John D. Buenker - Böcker

Buenker and Kantowicz have edited an excellent, handy reference guide to one of the most important, and certainly one of the most written about, eras of American history. Including entries for individuals, organizations, movements, issues, newspapers, laws, and court cases, the dictionary provides concise and up-to-date descriptions as well as bibliographic citations to the secondary literature on the people and events comprising Progressivism and its oppositon. . . . Nearly everyone interested in the Progressive Era will find some important use for this volume. ChoiceThe Progressive Era may be described as a broad-based response by Americans from diverse backgrounds to the emergence of the United States as a modern, urban, industrial, and multicultural world power during the period 1890 to 1920. The Historical Dictionary of the Progressive Era, 1890-1920 is a comprehensive source detailing the people and events that made this a notable period in American history. The volume provides biographical sketches of the most prominent individuals of the period along with entries on major reform and professional organizations, key legislative enactments, commissions and committees, schools of interpretation, and important concepts. In each entry the contributor presents the most important factual information and an interpretation of the topic's significance. Where applicable, each entry has a bibliography that includes the manuscript collection and the standard and revisionist works on the topic. The dictionary also includes an introductory essay and a chronology of important events. A subject index containing organizations, laws, concepts, states, and cities concludes the work. This historical dictionary will serve as a primary reference source for students and scholars of a significant era in American history.

Interest in ethnic studies and multiculturalism has grown considerably in the years since the 1992 publication of the first edition of this work. Co-editors Ratner and Buenker have revised and updated the first edition of Multiculturalism in the United States to reflect the changes, patterns, and shifts in immigration showing how American culture affects immigrants and is affected by them. Common topics that helped determine the degree and pace of acculturation for each ethnic group are addressed in each of the 17 essays, providing the reader with a comparative reference tool. Seven new ethnic groups are included: Arabs, Haitians, Vietnamese, Koreans, Filipinos, Asian Indians, and Dominicans. New essays on the Irish, Chinese, and Mexicans are provided as are revised and updated essays on the remaining groups from the first edition.The contribution to American culture by people of these diverse origins reflects differences in class, occupation, and religion. The authors explain the tensions and conflicts between American culture and the traditions of newly arrived immigrants. Changes over time that both of the cultures brought to America and of the culture that received them is also discussed. Essays on representative ethnic groups include African-Americans, American Indians, Arabs, Asian Indians, Chinese, Dominicans, Filipinos, Germans, Haitians, Irish, Italians, Jews, Koreans, Mexicans, Poles, Scandinavians, and the Vietnamese.

John D. Buenker describes the boss-immigrant-machine complex of nineteenth-century America, how it developed, and the services it provided for the newly-arrived immigrant. His important new finding is that the so-called “urban political machine” and “boss,” long objects of disdain, were in fact major sources of support for a vast amount of reform legislation during the Progressive Era. The outlook and philosophy of programs that are now considered liberal, Mr. Buenker concludes, largely originated with the urban machine politician and what today would be called the ethnic working class.

Spanning the era from the end of Reconstruction (1877) to 1920, the entries of this reference were chosen with attention to the people, events, inventions, political developments, organizations, and other forces that led to significant changes in the U.S. in that era. Seventeen initial stand-alone essays describe as many themes.

This book, first published in 1985, investigates the enactment of the federal income tax as a case study of an important Progressive Era reform. It was a critical issue that likely divided people along socioeconomic lines, thus helping to provide insight into the debate over the ‘class origins’ of the reformist movement.