David T. Beito – författare

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, more Americans belonged to fraternal societies than to any other kind of voluntary association, with the possible exception of churches. Despite the stereotypical image of the lodge as the exclusive domain of white men, fraternalism cut across race, class, and gender lines to include women, African Americans, and immigrants. Exploring the history and impact of fraternal societies in the United States, David Beito uncovers the vital importance they had in the social and fiscal lives of millions of American families. Much more than a means of addressing deep-seated cultural, psychological, and gender needs, fraternal societies gave Americans a way to provide themselves with social-welfare services that would otherwise have been inaccessible, Beito argues. In addition to creating vast social and mutual aid networks among the poor and in the working class, they made affordable life and health insurance available to their members and established hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the elderly. Fraternal societies continued their commitment to mutual aid even into the early years of the Great Depression, Beito says, but changing cultural attitudes and the expanding welfare state eventually propelled their decline. |David Beito's book establishes the enormous impact of fraternal societies on the social lives and fiscal circumstances of millions of Americans between 1890 and 1967. In addition to creating vast social and mutual aid networks for the poor and the working class, fraternal organizations offered insurance policies to members and established hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the elderly.

David Beito’s path-breaking new book brings to bear the latest historical scholarship to shed light on the life and achievements of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.Professor Beito traces the irresistible political rise of Roosevelt, a scion of inherited wealth who never posed as a man of the people but was always perceived as a genial aristocrat.  As well as eyebrow-raising disclosures on FDR’s private life, Beito’s gripping narrative brings out Roosevelt’s ruthless opportunism, and his susceptibility to all the prejudicial views fashionable at the time, on race, sex, nationalism, and economics.