Progressive inequality : rich and poor in New York, 1890-1920 / David N. Huyssen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Huyssen, David, 1979-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rich people--New York (State)--New York--History.

Rich people.

Poor--New York (State)--New York--History.

Poor.

Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)--Economic conditions.

Manhattan (New York, N.Y.).

Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (392 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England : Harvard University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Progressive Era has been depicted as a seismic event in American history--a landslide of reform that curbed capitalist excesses and reduced the gulf between rich and poor. Progressive Inequality cuts against the grain of this popular consensus, demonstrating how income inequality's growth prior to the stock market crash of 1929 continued to aggravate class divisions. As David Huyssen makes clear, Progressive attempts to alleviate economic injustice often had the effect of entrenching class animosity, making it more, not less, acute. Huyssen interweaves dramatic stories of wealthy and poor New Yorkers at the turn of the twentieth century, uncovering how initiatives in charity, labor struggles, and housing reform chafed against social, economic, and cultural differences. These cross-class actions took three main forms: prescription, in which the rich attempted to dictate the behavior of the poor; cooperation, in which mutual interest engendered good-faith collaboration; and conflict, in which sharply diverging interests produced escalating class violence. In cases where reform backfired, it reinforced a set of class biases that remain prevalent in America today, especially the notion that wealth derives from individual merit and poverty from lack of initiative. A major contribution to the history of American capitalism, Progressive Inequality makes tangible the abstract dynamics of class relations by recovering the lived encounters between rich and poor--as allies, adversaries, or subjects to inculcate--and opens a rare window onto economic and social debates in our own time.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

PROLOGUE Fault Lines of Rich and Poor

1. Invading the Tenements

2. Bank on the Bowery

3. Prescribing Reform

4. Loving the Poor with Severity

5. The Business of Godly Charity

6. Reaching Out to the Rich

7. Between Empathy and Prejudice

8. The Limits of Private Philanthropy

9. Killing Workers for Profit

10. The Primacy of Property

11. Sisters in Struggle

12. To Cooperate or Condescend

13. Sisters at Odds

14. Hard Fists, Short Fuses on the City Rails

15. Making the World Safe for Inequality

EPILOGUE Recognizing Class in Ourselves

Abbreviations

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780674419537

0674419537

9780674419520

0674419529

OCLC:

871257512