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Next to Godliness
Confronting Dirt and Despair in Progressive Era New York City
Daniel Eli Burnstein
Cloth978-0-252-03024-6
$38.00
| Pub Date: | 2006 |
| Pages: | 224 pages |
| Dimensions: | 6 x 9.25 in. |
Civic sanitation and Americanizing immigrants
To many Progressive Era reformers, the extent of street cleanliness was considered an important gauge for determining whether a city was providing the conditions necessary for impoverished immigrants to attain a state of "decency"--a level of individual morality and well-being that would, in the aggregate, help ensure a healthy and orderly city. In addition, civic sanitation was a key element in the general impetus to reform urban social and environmental conditions and to influence individual behaviors that would promote personal advancement and societal health. Daniel Burnstein's study examines prominent street sanitation issues in Progressive Era New York City--ranging from garbage strikes to "juvenile cleaning leagues"--as a way of exploring how middle-class reformers amassed a base of middle-class support for social reform measures to a degree greater than in practically any other period of prosperity in U.S. history. Linking social reform concerns with practical politics and with compelling urban environmental and public health issues, Burnstein discusses reformers' attitudes toward individual and governmental responsibility, individual character and its relationship to the social and physical environment, and the integration of immigrants into the broader society. One of his central concerns, which he contends has applications for the present day, is the success Progressive Era reformers enjoyed in building cross-class and cross-ethnic reform coalitions.
"Provides a thorough account of efforts to improve sanitary conditions in New York City. . . . Next to Godliness succeeds in rehabilitating sanitary reformers, joining other recent work that returns to Progressivism in its pursuit of a new - or old - reform politics."--The Journal of American History
"Burnstein has made a useful contribution to our understanding of Progressive Era municipal reform."--Urban Affairs Review
"Well-researched, and at times both provocative and insightful, Next to Godliness offers a tendentious portrait of Progressive reformers; this book will certainly be welcomed by political and urban historians studying this era."--Environmental History
"In this little book brimming with big ideas, the author seeks to draw lessons for our times by indicating that the mid-twentieth-century turn in historical writing (and other fields) from racial and social determinism to cultural individualism . . . continues unabated."--Historian
"The book raises good questions . . . about the challenges contemporary historians continue to face in making sense of the dual nature of reformers and reform movements."--H-SHGAPE
"Burnstein's interpretation of reform activities . . . rehabilitates the reputation of the Progressives and inspires readers seeking to reshape political debates over social issues."--Journal of Social History
Daniel Eli Burnstein is an associate professor of history at Seattle University.
Subjects:
History, Am.: 19th C. / History, Am.: 20th C. / Urban History / Studies / Medicine
