The Underside of American History, Other Readings, Vol. 2: Since 1865

by Thomas R. Frazier

Book Overview

This book presents thirty-two readings that deal with oppressed groups in American history-groups that have been denied open participation in American social and political institutions, that are often... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0155928422
• ISBN13: 9780155928428
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
• Length: 355 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Effects of Corporate Statism

In this edition of the second volume (since Reconstruction to Reagan), Thomas Frazier of The Bernard M. Baruch College of The City University of New York has compiled selections of readings in American history that deal with conflict, stress, and repression as experienced by a variety of often-excluded groups. Among these groups are Native Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, East Asian immigrants, the elderly, women, children, the working class, migrant workers, and the poor. After the Preface and Introduction, the readings are grouped under four subheadings: Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, The Early Twentieth Century, Depression and War, and Postwar America. The selections are "Race Relations: Attitudes, Irritation, and Violence" by Joel Williamson; "Children At Work" by Jeremy P. Felt; "Industrial Workers Struggle for Power" by Herbert G. Gutman; "The Lower East Side" by Moses Rischin; "The American Woman from 1900 to the First World War: A Profile" by Lois Banner; "The IWW Fight for Free Speech on the West Coast" by Melvyn Dubofsky, "Racial Violence in Chicago and in the Nation" by William M. Tuttle, Jr.; "The Failure of the Melting Pot" by Stanley Coben; "The Okie Impact" by Walter J. Stein, "The Year of the Old Folks' Revolt" by David H. Bennett; "Pearl Harbor and the Yellow Peril" by Roger Daniels; "Chavez, the Farm Workers, and the Boycott" by Ronald Taylor, "The Red Man's Burden" by Peter Collier, "American Women in the 1970s" by Mary P. Ryan; "The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Ecological Disaster" by Kai T. Erikson, and "Visible Man: Twenty Years after 'Brown v. Board of Education'" by Richard Kluger. Some of what the reader imbibes from these selections is that the North fought against the Southern states during the Civil War mainly to secure the Union, but also with the aim to abolish slavery. After the Civil War ended, African-Americans became very active in politics - Mississippi has two black Senators in the Congress, and other states had representatives in the House! (When I was government-schooled during the '60s and early '70s, black participation and contributions to American history were never mentioned - fueling the "inferiority" misconception). But the Civil War did not only create 'freedmen', it created 'artificial persons' in the form of coporations by the hundreds - and corporate aims were not concerned with human rights but with corporate rights. "However", Frazier tells us, "federal concern for the civil rights of the freedmen soon gave way to growing [corporate]public sentiment for conciliation of the [corporate]South" (p1), which meant that African-Americans were put back "into positions of political and economic dependence" (p2) on the white caste that would not be corrected until the coming of the Reverend Martin Luther King and the Kennedys [the Irish have a similar history of being treated as "white apes" rather than humans]. It is interesting to note that one cannot properly talk about race with