Relentless Reformer: Josephine Roche and Progressivism in Twentieth-Century America (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America) - Hardcover

Muncy, Robyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691122733 ISBN 13: 9780691122731

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Josephine Roche (1886–1976) was a progressive activist, New Deal policymaker, and businesswoman. As a pro-labor and feminist member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, she shaped the founding legislation of the U.S. welfare state and generated the national conversation about health-care policy that Americans are still having today. In this gripping biography, Robyn Muncy offers Roche’s persistent progressivism as evidence for surprising continuities among the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society.

Muncy explains that Roche became the second-highest-ranking woman in the New Deal government after running a Colorado coal company in partnership with coal miners themselves. Once in office, Roche developed a national health plan that was stymied by World War II but enacted piecemeal during the postwar period, culminating in Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. By then, Roche directed the United Mine Workers of America Welfare and Retirement Fund, an initiative aimed at bolstering the labor movement, advancing managed health care, and reorganizing medicine to facilitate national health insurance, one of Roche’s unrealized dreams.

In Relentless Reformer, Muncy uses Roche’s dramatic life story—from her stint as Denver’s first policewoman in 1912 to her fight against a murderous labor union official in 1972—as a unique vantage point from which to examine the challenges that women have faced in public life and to reassess the meaning and trajectory of progressive reform.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robyn Muncy is associate professor of history at the University of Maryland. She is the author of Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890–1935 and the coauthor of Engendering America: A Documentary History, 1865 to the Present.

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"Josephine Roche finally has her due, thanks to Robyn Muncy's sparkling political biography. Policewoman and business owner, labor-relations and public-health pioneer, political insider and female outsider, Roche emerges warts and all as a slayer of inequality. More than an exercise in recovery, Relentless Reformer challenges conventional wisdom on the detrimental impact of private welfare on public programs as it charts the persistence of a democratic, state-centric progressivism over the course of the twentieth century."--Eileen Boris, Hull Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Relentless Reformer brings to life one of this country's truly great twentieth-century feminists. A visionary who knew how to get things done, Josephine Roche worked with presidents, governors, and union leaders to achieve her ideal of industrial democracy. Robyn Muncy's masterful and page-turning biography should be required reading for all feminists and progressive reformers working today."--Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League

"Muncy's deft interpretation of Josephine Roche's life takes us on a fascinating journey that sheds new light on the tenacious struggles between Left and Right, the uneven history of labor progressivism, and the enduring importance of personal networks in American politics. Relentless Reformer is a lively and important addition to the history of American political development in the twentieth century."--Kathryn Kish Sklar, author ofFlorence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Women's Political Culture, 1830-1900

"This vividly told story of the brilliant and indomitable Josephine Roche becomes, in historian Muncy's capable hands, an illuminating window on the persistence of the progressive impulse that emerged in the Progressive Era, influenced Roosevelt's New Deal, and, Muncy argues, helped shape Lyndon Johnson's Great Society."--Wendy Williams, professor emerita, Georgetown University Law Center

"Relentless Reformer is a winning combination of excellent political history and well-crafted biography. Josephine Roche was a central figure in the history of twentieth-century reform, long deserving of a biography and by extension a larger claim on public memory. Luckily, we have Robyn Muncy to help us make sense of that life."--Susan Ware, general editor of the American National Biography

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"Josephine Roche finally has her due, thanks to Robyn Muncy's sparkling political biography. Policewoman and business owner, labor-relations and public-health pioneer, political insider and female outsider, Roche emerges warts and all as a slayer of inequality. More than an exercise in recovery, Relentless Reformer challenges conventional wisdom on the detrimental impact of private welfare on public programs as it charts the persistence of a democratic, state-centric progressivism over the course of the twentieth century."--Eileen Boris, Hull Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Relentless Reformer brings to life one of this country's truly great twentieth-century feminists. A visionary who knew how to get things done, Josephine Roche worked with presidents, governors, and union leaders to achieve her ideal of industrial democracy. Robyn Muncy's masterful and page-turning biography should be required reading for all feminists and progressive reformers working today."--Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League

"Muncy's deft interpretation of Josephine Roche's life takes us on a fascinating journey that sheds new light on the tenacious struggles between Left and Right, the uneven history of labor progressivism, and the enduring importance of personal networks in American politics. Relentless Reformer is a lively and important addition to the history of American political development in the twentieth century."--Kathryn Kish Sklar, author ofFlorence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Women's Political Culture, 1830-1900

"This vividly told story of the brilliant and indomitable Josephine Roche becomes, in historian Muncy's capable hands, an illuminating window on the persistence of the progressive impulse that emerged in the Progressive Era, influenced Roosevelt's New Deal, and, Muncy argues, helped shape Lyndon Johnson's Great Society."--Wendy Williams, professor emerita, Georgetown University Law Center

"Relentless Reformer is a winning combination of excellent political history and well-crafted biography. Josephine Roche was a central figure in the history of twentieth-century reform, long deserving of a biography and by extension a larger claim on public memory. Luckily, we have Robyn Muncy to help us make sense of that life."--Susan Ware, general editor of the American National Biography

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Relentless Reformer

Josephine Roche and Progressivism in Twentieth-Century America

By Robyn Muncy

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2015 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-12273-1

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, IX, 
INTRODUCTION, 1, 
PART I FIRST BURST OF PROGRESSIVE REFORM: ROCHE'S APPRENTICESHIP, 1886–1918, 
1 Childhood in the West, Education in the East, 1886–1908, 13, 
2 Aspiring Feminist and Social Science Progressive, 1908–1912, 26, 
3 Emergence as a Public Leader, 1912–1913, 42, 
4 Seeking Fundamentals: The Colorado Coal Strike, 1913–1914, 64, 
5 "Part of It All One Must Become": Progressive in Wartime, 1915–1918, 79, 
PART II FIRST TEMPORARY REVERSAL OF PROGRESSIVE REFORM: ROCHE'S NEW DEPARTURES, 1919–1932, 
6 Work and Love in a Progressive Ebb Tide, 1919–1927, 97, 
7 Migrating to a "Totally New Planet": Roche Takes Over Rocky Mountain Fuel, 1927–1928, 110, 
8 "Prophet of a New and Wiser Social Order," 1929–1932, 126, 
PART III SECOND BURST OF PROGRESSIVE REFORM: HEIGHT OF ROCHE'S RENOWN, 1933–1948, 
9 Working with the New Deal from Colorado, 1933–1934, 143, 
10 At the Center of Power: Roche in the New Deal Government, 1934–1939, 162, 
11 Generating a National Debate about Federal Health Policy, 1935–1939, 177, 
12 Unmoored during Wartime, 1939–1945, 193, 
13 Becoming a Cold War Liberal, 1945–1948, 211, 
PART IV SECOND TEMPORARY REVERSAL OF PROGRESSIVE REFORM: ROCHE BUILDS A PRIVATE WELFARE SYSTEM IN THE COALFIELDS, 1948–1963, 
14 Creating "New Values, New Realities" in the Coalfields, 1948–1956, 227, 
15 Democratic Denials and Dissent at the Miners' Welfare Fund, 1957–1963, 247, 
PART V THIRD BURST OF PROGRESSIVE REFORM: ROCHE RECLAIMS THE FULL PROGRESSIVE AGENDA, 1960–1976, 
16 Challenged and Redeemed by the New Progressivism, 1960–1972, 265, 
17 Only Ten Minutes Left? Epilogue and Assessment, 289, 
ABBREVIATIONS, 297, 
NOTES, 299, 
SELECT PRIMARY SOURCES, 375, 
INDEX, 379, 

CHAPTER 1

CHILDHOOD IN THE WEST, EDUCATION IN THE EAST, 1886–1908

Explaining Josephine Roche's extraordinary life begins with her ambitious family, the cultural and political context of her Western childhood, and her formal education in the East.

Josephine Aspinwall Roche was born on December 2, 1886, in the small town of Neligh, Nebraska. Neligh perched on the 98th meridian, the longitudinal line that, according to one eminent historian, divided the civilization of the eastern United States from that of the West. In making the transition from the timbered, wet climate of the East to the treeless, semi-arid climate of the Plains, he argued, American institutions—from methods of farming to law and literature—changed. Rooted in the boundary between East and West, Neligh was the perfect birthplace for a woman who would be formed equally by those two distinct regions and who would over the course of her life constantly cross boundaries, not only between East and West but also between women and men, social scientists and union organizers, workers and employers. In retrospect, her birth on a boundary seemed to mark Josephine Roche for life.

So did the high hopes of her parents, John J. Roche and Ella Aspinwall Roche, who migrated to Neligh after early careers in education. Originally from Maine, the willowy Ella C. Aspinwall graduated from Wisconsin State Normal School in 1873 and, demonstrating considerable independence and ambition, returned five years later to serve on the faculty. John Roche also attended the Normal School and taught while studying for the bar, which he passed in 1877. The next year, he was elected District Attorney in Wisconsin's LaFayette County. Even that elective position, however, did not fulfill John Roche's highest aspirations. In 1880, he set his sights on real estate in Neligh, a mill town in Nebraska's Antelope County.

John Roche's timing was exquisite. He arrived in Neligh the very year the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad dramatically transformed the hamlet's economic prospects by connecting it to eastern markets. Property values soared, encouraging him to found the First National Bank of Neligh, an institution that, through loans for land, facilitated other men's purchase of property at skyrocketing prices. When the town incorporated in 1881, Roche was elected one of its trustees. The next year, he married his Wisconsin sweetheart and represented Antelope County in the state legislature for the first of two terms. A decade after Roche opened the bank, Neligh hosted a U.S. land office, milled flour and lumber, and exported agricultural surpluses. The Roches' future looked bright.

Josephine's singular position in this striving family gave her unique opportunities. In 1884, John and Ella Roche celebrated the birth of a son, Joseph Aspinwall Roche, who died only four months later. In 1886, the couple transferred the name of their deceased son to their newborn daughter, Josephine Aspinwall Roche (figure 1). With the name, they seem to have transferred all their ambitions for a son to their daughter as well. When Josephine was born, one local newspaper warned readers not to expect to find her father behind the counter at the bank but instead to search him out at home, where "you will probably find him looking contentedly at the girl baby which arrived at his home yesterday." Family friends later spoke of the "intelligent devotion" that the couple lavished on their daughter, and her mother eventually wrote to Josephine of "your mother's ambition for you," an ambition she believed that Josephine knew "full well—only too well." Josephine's life would surely have been different had Joseph survived to claim the attention and resources of a first-born male child. As it was, Josephine drew every hope and asset that John and Ella Roche had to invest in their heirs.

Some aspects of her inheritance Josephine would ultimately reject, however—chief among them, her father's political views. John Roche was a pro-business Republican who believed in the unlimited prerogatives of property. He opposed organized labor, saw government exclusively as the protector of property rights, and devoted his life to the exploitation of natural and human resources his daughter would strive to conserve. Josephine's opposing political views explicitly formed after she left home, but the cultural and political context of her early childhood also encouraged rebellion.

The cultural context was captured in stories spun by the men and women who first settled Antelope County and identified themselves as the area's pioneer generation. These early settlers painted themselves as a heroic group apart from that of Josephine's father, who came to Nebraska only after the railroad eased life so much that even the climate reportedly improved. During Josephine's early childhood, Antelope County's pioneers began publishing tales of their valiant efforts to coax crops from the area's unfriendly soil and their victory over grasshoppers and prairie fires that plagued the county in the 1870s. They bragged about outlasting "Doc" Middleton, a notorious cattle thief, who was in 1879 finally brought down by U.S. marshals and a cavalry unit. Such stories, vividly contrasting the adventurous heroism of Neligh's pioneers to the tamer triumphs of approving mortgages, resonated powerfully in Josephine Roche's later...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691122733
• ISBN 13: 9780691122731
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 408
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Princeton University Press; https://press.princeton.edu/books; ; 7th Floor, New South Building; PRINCETON; NJ; 8544; USA
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