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This dissertation examines how the city of Chicago—its social and economic conditions, its liberal discourse, and its cultural symbolism—shaped the evolution of modern liberalism. Relying on historical and literary critical methods, this project draws on writings, speeches, articles, letters, and novels to analyze the social thought of Jane Addams, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, John Dewey, Ray Stannard Baker, Theodore Dreiser, and other reformers. In the 1890s, disputes between workers and employers led many liberal Chicagoans to conceive of social strain—and the notion of class—in terms of labor-capital relations. During the 1900s, however, the rising profile of interracial violence in Chicago and across the Midwest spurred some white liberal Chicagoans to acknowledge, as black reformers had long argued, that racial prejudice fueled economic conflicts. This ideological trend sparked a national conversation on racial equality and inspired new forms of interracial association, yet it also re-inscribed discriminatory attitudes towards African Americans and encouraged white liberals to view racism as an economic, not a cultural, problem. Ultimately, this conceptual shift was short-lived. By 1920, white reformers had subsumed the pursuit of racial equality within their crusade for economic justice, and Chicago had become an ambivalent symbol of democracy that evoked the advance of organized labor and the failure of racial liberalism. Chapter one describes how liberal Chicagoans developed a way of thinking that was investigative, pragmatic, class-oriented, and Chicago-centric and that downplayed the social significance of racial tensions. Chapter two explores how the Pullman Strike of 1894 caused white liberal Chicagoans to narrow their conception of class to its economic aspects. Chapters three and four analyze how race riots and interracial strike warfare in the Midwest prompted some white reformers to recognize how racial antagonism shaped industrial relations. As a result of these social currents, white and black liberals formed new organizations dedicated to protecting black civil rights even as presidential politics exposed the limits of racial liberalism. Chapter five discusses how race riots in St. Louis and Chicago led white liberals to reframe their thinking on class conflict by turning away from further analysis of its racial dimensions. / 2021-05-31

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In 1960, Dominican Republican dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the murders of the Mirabal sisters. He ordered the killing of Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa Mirabal because of their intellectual efforts to topple the Trujillo regime. Following their murders, Trujillo was assassinated, and this brought forth commemorative efforts seeking to recognize the sisters' rebellious acts. Over time, the representation of the Mirabal sisters became racialized and gendered. Drawing on various mediums including illustrations, films and poetry, this thesis examines the representation of the Mirabal sisters through the construction of race and gender in the Dominican Republic. It also analyzes how the Dominican feminists used the representation of the Mirabal sisters to advocate for gender equality, including awareness and prevention of gender-based violence. The feminist movement helped bring global recognition for the sisters.

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This dissertation tells the story of how anticommunism operated on the state and local level in Massachusetts from the depression through the 1950s. Using analytic tools from both political history and social history, it asks: what initiatives were driven by anticommunism, who were the people behind these initiatives, why did they want to suppress political dissent, and where did their ideas originate. The findings show that anticommunism on the state and local level was far more complex than has been appreciated. In Massachusetts, political ideas travel through a prism of class and ethnicity before taking shape as political actions. Neither the pluralist analysis of McCarthyism as a mass based movement from below, nor the revisionist analysis of McCarthyism as an elite rivalry over political power adequately explain what happened in Massachusetts. A more accurate picture reveals pockets of anticommunist activity throughout the state. These pockets were peopled with conservative Yankees, professional anticommunists, Catholic legislators and opportunist labor leaders. However, the ideas driving each group were quite different. What this study shows is the usefulness of anticommunism in helping Americans find common political ground across class and ethnic differences. For most people it was a lot easier to agree on what was un-American than it was to agree on what was American. Massachusetts anticommunists maintained an unbroken thread of activity throughout the period of this study, 1930 to 1960. Evidence of anticommunism and antiradicalism during the Second World War--expressed as opposition to conscientious objectors and support for the Christian Front--links the "little Red Scare" of the depression to postwar McCarthyism. The same groups of people supported anticommunist initiatives during the cold war as had during the depression and war years. The Catholic Church continued to be the single most influential source of anticommunism. Union leaders used anticommunist Catholic labor doctrine to oust rivals from power within the electrical workers union. A legislative commission dominated by socially conservative Irish Democrats investigated subversion among liberal Yankees. Cold war anticommunism on the state level was driven by ethnic conflict not party rivalry.

This dissertation attempts to expand our understanding of the most important political reform period in American history---the Progressive Era. Academic literature on the Progressive Era has focused almost exclusively on the reformers of the time and has ignored the question, "With whom were the Progressives arguing?" By attempting to answer this question, we can develop a better understanding of the intellectual and ideological conflict that gave rise to the direct democracy reforms of the time and extend our understanding of the development of the American state. What this research reveals is the existence of a dynamic and lively resistance to the direct democracy reforms of the Progressive movement. This Anti-progressive voice provides intellectual and political arguments against a variety of direct democracy reforms including the direct primary, initiative and referendum, judicial recall, and the direct election of senators. These voices of dissent come from a variety of sources that represent different ideological backgrounds, various professions, and a range of geographic origins. Together, these dissenters to Progressive reform include academics, politicians, public servants, and socialists. Those identified for this dissertation include: Henry Jones Ford, Nicholas Murray Butler, William Howard Taft, Emanuel Philipp, Elihu Root, Bernard Freyd, Charles Hollingsworth, and Victor Berger. Analysis of their arguments and of the debates of the time reveals several central themes that offer a way to initially define the claims of the Anti-progressives. These included a belief in representative institutions, constitutionalism, a strongly independent judiciary, and the primacy of politics and political parties.

This dissertation examines the resurgence of Massachusetts Federalists in national politics from 1805 through 1815. During this ten-year period, Federalists were relegated to the periphery of national politics as the Democratic-Republican majority in Congress passed a string of controversial commercial policies directed at French and British violations of America’s neutral trade. However, the rejection of bipartisan solutions, along with the anti-commercialism and sectional bias in Jeffersonian political economy, precipitated a resurgence of the Federalist Party after 1805. In Congress, Federalists, led by Massachusetts’ representatives, compensated for their dwindling numbers and influence in the national arena by adopting a populist stance and opposition platform that attracted New England voters. In fact, this study suggests that national expansion, the spread of slavery, and Jefferson’s agrarian ethos, played a more significant role in the Democratic-Republican Party’s rise to national prominence after 1800, than a widespread rejection of Federalist elitism. By testing the validity of Federalist claims that New England’s ability to safeguard its interests in national government diminished in direct proportion to the nation’s growth, we gain a better understanding of the emergence of New England nationalism and the deepening sectional hostilities that threatened the survival of the Union. Finally, through its reassessment of the Federalists’ opposition to commercial restrictions and their calls for constitutional reform to abolish slave quotas, this dissertation departs from the focus of previous studies, expands the discourse surrounding early national politics, and places Federalists in their appropriate historical context.

The Knights of Labor was 19th century America's largest and most successful labor organization, yet historians have given it scant attention. Much of the work that has been done concentrates on the Knights' decline and seeks to justify its demise. Aside from several superb community studies, few works have analyzed the Order's achievements or given it credit for the legacy it bequeathed to future working class movements. The last national survey of the Knights of Labor was completed in 1929. My study seeks to address the imbalance. The Knights organized more than a million workers in the 1880s and 1890s. What made it so successful? What were the experiences of those who joined? What did future organizers learn from the Knights? To answer these questions, I have turned to manuscript sources, the labor press, memoirs, 19th century commentary, and a variety of 20th century scholars and theorists. In the pages that follow I sketch a portrait of Knights' culture from both a local and a national perspective. I find that the Knights' rich culture--embracing ritual, ideology, music, poetry, fiction, material objects, leisure activities, and religion--defined the essence of Knighthood, and was an element of the Order's success. I identify five overlapping phases of Knights' cultural development, each of which was an amalgam of working class and popular cultures. Ultimately, though Knights of Labor culture was creative and strong, it could not overcome two larger problems facing the Order, internal factionalism and external oppression. Though the Knights of Labor faded quickly after 1890, it left a brilliant legacy upon which future working class movements were able to build.