatment or equal opportunity has two faces: promoting individual development and liberty, regardless of race, culture, religion, gender, or other group-based characteristic, and protection for groups that afford their members meaning and identity. Nowhere is the tension between these two alternatives more apparent than in schooling, which involves socialization of each new generation in the values and expectations of their elders. Will that socialization direct each individual to a common world focused on the academic and social mobility of distinct individuals or will it inculcate traditions and values associated with particular groups? Even in the United States, devoted to inclusive individualism, the Supreme Court rejected a statute requiring students to attend schools run by the government and created exemptions from compulsory school fines when they burdened a group’s practices and hopes for their children. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Court respected the rights of parents to select private schooling in order to inculcate a religious identity or other “additional obligations.”


Plant Disease ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 93 (6) ◽  
pp. 593-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. R. Bonde ◽  
S. E. Nester ◽  
W. F. Moore ◽  
T. W. Allen

Soybean rust, caused by Phakopsora pachyrhizi, was first discovered in the continental United States in the fall of 2004. The potential for economic loss in the United States hinges largely on whether or not the pathogen can survive winters in the absence of soybean. Kudzu (Pueraria lobata) is known to be a host for P. pachyrhizi in Asia and South America and is widely distributed in the southern United States. This study examined reactions of kudzu collected from several areas of the southeastern United States to three isolates of P. pachyrhizi, one each from Alabama, Louisiana, and Brazil. Susceptible tan (TAN) lesions, resistant reddish-brown (RB) lesions, and immune (IM) response, previously described on soybean, were produced on kudzu based on the evaluation of 125 plants. However, in contrast to soybean, the RB response on kudzu was common, with approximately 50% frequency. IM responses to at least one isolate were observed on five individual plants, and two plants were immune to all three pathogen isolates used in the test. TAN lesions averaged 3.2 uredinia per lesion with an average diameter per uredinium of 121 μm. In contrast, RB lesions had an average of 0.3 uredinia per lesion with an average uredinial diameter of 77 μm. In 25 of 39 (64%) instances in which multiple plants were tested from a site, each reacted the same to the individual pathogen isolates. This suggested a tendency for plants at specific sites to be genetically identical with respect to rust reaction. Only 19 of 125 (15%) individual plants produced a different reaction to one isolate than to the other two isolates. When four kudzu plants previously shown to produce only TAN lesions to P. pachyrhizi isolates Alabama 04-1, Brazil 01-1, and Louisiana 04-1 were inoculated with eight additional isolates from several areas of the world, all 11 isolates produced only TAN lesions. Likewise, when five other plants previously shown to produce only RB lesions when inoculated with the three isolates were inoculated with the 11 isolates, all produced only RB lesions. These results suggest that susceptibility or resistance to P. pachyrhizi in individual kudzu plants often is broad, extending over a wide range of P. pachyrhizi isolates.


Author(s):  
John N. Drobak

Chapter 1 explains that this book examines two economic “principles,” or beliefs, that have shaped the perception of the economic system in the United States today: (1) the belief that the U.S. economy is competitive, making government market regulation unnecessary, and (2) the belief that corporations exist for the benefit of their shareholders, but not for other stakeholders. Contrary to what many economists and policymakers believe, the chapter shows that numerous markets in the United States are not competitive and that the belief in shareholder primacy is not an economic principle but a normative notion. In addition, the belief in the existence of competitive markets is used to argue that market regulation is unnecessary because competition provides all the needed constraints. If there are no constraints from competition and no regulation, serious harm can result, as shown by the Great Recession of 2008. The chapter also points out that there never was a purely laissez-faire market economy. The real question is how much market regulation is desirable. It is often difficult to debate this issue because many people label any expansion of government regulation as socialism. In addition, some people just do not like being told what to do by the government. That was a principle reason for the objection to the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. The chapter then introduces the relationship between the two economic narratives and the millions of job losses this century, using lessons from the new institutional economics to analyze the issues.


2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Park Kimuck ◽  
T Edward ◽  
Jr Jennings

Four decades ago, Anthony Downs offered a compelling picture of the public policy issue-attention cycle. This paper offers a systematic test of how well 50 social issues in the United States fit the model over an extended period of time. A total of 29 issues that fit Downs???s model are analyzed in order to test Downs???s theory that an increase in public interest in an issue increases the government???s efforts to address the issue. The results were quite mixed. For 11 issues, there was a positive relationship between the level of media attention and the number of bills passed. This provides partial support for Downs???s theory. Downs postulated that state intervention occurs when there is a high level of public concern. On the other hand, the results also reveal that a large number of policies were implemented when the level of media attention was not at its peak, resulting in either no relationship between attention and legislation or a negative relationship.


Author(s):  
Sam B. Edwards III

The United States is facing challenges in applying First Amendment principles from the 18th century to modern communications. This chapter examines cases where the government has intruded upon First Amendment rights. The first section examines when the government attempts to prevent protests by cutting internet access. This amounts to a digital gag and ear plugs for the protesters. Aside from cutting access to a single area, some governments have access to total internet “kill switches.” This allows unsurpassed censorship of speech. Now there are technical means installed in most phones that could allow governments to disconnect internet access at the individual phone. In the area of social media, the courts are struggling to identify what constitutes speech. For example, when is a “like” or a “wink” speech? Equally important, when can a political figure censor speech through blocking users on social media? These cases represent warning signs that the United States, just like other countries, is struggling to adapt eighteenth century legal principles to modern communication.


2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Gruber

The United States has seen a sea change in the way that publicly financed health insurance coverage is provided to low-income, elderly, and disabled enrollees. When programs such as Medicare and Medicaid were introduced in the 1960s, the government directly reimbursed medical providers for the care that they provided, through a classic “single payer system.” Since the mid-1980s, however, there has been an evolution towards a model where the government subsidizes enrollees who choose among privately provided insurance options. In the United States, privatized delivery of public health insurance appears to be here to stay, with debates now focused on how much to expand its reach. Yet such privatized delivery raises a variety of thorny issues. Will choice among private insurance options lead to adverse selection and market failures in privatized insurance markets? Can individuals choose appropriately over a wide range of expensive and confusing plan options? Will a privatized approach deliver the promised increases in delivery efficiency claimed by advocates? What policy mechanisms have been used, or might be used, to address these issues? A growing literature in health economics has begun to make headway on these questions. In this essay, I discuss that literature and the lessons for both economics more generally and health care policymakers more specifically.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-191
Author(s):  
Emeric Solymossy

This paper discusses a model of business in a “democracy” by identifying the three underlying concepts; the individual, the collective (society), and the government (system and mechanics).  Furthermore, each of these elements is also a multi-factor construct.  The foundations and development of the United States is discussed. The exploration, discovery and development of any new country require risk taking and innovative behavior, which was instrumental in the creation of heroes and myths, which shaped much of the culture. From this background, some of the principle characteristics of the entrepreneur are explored and correlated to some generally accepted measures of national culture.  The concepts are developed; their inter-relationships and the resulting dynamics are presented.  The foundation(s) and uniqueness of the U.S. form of democracy is explored as a government typology.  Data is presented exhibiting the variability of business confidence, and a conclusion is reached that the attitudes and policies of the government have a greater impact on business formation and success than the form of government.


2019 ◽  
pp. 507
Author(s):  
Christopher Pryby

Under the border search doctrine, courts have upheld the federal government's practice of searching people and their possessions upon entry into or exit from the United States, without any requirement of suspicion, as reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Since the advent of electronic devices with large storage capacities, courts have grappled with whether this definition of reasonableness continues to apply. So far, courts have consistently characterized “nonforensic” border inspections of electronic devices (for example, paging through photos on a phone) as “routine” searches that, like inspecting luggage brought across international lines, require no suspicion. But there is a circuit split over what suspicion the government needs to conduct “forensic” searches that copy data for later inspection. This Note argues that the recent Supreme Court decision in Carpenter v. United States recognized a new balance of privacy rights at the border. Starting in United States v. Jones and continuing through Riley v. California and Carpenter, the Court has developed a theory of data privacy aimed at forestalling the government’s creation of a high-tech panopticon. This new theory, in the context of electronic searches at the border, requires that the balance of government and individual interests be struck in favor of the individual. Probable cause and a warrant, not merely reasonable suspicion, are necessary for a forensic search.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 651-668
Author(s):  
Carl A. Anderson

Decisions of the United States Supreme Court beginning with Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) have transformed family law in the United States. By characterizing the right to marry as a fundamental constitutional right and procreative decision-making as both a fundamental liberty interest and privacy right, the Court has “deregulated” the institutions of marriage and family. During this same period the Court’s approach to legal questions involving the rights of non-marital cohabitating couples as well as individual procreative decision-making has tended to blur legal distinctions between the family based upon marriage and other living arrangements. The widespread adoption of mutual consent and/or marital breakdown as grounds for the dissolution of marriage in the United States has significantly altered the social dynamics of marriage and further reduces distinctions between marriage and other living arrangements. However, recent decisions by the Court in Hardwick, Michael H., and Webster point to a change of direction in the Court’s view of privacy which may signal a willingness to tolerate greater community involvement in establishing protective regulation of the institutions of marriage and the family based upon it. The Court also appears to be in the process of significantly narrowing the constitutionally recognized right of privacy when viewed as a zone of autonomous decision-making for the individual or non-marital couple.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document