Spirit of Rebellion

Spirit of Rebellion PDF Author: Jarod Roll
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252099265
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Winner of the Herbert G. Gutman Prize from the Labor and Working-Class History Association In Spirit of Rebellion, Jarod Roll documents an alternative tradition of American protest by linking working-class political movements to grassroots religious revivals. He reveals how ordinary rural citizens in the south used available resources and their shared faith to defend their agrarian livelihoods amid the political and economic upheaval of the first half of the twentieth century. On the frontier of the New Cotton South in Missouri's Bootheel, the relationships between black and white farmers were complicated by racial tensions and bitter competition. Despite these divisions, workers found common ground as dissidents fighting for economic security, decent housing, and basic health, ultimately drawing on the democratic potential of evangelical religion to wage working-class revolts against commodity agriculture and the political forces that buoyed it. Roll convincingly shows how the moral clarity and spiritual vigor these working people found in the burgeoning Pentecostal revivals gave them the courage and fortitude to develop an expansive agenda of workers' rights by tapping into the powers of existing organizations such as the Socialist Party, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the NAACP, and the interracial Southern Tenant Farmers' Union.

Spirit of Rebellion

Spirit of Rebellion PDF Author: Jarod Roll
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252099265
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the Herbert G. Gutman Prize from the Labor and Working-Class History Association In Spirit of Rebellion, Jarod Roll documents an alternative tradition of American protest by linking working-class political movements to grassroots religious revivals. He reveals how ordinary rural citizens in the south used available resources and their shared faith to defend their agrarian livelihoods amid the political and economic upheaval of the first half of the twentieth century. On the frontier of the New Cotton South in Missouri's Bootheel, the relationships between black and white farmers were complicated by racial tensions and bitter competition. Despite these divisions, workers found common ground as dissidents fighting for economic security, decent housing, and basic health, ultimately drawing on the democratic potential of evangelical religion to wage working-class revolts against commodity agriculture and the political forces that buoyed it. Roll convincingly shows how the moral clarity and spiritual vigor these working people found in the burgeoning Pentecostal revivals gave them the courage and fortitude to develop an expansive agenda of workers' rights by tapping into the powers of existing organizations such as the Socialist Party, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the NAACP, and the interracial Southern Tenant Farmers' Union.

The Gospel of the Working Class

The Gospel of the Working Class PDF Author: Erik S. Gellman
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 025209333X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
In this exceptional dual biography and cultural history, Erik S. Gellman and Jarod Roll trace the influence of two southern activist preachers, one black and one white, who used their ministry to organize the working class in the 1930s and 1940s across lines of gender, race, and geography. Owen Whitfield and Claude Williams, along with their wives Zella Whitfield and Joyce Williams, drew on their bedrock religious beliefs to stir ordinary men and women to demand social and economic justice in the eras of the Great Depression, New Deal, and Second World War. Williams and Whitfield preached a working-class gospel rooted in the American creed that hard, productive work entitled people to a decent standard of living. Gellman and Roll detail how the two preachers galvanized thousands of farm and industrial workers for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. They also link the activism of the 1930s and 1940s to that of the 1960s and emphasize the central role of the ministers' wives, with whom they established the People's Institute for Applied Religion. This detailed narrative illuminates a cast of characters who became the two couples' closest allies in coordinating a complex network of activists that transcended Jim Crow racial divisions, blurring conventional categories and boundaries to help black and white workers make better lives. In chronicling the shifting contexts of the actions of Whitfield and Williams, The Gospel of the Working Class situates Christian theology within the struggles of some of America's most downtrodden workers, transforming the dominant narratives of the era and offering a fresh view of the promise and instability of religion and civil rights unionism.

The Other Missouri History

The Other Missouri History PDF Author: Thomas Morris Spencer
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826264301
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
The essays in The Other Missouri History explore a wide range of topics in Missouri social history. By dealing with the lives of ordinary Missourians, these pieces examine the effects of significant social and economic change at all levels of society. With a broader scope in Missouri history than previous studies, this book demonstrates how Missourians have been affected by issues of race, class, and gender. Gregg Andrews's essay, "The Racial Politics of Reconstruction in Ralls County, 1865-1870," examines how race shaped the political culture in Ralls County during the Reconstruction Era. Andrews argues that race-baiting was used prominently by editors of the Ralls County Record to discredit Radicals in the county and was perhaps the most powerful political weapon that conservatives and later Democrats could use to gain the allegiance of voters. Farmers are another popular topic for those practicing the "other Missouri history." Michael J. Steiner's "The Failure of Alliance/Populism in Northern Missouri" provides insight into the economic and rhetorical reasons for the failure of Populism in Missouri. Steiner contends that white farmers in northern Missouri were happy with the status quo and rejected calls for radical reform and major change in the agricultural economy. Women began to become active in public life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Janice Brandon-Falcone's "Constance Runcie and the Runcie Club of St. Joseph" examines the first two decades of an important women's club that still exists in St. Joseph, Missouri. Also included in The Other Missouri History are essays by Deborah J. Henry, Daniel A. Graff, Bonnie Stepenoff, Robert Faust, and Amber R. Clifford. Because of the diverse issues addressed, this volume will appeal to general readers of Missouri and Midwestern history, as well as to those who teach courses in history and have sought a supplemental text.

Thad Snow

Thad Snow PDF Author: Bonnie Stepenoff
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826264557
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Thad Snow (1881-1955) was an eccentric farmer and writer who was best known for his involvement in Missouri's 1939 Sharecropper Protest--a mass highway demonstration in which approximately eleven hundred demonstrators marched to two federal highways to illustrate the plight of the cotton laborers. Snow struggled to make sense of the changing world, and his answers to questions regarding race, social justice, the environment, and international war placed him at odds with many. In Thad Snow, Bonnie Stepenoff explores the world of Snow, providing a full portrait of him. Snow settled in the Missouri Bootheel in 1910--"Swampeast Missouri," as he called it--when it was still largely an undeveloped region of hardwood and cypress swamps. He cleared and drained a thousand acres and became a prominent landowner, highway booster, and promoter of economic development--though he later questioned the wisdom of developing wild land. In the early 1920s, "cotton fever" came to the region, and Snow started producing cotton in the rich southeast Missouri soil. Although he employed sharecroppers, he became a bitter critic of the system that exploited labor and fostered racism. In the 1930s, when a massive flood and the Great Depression heaped misery on the farmworkers, he rallied to their cause. Defying the conventions of his class, he invited the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union (STFU) to organize workers on his land. He became a friend and colleague of Owen Whitfield, an African American minister, who led the Sharecroppers' Roadside Strike of 1939. The successes of this great demonstration convinced Snow that mankind could fight injustice by peaceful means. While America mobilized for World War II, he denounced all war as evil, remaining a committed pacifist until his death in 1955. Shortly before he died, Snow published an autobiographical memoir, From Missouri, in which he affirmed his optimistic belief that people could peacefully change the world. This biography places Snow in the context of his place and time, revealing a unique individual who agonized over racial and economic oppression and environmental degradation. Snow lived, worked, and pondered the connections among these issues in a small rural corner of Missouri, but he thought in global terms. Well-crafted and highly readable, Thad Snow provides an astounding assessment of an agricultural entrepreneur transformed into a social critic and an activist.

A Portrait of Missouri, 1935-1943

A Portrait of Missouri, 1935-1943 PDF Author: Paul E. Parker
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 9780826214386
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
One tool the FSA used to defend itself against political attacks was its Photographic Section, under the direction of Roy Stryker.".

Women in Missouri History

Women in Missouri History PDF Author: LeeAnn Whites
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826215262
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Women in Missouri History is an exceptional collection of essays surveying the history of women in the state of Missouri from the period of colonial settlement through the mid-twentieth century. The women featured in these essays come from various ethnic, economic, and racial groups, from both urban and rural areas, and from all over the state. The authors effectively tell these women’s stories through biographies and through techniques of social history, allowing the reader to learn not only about the women’s lives individually, but also about how groups of “ordinary” women shaped the history of the state. The essays in this collection address questions that are at the center of current developments in the field of women’s history but are written in a manner that makes them accessible to general readers. Providing an excellent general overview of the history of women in Missouri, this collection makes a valuable contribution to a better understanding of the state’s past.

Literary St. Louis

Literary St. Louis PDF Author: Lorin Cuoco
Publisher: Missouri History Museum
ISBN: 9781883982355
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
A descriptive and informative guide to more than 100 sites of literary significance in the greater St. Louis area, Literary St. Louis: A Guide includes historical and biographical information, maps, literary anecdotes, and photographs. Edited by William H. Gass and Lorin Cuoco, the volume includes selections by T. S. Eliot, Mark Twain, Sara Teasdale, Fannie Hurst, William S. Burroughs, Tennessee Williams, Kate Chopin, Thomas Wolfe, and many others who have helped define American literature over the past 150 years. This book is indispensable for understanding the region's rich literary landscape.

The Journal of Southern History

The Journal of Southern History PDF Author: Wendell Holmes Stephenson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic journals
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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Book Description
Includes section "Book reviews."

The Eastern Shore of Virginia, 1603-1964

The Eastern Shore of Virginia, 1603-1964 PDF Author: Nora Miller Turman
Publisher: Heritage Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
The Eastern Shore covers the counties of Accomack and Northampton.

Missouri's Black Heritage

Missouri's Black Heritage PDF Author: Lorenzo Johnston Greene
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 9780826209047
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Originally written in 1980 by the late Lorenzo J. Greene, Gary R. Kremer, and Antonio F. Holland, Missouri's Black Heritage remains the only book-length account of the rich and inspiring history of the state's African-American population. It has now been revised and updated by Kremer and Holland, incorporating the latest scholarship into its pages. This edition describes in detail the struggles faced by many courageous African-Americans in their efforts to achieve full civil and political rights against the greatest of odds. Documenting the African-American experience from the horrors of slavery through present-day victories, the book touches on the lives of people such as John Berry Meachum, a St. Louis slave who purchased his own freedom and then helped countless other slaves gain emancipation; Hiram Young, a Jackson County free black whose manufacturing of wagons for Santa Fe Trail travelers made him a legendary figure; James Milton Turner; who, after rising from slavery to become one of the best-educated blacks in Missouri, worked with the Freedmen's Bureau and the State Department of Education to establish schools for blacks all over the state after the Civil War; and Annie Turnbo Malone, a St. Louis entrepreneur whose business skills made her one of the state's wealthiest African-Americans in the early twentieth century. A personal reminiscence by the late Lorenzo J. Greene, a distinguished African-American historian whom many regard as one of the fathers of black history, offers a unique view of Missouri's racial history and heritage. Because Missouri's Black Heritage, Revised Edition places Missouri's experience in the larger context of the national experience, this book will bewelcomed by all students and teachers of American history or black studies, as well as by the general reader. It will also promote pride and a greater understanding among African-Americans about their past and provide an increased appreciation of the contributions and hardships of blacks.