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The fight against poverty in the United States has existed since the inception of the country. Each successive generation has had their own unique view on the causes of poverty and the use of institutions to suppress it. This dissertation focuses on institutions helping the poor during the Progressive Era from 1900 to 1930. During this time period poverty relief fundamentally evolved from private charities providing the bulk of relief efforts to government agencies becoming the more important source of aid.Research into poverty relief for this time period has been deficient mostly from a lack of quality data. To further the literature, I have created a unique data set that provides information about both governmental and private relief efforts throughout the era. The first chapter of the dissertation focuses on quantitatively and qualitatively documenting the evolution of institutions from 1900 to 1930 in Massachusetts. Particular emphasis is on how the public's changing attitudes towards the poor altered the institutions used to provide relief. The second chapter studies the effects of government spending on private spending. I highlight how nonprofit managers' behavior would lead them to reduce spending when the government became the first avenue of support for the poor. The third chapter tests assumptions made in the second chapter about nonprofit managerial behavior. Unfortunately, data from 1900 to 1930 does not have the quality to answer these questions. Therefore, I use a similar data set from 1998 to 2003 to test how nonprofit managers adjust their spending, program service revenue, and savings to the business cycle.

This dissertation traces the development of Charles A. Beard’s social, political, legal and historical thought. It covers his early education in Indiana, his cosmopolitan postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford, Cornell University and Columbia University, and professional work as political scientist and as expert on municipal government. By following thematically and chronologically the relationship between Beard’s historical writings and his early life as teacher of politics and government, this dissertation offers both a reinterpretation of the meaning of Beard’s interpretation of the origins of the U.S. Constitution and a glimpse of the shifting intellectual trends in political thinking that emerged during the Progressive era. Contrary to the idea that Beard was a moral absolutist interested in denouncing the interference of economic interests in government, this thesis argues that Beard developed a pluralistic, functionalistic, and anti-majoritarian conception of politics that was at odds with many Progressive thinkers. Most previous research on Beard has lacked archival research and has ignored Beard’s teachings on politics at Columbia University, thus projecting into Beard’s thought concepts and values he did not adopt. In this study Beard appears as an early advocate of a new pluralistic ethics and utilitarian morality that allowed him to picture the framers of the Constitution as modern pragmatic politicians interested in creating a strong government by the art of integrating the major economic interests of the society in the process of law-making. This dissertation also reveals a broader intellectual world informing Beard’s scholarly work and highlights his readings in modern sociology at DePauw and German sociological jurisprudence as two key factors in understanding Beard’s conception of law and politics. As such, it offers a much more complicated image of Beard’s thought and his intellectual world.

Human excrement is seldom considered to be an integral part of the human condition. Despite the relative silence regarding it, however, excrement has played a significant role in American history. Today the U.S. has more than two million miles of sewer pipes underneath it. Every year Americans flush more than a trillion gallons of water and fertilizer down the toilet, and farmers spend billions of dollars to buy artificial fertilizer. Furthermore, excrement is bound up in many complicated power relationships regarding race, gender, and ethnicity. This dissertation examines the period in American history, from the Civil War through the Progressive Era, when excrement transformed from commodity to waste. More specifically, it examines the cultural and social factors that led to its formulation as waste and the roles it played in the histories of American health, architecture, and imperialism. The first chapter assesses the vast changes to the country’s infrastructure and social fabric beginning in the late nineteenth century. On the subterranean level, much of America’s immense network of sewers was constructed during this era—making it one of the largest public works projects in U.S. history. Above ground, the United States Sanitary Commission, founded at the onset of the Civil War, commenced a widespread creation of sanitary commissions in municipalities, regions, and even internationally, that regulated defecation habits. Chapter Two assesses the social and architectural change that occurred as the toilet moved from the outhouse to inside the house—specifically, how awkwardly newly built homes accommodated this novel room and how the toilet’s move inside actually hastened its removal. The third chapter shifts focus to the way Americans considered their excrement in relation to their body in a time when efficiency a great virtue. Americans feared ailments related to “autointoxication” (constipation) and went to absurd lengths to rid their bodies of excrement. The fourth chapter analyzes the way excrement was racialized and the role it had in the various projects of American imperialism. The colonial subjects and potential American citizens—from Native Americans to Cubans, Filipinos, and Puerto Ricans—were regularly scrutinized, punished, and re-educated regarding their defecation habits. / text

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Educational reform in the New South took many forms. After the ravages of the Civil War, education in the South was chaotic and sporadic. Diverse external groups sought to improve the situation of the southern poor. They ranged from successful businessmen who organized philanthropic ventures such as the Southern Education Board to mission associations established by church denominations to minister to the disadvantaged rural population—both black and white. Within the South, various individuals and groups played critical roles in improving southern rural education. This study focuses on the creation of Tallulah Falls School in the north Georgia mountains by the Georgia Federation of Women’s Clubs. Tallulah Falls School’s founding in its cultural and social context reflects upon a number of issues that characterized the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. Of significance were the vision of a New South as articulated by Henry Grady and others, and the ‘discovery’ of Appalachia in the 1890s, followed by the perceived need to ‘repair’ it. Also influential was a different vision of a New South that drew upon the Lost Cause philosophy as articulated by the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy. Industrial education was seen as a means not only to educate but also to alleviate concerns about the potential loss of rural America and the legendary yeoman farmers that had been the foundation of the nation from its earliest days. The rise of great fortunes and the emergence of a middle class led those who had the resources to uplift and ‘repair’ through philanthropic means that which seemed to threaten the virtues and vitality of America. Although their motives were not purely altruistic, clubwomen exerted great effort to bring educational opportunities to the rural people of Georgia. Through personal involvement and by means of political and social reform, these clubwomen were prepared to their position and influence to ‘heal’ the children. Their endeavor at Tallulah Falls stands as an example of their determination to uplift poor, disadvantaged mountain children and their families and bring to them an awareness of an efficient, modern world.

Conflict among members of the United States Congress has been a regular occurrence throughout our nation's history. Existing literature suggests that some amount of conflict is essential to healthy deliberation, but that too much discord can be harmful and unproductive. The Progressive Era is unique in that legislative productivity increased to unprecedented heights. The theory driving this research is that the type, quality, and absolute level of legislative conflict in the Progressive Era can help explain this productivity. Specifically, the research holds that legislative conflict is multidimensional and that partisan difference, representing one form of legislative conflict, can aid productivity while personal incivilities, a second form of conflict, detract from productivity. After controlling for such variables as the budget situation, the competence of the sitting president, divided government and majority party cohesiveness, this thesis finds that, indeed, the Progressive Era does witness higher levels of partisan conflict and less personal incivility than either the period immediately preceding or subsequent to the Era.

The rise of women’s volunteer organizations can be linked to the social changes that the United States was undergoing during the Progressive Era. The movement from an agrarian society to an industrial one, massive migration of Americans from rural areas to the cities, and increased immigration all contributed to social challenges in the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Recently historians have begun to explore how women’s contributions helped to combat these challenges and this study shows how women’s clubs in Georgia were able to exercise their philanthropic power through their involvement in education. By 1860, the women’s club movement was well underway in the United States, with most of the activity in the Northeast, Midwest, and the West. The South, due to the devastation of the Civil War, did not see an emergence of women’s clubs until 1890. Southern middle class white women felt compelled to help those they perceived as less fortunate at a time when they themselves were trying to establish their own placement within the social structure of the Progressive Era South. Women, due to changing societal roles, were beginning to move beyond the home. They began to use the expertise they acquired through managing a household and applied this knowledge to social programs that would help those in need. Often times these social programs were focused on the education of young children and women. Women’s clubs in Georgia provide a lens for exploring how women were able to influence educational developments during the Progressive Era. Archival data show that the Georgia Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Atlanta Woman’s Club, and the Athens Woman’s Club played in important role in educational advancements in Georgia during the Progressive Era. Archival and primary source materials were used to support an analysis of gender, social class, and geographic differences on women’s roles in educational changes. This study analyzes how women were able to affect education in Georgia at a time when men dominated educational decision-making.

"Employers, Unite!" argues that the anti-union campaign of Progressive-Era organized employers molded in crucial ways the shape of labor relations in the United States, and that to understand the development of ideas about work, business, and labor unions, we need to understand how these employers gained and wielded political and societal power.The study concentrates on the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which spearheaded what it termed the "open-shop'' campaign. Focusing attention on the unions' demand for the closed or union shop, the NAM shifted the debate over labor relations from workplace conditions to the legitimacy of unions as representatives of workers, identifying not employers but union leaders as the source of injustices.At the heart of the study is an analysis of over 100 active members of the NAM, organized through a relational database constructed with the help of recently digitized materials like local histories and biographical compendia. Besides basic information like company size or demographics, the database maps information about NAM members' social and political contacts. Substantial archival materials further ground the study's analysis of the NAM's structure and influence.Research on the membership has allowed me to uncover information that focusing on the leadership would not have revealed. For example, I have found that a high percentage of active NAM members were party activists and officials, mostly in the Republican party; their positions in the party hierarchy gave them influence over political nominations and Congressional committee appointments. Active NAM members also regularly had personal contacts to politicians ranging from governors to Senators; these contacts further bolstered the Association's power, enabling it to torpedo much of labor's legislative project.The study also compares the NAM to other business organizations, especially the National Civic Federation (NCF). The NCF promoted cooperation with moderate unions, a position which the NAM frequently and vehemently criticized. Rhetorical differences, however, masked an underlying agreement among businessmen regarding the undesirability of unions. The rhetorical disjuncture between the organizations served to constrain debate on labor relations: the NAM's stridency made the NCF appear genuinely progressive and thereby undercut other, more far-reaching critiques of existing workplace relations.

Master of Arts / Department of History / James E. Sherow / Whether as a “progressive” or an anti-New Dealer, Casement was always primarily concerned with creating a stable business climate for the beef industry––even though his ideas on methodology changed. Beginning in the 1920s, he argued for the preservation of republican virtue through the language of eugenics. Eugenics may be broadly defined as “the science of the improvement of the human race by better breeding.” During the Progressive era, Casement primarily supported structural reforms such as conservation and federal regulation of industry. After WWI he became increasingly concerned with the moral direction of the country and believed that stricter individual responsibility—encouraged by limited government—along with eugenic-inspired reforms were necessary to restore the country’s republican virtue. In Casement’s view, the New Deal inaugurated a governmental takeover of private property through unfair taxes for wealth redistribution and production controls that sapped individual initiative, thereby weakening an already weakened populace—especially in the agricultural sector.