Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Rutherford B Hayes or Chutes and Ladders

Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President

Author: Ari Hoogenboom

"Rutherford B. Hayes was an important president who has long deserved a full modern treatment of his career. Ari Hoogenboom's well-researched, engrossing, and multi-faceted account of Hayes's life as a soldier and politician is a significant contribution to the historical literature on the American presidency. It is also a first-rate example of political biography at its best."—Lewis L. Gould, author of The Presidency of William McKinley and The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

"From antislavery lawyer to Union general and Republican politician, Hayes's career was intertwined with the major issues of slavery, war, and reunion. As president he struggled with the issues of Reconstruction and the emerging industrial order, always seeking to do the right thing; as an ex-president, he endeavored to preserve the past and prepare for the future. In this comprehensive biography, Hoogenboom rescues Hayes from undeserved obscurity and tells us much not only about the man but also about the times in which he lived. Hoogenboom's skilled rendering of the life of the nineteenth president promises to be definitive, restoring Hayes to his rightful place in American history as a representative of his era."—Brooks Simpson, author of Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868

"Compels fresh respect for both the man and his times."—Allan Peskin, author of Garfield

"An exceptional study: revisionist, comprehensive, and, to a surprising extent, relevant. A superb job."—Les Fishel, former director of the Hayes Library

Author Bio: Ari Hoogenboom is professor of history at the City University of New York-Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center and the author of Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement and The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes.

Publishers Weekly

To critics, U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) was an aloof, inept politician, but this revisionist biography limns a pragmatic reformer, supporter of civil rights and precursor of the Progressive movement. As a Cincinnati lawyer, Hayes defended runaway slaves; as a crusading antislavery Civil War colonel, he served bravely and was wounded five times. Three-time Republican governor of Ohio, Hayes secured his state's ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the vote to all races. President Hayes has been accused of brutally crushing the Great Strike of 1877, but Hoogenboom, professor of history at the City University of New York, argues that he called out federal troops against striking railway workers only at the behest of state and local authorities. Hayes's abandonment of Reconstruction by withdrawing troops from the South ended a failed policy that had unwittingly polarized politics along racial lines, in Hoogenboom's assessment. Despite Hayes's commitment to equality for all Americans, one is left with the impression that his administration was, at best, merely efficient. Photos. (Jan.)

Library Journal

Enlarging his earlier book on Hayes's presidency (The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, Univ. Pr. of Kansas, 1988), historian Hoogenboom casts Hayes as a reformer, an advocate for equal rights, and a masterful politician. From his conversion to an antislavery stance through his law career in Ohio to his military service during the Civil War, Hayes grew in his commitment to human rights. As president of the United States (1877-81), he used the veto and appointive powers in new ways and the bully pulpit to protect freedmen and workers. In his retirement, he lobbied for prison reform, veterans' benefits, and education for the poor. Although the Hayes presented is more prescient and principled than his record of achievement would show, all readers will appreciate Hoogenboom's larger view of the man and his time. Burdensome detail sometimes overwhelms and obscures the argument, but this revision merits attention. For academi libraries.-Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia



Table of Contents:
List of Illustrationsix
Acknowledgmentsxi
Introduction1
1 Ohio and New England7
2 Kenyon and Harvard27
3 Lower Sandusky52
4 Cincinnati73
5 Law and Family87
6 Politics100
7 War112
8 War in Earnest131
9 Western Virginia Interlude149
10 The Valleys of Virginia162
11 The End of the War178
12 Congressman189
13 Governor211
14 Second Term225
15 Interlude239
16 The Campaign of 1876256
17 The Disputed Election274
18 Two New Policies295
19 A TroubledSummer326
20 Congress Triumphant351
21 Hayes Takes Charge370
22 Riders, Politics, and Reform392
23 The Succession414
24 The Garfield Campaign433
25 Lame Duck447
26 Spiegel Grove466
27 Popular Education480
28 Social Justice493
29 Without Lucy508
30 Joining Lucy521
Afterword535
A Note on Sources541
Notes543
Index615

Books about: Understanding and Overcoming Depression or The Type 2 Diabetes SourceBook

Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market

Author: Katherine S Newman

Now that the welfare system has been largely dismantled, the fate of America's poor depends on what happens to them in the low-wage labor market. In this timely volume, Katherine S. Newman explores whether the poorest workers and families benefited from the tight labor markets and good economic times of the late 1990s. Following black and Latino workers in Harlem, who began their work lives flipping burgers, she finds more good news than we might have expected coming out of a high-poverty neighborhood. Many adult workers returned to school and obtained trade certificates, high school diplomas, and college degrees. Their persistence paid off in the form of better jobs, higher pay, and greater self-respect. Others found union jobs and, as a result, brought home bigger paychecks, health insurance, and a pension. More than 20 percent of those profiled in Chutes and Ladders are no longer poor.

A very different story emerges among those who floundered even in a good economy. Weighed down by family obligations or troubled partners and hindered by poor training and prejudice, these "low riders" moved in and out of the labor market, on and off public assistance, and continued to depend upon the kindness of family and friends.

Supplementing finely drawn ethnographic portraits, Newman examines the national picture to show that patterns around the country paralleled the findings from some of New York's most depressed neighborhoods. More than a story of the shifting fortunes of the labor market, Chutes and Ladders asks probing questions about the motivations of low-wage workers, the dreams they have for the future, and their understanding of the rules of thegame.

Library Journal

ea. vol: Harvard Univ. Oct. 2006. SOC SCI Remember playing the board game Chutes and Ladders? Drawing on an eight-year study, Newman (sociology & public affairs, Princeton Univ.; A Different Shade of Gray: Midlife and Beyond in the Inner City) effectively uses ethnographic portraits to examine why some low-wage earners in New York's ghettos and beyond particularly African American and Latino service-sector employees have been experiencing a real-life version of the game. Some were able to capitalize on the economic prosperity of the late 1990s, often thanks to family, friends, and public subsidies; they went up the ladder, returning to school and obtaining trade certificates, high school diplomas, and even college degrees. Meanwhile, others, faced with family obligations, little or no training, and sheer prejudice, were not able to take advantage of these opportunities and moved downward. Similarly, sociologist Venkatesh (director of research, Inst. for Research in African American Studies, Columbia Univ.; American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto) looks at the impoverished residents of Southside Chicago's Maquis Park and the networks they have developed to cope with their devastating circumstances. For example, a mechanic works in an alleyway "shop," and gang-run businesses are an everyday affair. While Venkatesh has a more personal, compelling writing style, Newman's work offers appendixes rich in socioeconomic detail and will be of greater interest to policymakers. Both of these books are in the fine tradition of David K. Shipler's The Working Poor: The Invisible in America, and both deserve places in public and academic libraries. Ellen D. Gilbert, Princeton, NJ Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

Andrew Cherlin
Chutes and Ladders makes an important contribution to our knowledge of low-wage workers. There are many studies of the plight of young, low-income workers, but few if any follow them closely to see what happens to them over time. The conventional wisdom says that they are stuck in undesirable jobs forever, but Katherine Newman shows that about 20 per cent move up the job ladder and greatly improve their lives. Because of her detailed knowledge of these workers' life stores, Newman shows us how they do it. --(Andrew Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University)


Senator John
Katherine Newman is not afraid to ask the hard questions in her new book, Chutes and Ladders. There is much to draw from the "high flyers" such as Kyesha, Jamal and Kevin, who work their way out of poverty, and the rest of the people Newman follows in these pages offer all of us important lessons and insights. In Chutes and Ladders, policymakers have a blueprint for valuing work and reducing poverty. --(Senator John Edwards)


William Julius
This engaging book chronicles the divergent trajectories of a group of low-wage workers during a brief period of economic prosperity. Katherine Newman has once again demonstrated the value of careful ethnographic research in revealing the many challenges confronting the working poor. Chutes and Ladders is a unique and important study that should be widely read and discussed. --(William Julius Wilson, Harvard University)




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