Machine-age ideology : social engineering and American liberalism, 1911-1939 / by John M. Jordan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jordan, John M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Engineering--Social aspects--United States--History.

Engineering.

United States--Social conditions.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (350 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c1994.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this interdisciplinary work, John Jordan traces the significant influence on American politics of a most unlikely hero: the professional engineer. Jordan shows how technical triumphs--bridges, radio broadcasting, airplanes, automobiles, skyscrapers, and electrical power--inspired social and political reformers to borrow the language and logic of engineering in the early twentieth century, bringing terms like efficiency, technocracy, and social engineering into the political lexicon. Demonstrating that the cultural impact of technology spread far beyond the factory and laboratory, Jordan shows how a panoply of reformers embraced the language of machinery and engineering as metaphors for modern statecraft and social progress. President Herbert Hoover, himself an engineer, became the most powerful of the technocratic progressives. Elsewhere, this vision of social engineering was debated by academics, philanthropists, and commentators of the day--including John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen, Lewis Mumford, Walter Lippmann, and Charles Beard. The result, Jordan argues, was a new way of talking about the state. Originally published in 1994. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title

Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

PART 1 PREDECESSORS, 1880-1910

1. Origins of American Rational Reform

PART 2 DEFINITIONS, 1911-1918

2. Engineers and Efficiency

3. Structuring a New Republic

PART 3 IMPLEMENTATION AND REDEFINITION, 1918-1934

4. War and Reconstruction

5. The Great Engineer

6. Scientific Philanthropy, Philanthropic Science

7. Social Engineering Projects: The 1920s

8. Roads Not Taken

9. Social Engineering in the Depression, I: Outside the New Deal

10. Social Engineering in the Depression, II: Inside the New Deal

PART 4 RECONSIDERATION AND RETREAT, 1934-1939

11. Reconsiderations

Conclusion

Notes

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9798890864949

9780807876039

0807876038

OCLC:

80242393