Follow the Flag

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Roger Grant
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Kansas City ◽  
Small Firms ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Ann Arbor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Railroad Company

This book offers a history of the Wabash Railroad Company, a once-vital interregional carrier. Like most major American carriers, the Wabash grew out of an assortment of small firms. Thanks in part to the genius of financier Jay Gould, by the early 1880s what was then known as the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway reached the principal gateways of Chicago, Des Moines, Detroit, Kansas City, and St. Louis. In the 1890s, the Wabash gained access to Buffalo and direct connections to Boston and New York City. One extension fizzled, and in 1904 entry into Pittsburgh caused financial turmoil, ultimately throwing the Wabash into receivership. A subsequent reorganization allowed the Wabash to become an important carrier during the go-go years of the 1920s and permitted the company to take control of a strategic “bridge” property, the Ann Arbor Railroad. The Great Depression forced the company into another receivership, but an effective reorganization during the early days of World War II gave rise to a generally robust road. In the 1960s, the Wabash, along with the Nickel Plate Road, joined the prosperous Norfolk & Western Railway, a merger that worked well for all three carriers. Immortalized in the popular folk song “Wabash Cannonball,” the midwestern railroad has left important legacies. Today, forty years after becoming a “fallen flag” carrier, key components of the former Wabash remain busy rail arteries and terminals, attesting to its historic value to American transportation.

An Interview with Harris Gaylord Warren: From the Borderlands to Paraguay

1989 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-460
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
United States Army ◽  
North American ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
History Of

Harris Gaylord Warren was, by common consent, the father of Paraguayan studies in the United States. His broad-ranging activities —from diplomatic undertakings in South America to military service in Italy to administrative and scholarly work at various North American universities—marked him as an historian of rare depth and insight. Not commonly known is that Dr. Warren began his career as a historian in the 1930s as a borderlands specialist. The Sword was their Passport: A History of American Filibustering in the Mexican Revolution (Baton Rouge, 1943) is yet recognized as the definitive work on North American adventurers in that turbulent era. As an officer in the United States Army in World War II he was selected for various military history projects. After the war Dr. Warren returned to teaching and then administration. At that time his publications ranged from texts to Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression, (New York, 1959).

The ‘Brazilian Connection’ in the History of American Linguistics

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-382
Author(s):  
Cristina Altman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
South American ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Structural Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Jakobson ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The One

Summary When mention is made of Brazil in connection with American linguistics, it usually amounts to a reference to the Linguistic Circle of New York, where Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) and Claude Lévi-Strauss (b.1908), who had come from Brazil where he had done ethnological work, met and exchanged ideas. This singular event has cast a shadow on other contacts between Brazil and American linguistics, of which, the one between Jakobson and the Brazilian linguist Joaquim Mattoso Câmara (1904–1970) was much more consequential, at least as far as the implementation of structural linguistics in Brazil and in South America generally during the 1950s and the 1960s is concerned. Mattoso Câmara came to the United States and spent most of his time in New York City (September 1943 till April 1944), where he got exposure to Praguean type structuralism, notably through Jakobson’s lectures he attended at Columbia University and at the École Libre of New York, which had been established by European refugees at the time. He also participated in the first meetings of the Linguistic Circle of New York in 1943 as one of its co-founders. Following his return to Rio de Janeiro, Mattoso Câmara proposed, in 1949, as his doctoral thesis a phonemic description of Brazilian Portuguese. The work was published a few years later, in 1953. His most influential work, Princípios de Lingüística Gerai, first published in 1954, had two more revised and updated editions (1958, 1967) and served to introduce several generations of Brazilian as well as other South American students to structural linguistics during the 1950s and 1960s.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosina Lozano
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Spanish ◽  
Education Act

This epilogue briefly identifies some of the major changes in Spanish language politics since World War II. These include community shifts in activism. For example, the Chicano Movementreclaimed the language and advocated for culturally affirming bilingual education programs. The epilogue also turns to federal support for Spanish instruction with the 1968 Bilingual Education Act and with the 1975 extension to the Voting Rights Act that provides federal protection for ballots in languages other than English. Spanish is no longer a language of just the Southwest and there are major populations of Spanish speakers in cities like Chicago, New York, and Miami today. In 2013, tens of millions of U.S. residents spoke Spanish in their homes. Spanish language perseverance in the United States is due to a long history of Latin American migration to the country. It began as a language of settlement and power in the nineteenth century and has transformed into a language often deemed as foreign or un-American. Spanish is an American language historically and this book has recovered that history.

Introduction

Stirrings ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Lana Dee Povitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
New Left ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Control ◽  
Female Leaders ◽  
Food Activism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

Using the conceptual lens of terroir, this chapter provides an overview of hunger and poverty in the United States, starting with the urban liberalism of the 1960s and tracing the onset of austerity politics from mid-1970s through the early 2000s. It shows how New York City food activism was connected to an array of apparently unrelated social movements, including American Communism, community control, the countercultural New Left, feminism, Black Power, and AIDS activism. As governments reduced spending on social programs, leaders from these movements formed nonprofit organizations geared toward providing services, such as emergency meals and low-cost groceries. This chapter offers an overview of why and how service provision came to absorb the attention of late-twentieth century activists and shows how nonprofit kitchens and offices became sites of mentorship. As charismatic, overwhelmingly female leaders passed on values and strategies forged in earlier eras, they enacted activist genealogies that helped sustain political involvement over decades. Powerful interpersonal bonds and people’s own sense of being transformed by their activism illuminate the underappreciated role of emotion in the history of left-progressive movements.

Such a State of Uncertainty, Caution, and Fear, 1946–1961

Pauli Murray ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 145-205
Author(s):  
Troy R. Saxby
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
Health Concerns ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
Women Lawyers ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines Pauli Murray’s life during the Cold War era. Preferential treatment for returned servicemen and McCarthyism further disadvantaged Murray’s employment opportunities in the post-World War II period. Most notably, Cornell University denied her employment because of her “past associations.” Murray responded by writing Proud Shoes, a history of her maternal grandparents. Physical and mental health concerns continued to plague Murray, and as one of only a few independent black women lawyers in New York City, Murray struggled to make a living. In the late 1950s she became a corporate lawyer, wrote poetry, and then went to Ghana to teach law and explore her own racial identity.

From American Exceptionalism to the Great Compression

2021 ◽  
pp. 323-350
Author(s):  
Jon D. Wisman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
World War ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
First Time

The United States was an anomaly, beginning without clear class distinctions and with substantial egalitarian sentiment. Inexpensive land meant workers who were not enslaved were relatively free. However, as the frontier closed and industrialization took off after the Civil War, inequality soared and workers increasingly lost control over their workplaces. Worker agitation led to improved living standards, but gains were limited by the persuasiveness of the elite’s ideology. The hardships of the Great Depression, however, significantly delegitimated the elite’s ideology, resulting in substantially decreased inequality between the 1930s and 1970s. Robust economic growth following World War II and workers’ greater political power permitted unparalleled improvements in working-class living standards. By the 1960s, for the first time in history, a generation came of age without fear of dire material privation, generating among many of the young a dramatic change in values and attitudes, privileging social justice and self-realization over material concerns.

Something Has Changed

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-192
Author(s):  
Jack Reid
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
The United States ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Personal Safety ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Ride Sharing ◽  
National Values ◽  
The 1960S

The epilogue summarizes key arguments in the book and reflects on ideas about ride solicitation in contemporary society—noting the intersections between hitchhiking and modern ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft. Hitchhiking was common for decades in the United States, because it complimented the transportation needs of a cross-section of Americans while also meshing with the nation’s values—whether it be during the Great Depression, World War II, or the “hitchhiking renaissance” of the 1960s and ‘70s. The practice lost traction when thumbing rides fell out of touch with national values amid the rise of the conservative movement, increasing transportation regimentation, and growing concerns for personal safety.

The VC Office and the Concentration of Capital

2020 ◽  
pp. 104-139
Author(s):  
Sharon Zukin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Venture Capitalists ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Investment Funds ◽  
Bases Of Power ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Business Establishment ◽  
The City

Profiling New York–based venture capitalists and VC firms that have been established in the city since the early 2000s, the chapter examines their risky but privileged perch between Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Interviews with VCs are juxtaposed with the post–World War II history of venture capital as a distinctive form of investment and management. The VCs’ equally distinctive commitment to New York is then contrasted with the increasing geographical dispersal of their investment funds to other regions of the world. Meanwhile, the integration of some corporate and VC members of the tech “community” into New York’s business establishment suggests the formation of a local tech-financial elite, updating C. Wright Mills’s critique of the institutional bases of power.

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