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2 'The best possible showcase for freedom', American voluntary associations in the Cold War The voluntary association has enjoyed a long history as an ideal in American society. Alexis de Tocqueville commented on 'the American penchant for turning to voluntary actions as a solution to social, political and personal problems',1 while historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr, famously dubbed the USA 'a Nation of Joiners'.2 The importance of the voluntary association in creating and protecting freedom was both functional and structural, a product of the practice and
importance of private input into re-education programmes, insisting that 'the combined resources of the United States Government, of voluntary agencies and of private individuals must be utilized and co-ordinated' .3 The input of voluntary associations was particularly important in 'The recipe for American democracy' 69 reaching German women, many of whom would have no exposure to re-education through labour, professional or political channels. Moreover, the importance of women to the success of the re-education programme was, on demographic grounds, obvious. Because of
1 'No limit to what I can do': American women's voluntary associations The role of American women's voluntary associations in offering their members an opportunity to become politically active before the extension of suffrage in 1920 is well documented. 1 In her influential article 'Separatism as strategy: Female institution building and American feminism 1870-1930', Estelle Freedman recognised: A major strength of American Feminism prior to 1920 was the separate female community that helped sustain women's participation in both social reform and political
This book is the first collection of translated sources on towns in medieval England between 1100 and 1500. Drawing on a variety of written evidence for the significan and dynamic period, it provides an overview of English medieval urban history. Readers are invited to consider the challenges and opportunities presented by a wide range of sources. The merchant, for example, is seen from different angles - as an economic agent, as a religious patron and in Chaucer's fictional depiction. The prominence of London and the other major cities is reflected in the selection, but due attention is also given to a number of small market towns. Occasions of conflict are represented, as are examples of groups and societies which both contributed to and helped to contain the tensions within urban society. Changing indicators of wealth and poverty are considered, together with evidence for more complex questions concerning the quality of life in the medieval town. The book moves between the experience of urban life and contemporary perceptions of it - from domestic furnishings to legends of civic origins and plays in which townspeople enacted their own history.
This book explores the importance of American women's associations in offering American women an active role outside the home, a function that had been recognised and applauded by feminist historians of the pre-suffrage era. It investigates the continuing relevance of the 'separate sphere' of women-only organisations after the extension of suffrage. American women's organisations in the twentieth century continued to offer women an opportunity and a justification for a role outside the private confines of the home. The book considers the traditional importance placed on voluntary associations in American life as guardians of freedom and as a medium for the activities of private citizens outside the processes of the public sphere of government. It evaluates how the Cold War both relied upon the ideological value of the 'private' status of voluntary associations, and undermined this distinction as private associations co-operated with their government in international work. The book also explores the contradictions between American women's assertions of sisterhood and equality with West German women and their assumption of a position of superiority based on national identity. It presents the history of the World Organization for Mothers of All Nations (WOMAN), an organisation of women established by journalist Dorothy Thompson to harness women's interest in peace to a global pressure group. This effort at internationalism was thwarted by established mainstream women's organisations that sought to produce and police a coherent national position.
throughout the past century.23 When the National Council for Social Service (still very much in existence 138 People, places and identities in the twenty-first century as the National Council for Voluntary Organizations) was established in 1919 to continue and extend the considerable wartime co-operation between voluntary and statutory bodies and to co-ordinate the work of voluntary associations, one of its aims was ‘to co-operate with Government Departments and Local Authorities making use of voluntary effort’.24 Lettice Fisher wrote, with pride, when reviewing the
: the first empirical-historical, and the second ideological. Insurrectionary anarchism can be understood as a tendency within anarchism’s larger history, sharing the framework’s chief concern of the destruction of state and capitalism through direct action, voluntary association, horizontality, mutual aid, and illegalism. Drawing from poststructuralism and Queer theory, contemporary insurrectionism challenges power through its multifaceted manifestations, and seeks to target its direct embodiments when possible. In assessing how anarcho is anarcho
of law and order to secure people space in which to pursue their legitimate ends. This minarchist position implies no logically necessary tension with traditions, but in practice liberalism has often come to view itself in tension with the substantive authority of traditions arising from family, church, schools, and other forms of autochthonous voluntary associations (1981a: 185–6). In his 1958 essay ‘Tradition and Liberty’, Shils proposed that classical liberalism ‘has been all in favour of the critical emancipation of the individual from the domination of
not recognised as members of an established Church – were joining Anglicans in leading national prayer. 140 The world of voluntary associations held out benefits and challenges to the Anglican clergy. One basic problem was that there were many different kinds of associations to choose from: indeed, the range of institutions that drew clerical involvement shows that Anglicans could not agree what
The last chapter traces the high-point of giving for the lights as guilds and confraternities mushroomed. A solid belief in Purgatory encouraged people to give in order to earn time off this pain. The use of wax for the lights grew until it was necessary to import wax into Western Europe. By the early sixteenth century, the cost of the lights was met predominantly by voluntary associations. The censuales and other tributary groups declined in a predominantly urban environment. Urban associations, however, gained control of much church funding, and they were instrumental in determining responses to reform teaching. When the belief in Purgatory came to an end, funding for the lights ended abruptly. This is the final twist in the relationship between belief and termaiality.