Roadside Americans

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Reid
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
White House ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
On The Road ◽  
American Society ◽  
Reagan Era

Between the Great Depression and the mid-1970s, hitchhikers were a common sight for motorists, as American service members, students, and adventurers sought out the romance of the road in droves. Beats, hippies, feminists, and civil rights and antiwar activists saw "thumb tripping" as a vehicle for liberation, living out the counterculture's rejection of traditional values. Yet, by the time Ronald Reagan, a former hitchhiker himself, was in the White House, the youthful faces on the road chasing the ghost of Jack Kerouac were largely gone—along with sympathetic portrayals of the practice in state legislatures and the media. In Roadside Americans, Jack Reid traces the rise and fall of hitchhiking, offering vivid accounts of life on the road and how the act of soliciting rides from strangers, and the attitude toward hitchhikers in American society, evolved over time in synch with broader economic, political, and cultural shifts. In doing so, Reid offers insight into significant changes in the United States amid the decline of liberalism and the rise of the Reagan Era.

The World of Work and New Opportunities for Social Action

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Lorence
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The World ◽  
Working People ◽  
On The Road ◽  
Economic Landscape

This chapter explores how Clinton Jencks pondered the next step on the road to radicalism. Having jettisoned any thought of a legal career, he looked for an occupational base for social action in the depths of the Great Depression, still searching for an opportunity that would sustain a determined effort to make a difference in the lives of working people and enrich their experiences by spreading God's love. The religious impulse and the peace movement remained the primary driving forces in Jencks' life and were the key motivating factors in his emergence as an ambitious leader in the organizations he headed. As he surveyed the economic landscape, he saw the United States mired in the muck of stagnation and the world steadily marching toward war as fascism rapidly spread its poison.

The Elections, the Economy and Public Opinion: 1984

1985 ◽  
Vol 18 (01) ◽  
pp. 28-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seymour Martin Lipset
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sex Behavior ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
American Elections ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

Many commentaries on the recent American elections conclude that the United States has taken a long-term move to the right. This shift seemingly began in the late sixties as a reaction to the turmoil occasioned by militant, sometimes violent protest tactics used by the civil rights and antiwar movements, and by the sharp challenge to traditional values encompassed in the changes in family and sex behavior, dress styles, the increased use of drugs, and the like. The Republicans have been victorious in four out of the last five presidential elections, those held from 1968 on. Only one of these, that in 1968, was close, but in that contest a right-wing and racist candidate, George Wallace, received 13 percent. The one election of the five which the Democrats won, that in 1976, was the first one after Richard Nixon's resignation following the Watergate scandal.Yet the conclusion that America has been in a conservative mood for some time is challenged by the results of the races for Congress and state offices and by the findings of the opinion polls. In 1984, in the same election in which Ronald Reagan received 59 percent of the vote, eight percent more than in 1980, his party lost two seats in the Senate and gained only 14 in the much larger House, leaving it behind the Democrats by 252 to 183. The Democrats still hold 34 of the 50 governorships, down by only one. Judged by which party holds most electoral offices, the Democrats remain the majority party.

Bohemians, Vagabonds, and Wanderers of the “Ragged Promised Land” in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (58) ◽  
pp. 50-59
Author(s):  
Daria Anna Urbańska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Real ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
The Road ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
On The Road ◽  
American Society ◽  
Main Protagonist

The article focuses on the journey into the “ragged promised land” (80) in On the Road. It can be seen as an escape of the main protagonist Sal Paradise from his roots and from the conformity of American society. Kerouac, having a Franco-Canadian heritage, presents a marginal possibility of heterogeneity in a homogenous postwar America. The author depicts additional mentors and heroes met along the way. They are, among others, tramps and hoboes, ragged wanderers and the Fellahin of Mexico, as well as Sal’s travel companion Dean Moriarty. Sal experiences something true and meaningful among those living on the margin of society. He travels considerable distances: from coast to coast across the United States, from boarder to boarder and to Mexico. The real journey, though, is inward, a passage through the wilderness of the self, the true “ragged promised land”.

The Clinton Scandals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clodagh Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
Political History ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
White House ◽  
Cable News ◽  
Independent Counsel ◽  
American Society

The Clinton scandals have settled in the annals of American political history in the context of the era’s recurrent presidential misbehavior. Viewed through a historical lens, the activities, investigation, and impeachment trial of the forty-second president are almost inevitably measured against the weight of Watergate and Iran-Contra. As a result, the actions and consequences of this high-profile moment in the late-20th-century political history of the United States arguably took on a weightier meaning than it might otherwise have. If Watergate tested the U.S. constitutional system to its limits and Iran-Contra was arguably as grave, the Clinton affair was crisis-light by comparison. Originating with an investigation into a failed 1970s Arkansas land deal by Bill Clinton and his wife, the saga developed to include such meandering subplots as Filegate, Travelgate, Troopergate, the death of White House counsel Vince Foster, and, most infamously, the president’s affair with a White House intern. Unlike Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, even Bill Clinton’s most ardent critics could not find a national security threat among the myriad scandals linked to his name. By the time that Justice Department appointee Robert Fiske was replaced as prosecutor by the infinitely more zealous Kenneth Starr, the case had become synonymous with the culture wars that permeated 1990s American society. As the Whitewater and related tentacles of the investigation failed to result in any meaningfully negative impact on the president, it was his marital infidelities that came closest to unseating him. Pursued with vigor by the Independent Counsel, his supporters remained loyal as his detractors spotted political opportunity via his lapses in judgment. Certain key factors made the Clinton scandal particular to its era. First, in an unprecedented development, the personal indiscretion aspect of the story broke via the Internet. In addition, had the Independent Counsel legislation not been renewed, prosecutor Fiske would likely have wrapped up his investigation in a timely fashion with no intention of pursuing an impeachment path. And, the relentless cable news cycle and increasingly febrile partisan atmosphere of the decade ensured that the nation remained as focused as it was divided on the topic.

The 1970s

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Borstelmann
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Retirement Plans ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
The World ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Oil Crisis ◽  
American Society

This book looks at an iconic decade when the cultural left and economic right came to the fore in American society and the world at large. While many have seen the 1970s as simply a period of failures epitomized by Watergate, inflation, the oil crisis, global unrest, and disillusionment with military efforts in Vietnam, this book creates a new framework for understanding the period and its legacy. It demonstrates how the 1970s increased social inclusiveness and, at the same time, encouraged commitments to the free market and wariness of government. As a result, American culture and much of the rest of the world became more—and less—equal. This book explores how the 1970s forged the contours of contemporary America. Military, political, and economic crises undercut citizens' confidence in government. Free market enthusiasm led to lower taxes, a volunteer army, individual 401(k) retirement plans, free agency in sports, deregulated airlines, and expansions in gambling and pornography. At the same time, the movement for civil rights grew, promoting changes for women, gays, immigrants, and the disabled. And developments were not limited to the United States. Many countries gave up colonial and racial hierarchies to develop a new formal commitment to human rights, while economic deregulation spread to other parts of the world, from Chile and the United Kingdom to China. Placing a tempestuous political culture within a global perspective, this book shows that the decade wrought irrevocable transformations upon American society and the broader world that continue to resonate today.

scholarly journals Patterson v. McLean: A Confirmation of the New Right at the U.S. Supreme Court

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 987-1009
Author(s):  
George M. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Presidential Appointments ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

In two consecutive national elections a conservative, Ronald Reagan, was elected President of the United States. When Justice Lewis Powell announced his retirement during the late months of the Reagan administration, it was apparent that the President's last appointment could shift the ideology of the Court to conservatism for the first time since the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower. President Reagan's prior appointments, Sandra Day O'Connor and Antonin Scalia, had joined William Rehnquist, an appointee of President Nixon and Bryon White, an appointee of President Kennedy to comprise a vociferous minority of four in many instances, especially cases involving civil rights. The unexpected opportunity for the appointment of a conservative jurist caused great anxiety in the media and in the U.S. Senate, the later having confirmation power over presidential appointments to the Supreme Court. This article examines the consequences of the Senate's confirmation of Justice Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court. The impact, which was immediate and dramatic, indicates that conservative ideology will predominate on major civil rights issues for the remainder of this century.

Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea and the Ronald Reagan Administration in the United States

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11 (109)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
German Gigolaev
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
White House ◽  
Draft Convention ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Law

The USA, as well as the USSR, initiated the convocation of the III UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (1973—1982). However, after the Ronald Reagan administration came to the White House, American diplomacy significantly changed its policy toward the Conference, which eventually resulted in US refusal to support the draft Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was worked out during the Conference. This behavior was in line with policy course of the Reagan administration — more aggressive than that of their predecessors. The article considers the American policy regarding Law of the Sea negotiations in the first months of Reagan's presidency, during the Tenth Session of the III UNCLOS.

An Unfiltered Dose of the Human Condition

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-132
Author(s):  
Jack Reid
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Significant Drop ◽  
The Road ◽  
Previous Decade ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Media ◽  
State And Local ◽  
On The Road ◽  
The Times

After a significant drop in ride solicitation during the previous decade, the early 1960s witnessed what journalists at the time deemed a “hitchhiking renaissance.” Young people, the predominant hitchhikers of the era, attached different meanings to the practice. For those frustrated with the status quo and inspired by the Beat novel On the Road, hitchhiking was part of an alternative lifestyle. Others saw thumbing as a thrifty way to get to civil rights and anti-war demonstrations. “Sport hitchhikers” characterized the practice as a pathway to adventure and authentic experience. Finally, some continued to associate hitchhiking with utter necessity. Although there continued to be vocal critics of the practice, the media of the early sixties put forth a more nuanced analysis of hitchhiking as journalists tried to make sense of the era’s youth culture. At the same time, some state and local legislatures softened their anti-hitchhiking laws. Despite concerns about highway safety and periodic acts of violence, this brand of hitchhiking found greater acceptance in American culture because it tracked with the spirit of the times, including the optimism and ambition of President John F Kennedy’s vision of a “New Frontier.”

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