The Story of the Great Society

by Leila Merrell Foster

Describes the social reform work done by President Johnson and the significant legislative accomplishments through which he hoped to help blacks and the poor of America. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0516047558
• ISBN13: 9780516047553
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Children's Press(CT)
• Length: 31 Pages
• Weight: 2.50 lbs.
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

The progressive domestic agenda of Lyndon Johnson

The Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson was overshadowed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy that began it and the Vietnam War, which effectively ended it by persuading him not to seek reelection in 1968. This Cornerstones of Freedom volume looks at what LBJ would have wanted his legacy to be, "The Great Society." Leila M. Foster explains how Johnson was able to use his many years of political experience, the lull in the Cold War that gave the new president a chance to focus on domestic policy, and the country's need to regroup after Kennedy's assassination to push through his program. Johnson's Great Society followed in the footsteps of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and while FDR may be the father of modern "big government," LBJ's program probably had a greater effect on American society.Foster explains how there was opposition to Johnson's plan to have the federal government involved in such a massive "government handout," but that Johnson ignored these critics and passed major legislation having to do with voting and other civil rights, health and school aid, programs like Head Start, VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), financial aid to economically depressed Appalachia, and community action programs throughout America. Foster focuses particularly on the Civil Rights Legislation, where Johnson demanded every American be guaranteed the right to vote and appointed the first African American, Thurgood Marshall, to be on the United States Supreme Court. However, the volume ends with the Vietnam War detracting Johnson from his domestic agenda and his death in 1973, just as Richard Nixon was beginning to dismantle many of the key elements of the Great Society. The Cornerstones of Freedom series is an excellent collection of books for young readers that focuses on key events in American History, from the Alamo to Watergate. A lot of these topics are covered briefly in American History textbooks, but these volumes provide considerably more details along with historic photographs and illustrations. "The Great Society" has become almost a footnote to the Sixties, given the political assassinations, the rise of the counterculture, and the war in Vietnam. But Foster reminds us that there was a concerted attempt by an American president to fulfill the promise of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Reading this book was a nice reminder of that.