Groping toward democracy : African American social welfare reform in St. Louis, 1910-1949 / Priscilla A. Dowden-White.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dowden-White, Priscilla A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public welfare--Missouri--Saint Louis--History--20th century.

Public welfare.

African Americans--Missouri--Saint Louis--History--20th century.

African Americans.

Saint Louis (Mo.)--Race relations.

Saint Louis (Mo.).

Saint Louis (Mo.)--Social conditions--20th century.

Saint Louis (Mo.)--Social policy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (321 p.)

Edition:

3rd ed.

Place of Publication:

Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Decades before the 1960s, social reformers began planting the seeds for the Modern Civil Rights era. During the period spanning World Wars I and II, St. Louis, Missouri, was home to a dynamic group of African American social welfare reformers. The city's history and culture were shaped both by those who would construct it as a southern city and by the heirs of New England abolitionism. Allying with white liberals to promote the era's new emphasis on "the common good, " black reformers confronted racial segregation and its consequences of inequality and, in doing so, helped to determine the gradual change in public policy that led to a more inclusive social order. In Groping toward Democracy: African American Social Welfare Reform in St. Louis, 1910-1949, historian Priscilla A. Dowden-White presents an on-the-ground view of local institution building and community organizing campaigns initiated by African American social welfare reformers. Through extensive research, the author places African American social welfare reform efforts within the vanguard of interwar community and neighborhood organization, reaching beyond the "racial uplift" and "behavior" models of the studies preceding hers. She explores one of the era's chief organizing principles, the "community as a whole" idea, and deliberates on its relationship to segregation and the St. Louis black community's methods of reform. Groping toward Democracy depicts the dilemmas organizers faced in this segregated time, explaining how they pursued the goal of full, uncontested black citizenship while still seeking to maximize the benefits available to African Americans in segregated institutions. The book's nuanced mapping of the terrain of social welfare offers an unparalleled view of the progress brought forth by the early-twentieth-century crusade for democracy and equality. By delving into interrelated developments in health care, education, labor, and city planning, Dowden-White deftly examines St. Louis's African American interwar history. Her in-depth archival research fills a void in the scholarship of St. Louis's social development, and her compelling arguments will be of great interest to scholars and teachers of American urban studies and social welfare history.

Contents:

Vice lords, rousters, and public school men and women : the cultural inheritance of an organizing community

"Democratizing the city, instead of just a city beautiful" : segregation, city planning, and the roots of interracial organizing

"That movement which is active in making communities feel that the Negro is part and parcel of society as a whole" : social work, community organization, and the genesis of a civil rights agenda

Teamwork for a better St. Louis : the framework of a social welfare organizing community

In the white light of critical public opinion : health care, education, and the manipulation of public culture

Not ice cream and cake

must be something deeper : the neighborhood club and block unit movement

Epilogue : "Negroes are

disturbed these days and fighting for everything."

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780826272263

0826272266

OCLC:

787844321