- Industry: Printing & publishing
- Number of terms: 1330
- Number of blossaries: 0
- Company Profile:
Routledge is a global publisher of academic books, journals and online resources in the humanities and social sciences.
(1890 – 1969) President between 1953 and 1961, following his success as commander of the Allied Armed forces during the Second World War. Eisenhower labeled himself a “dynamic conservative,” fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. He generally accepted the New Deal as fact, and even went so far as to expand Social Security coverage, raise the minimum wage and extend unemployment insurance. With the creation of a new Department of Health, Education and Welfare to coordinate government social programs, the size and scope of the federal government continued to expand during the Eisenhower years. He also dispatched the 101 st Airborne Division to Little Rock, AR in 1957 to protect the African American children integrating Central High School.
Eisenhower is often remembered for his commitment to expanding American highways, which radically altered the nation’s social landscape through suburbanization and contributed to the increasing reliance on automobiles and the declining influence of railroad networks.
In his foreign policy Eisenhower remained tied to containment of the Soviet Union, even while he proclaimed a “new look” designed to push back communist regimes around the world. His Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, argued that the United States should make it official policy to want and expect liberation for these Communistdominated nations. But, partly owing to his economic conservatism, Eisenhower also wanted to cut military expenditures. Liberation cost more than containment in both money and lives, and could not be carried out by someone who wanted to cut the budget.
The “new look,” then, came to mean greater reliance on the threat of nuclear weapons, which, though expensive, were cheaper than conventional forces. The policy developed into “massive retaliation,” suggesting that any Soviet hostility might escalate into a nuclear war. Secretary of Defense, Charles E. Wilson, the former CEO of General Motors, observed that this new look provided “more bang for the buck.” The old-look foreign policy remained in place, however, in the US’ actions in the East and Southeast Asia. Only a few years after terminating the conflict in Korea, Eisenhower began to commit large development and military resources to the Republic of South Vietnam, setting the stage for a long, costly military commitment for his successors.
In his farewell address, Eisenhower warned of a number of emerging problems: the communist “menace” and too much spending on both warfare and welfare. The speech is remembered for his final warning of the growing influence of what he termed “the military-industrial complex.” As one of the architects of this complex, he knew whereof he spoke.
Industry:Culture
(1891 – 1974) Earl Warren emerged from a working-class family to become Alameda County district attorney Attorney-General of California, three-term governor of California and chief justice of the Supreme Court. Appointed in 1953 by President Eisenhower, Warren served until 1969. He transformed the Court from one sharply divided between justices favoring judicial restraint and practitioners of judicial activism into a more unified body that moved from a focus on economic issues to confront many of the most significant issues in the Court’s history. The Warren Court had a willingness to overturn legislative enactments, especially those from the state level, employing a methodology rooted in social justice, morality and fairness rather than strict doctrinal constitutional analysis.
Most notable are: Brown v. Board of Education (1954), unanimously holding racial segregation unconstitutional and triggering the Civil Rights movement; Baker v. Carr (1962), requiring reapportionment of congressional voting districts; Roe v. Wade (1973), recognizing a privacy right for women to choose abortion; and decisions expanding the rights of criminal defendants. Warren’s enduring legacy is the modern era of the Supreme Court in which groups concerned with women’s liberation, environmentalism, gay and lesbian politics, criminal justice, poverty and immigration could utilize the Supreme Court and other levels of the judicial system, rather than the legislative process, as instruments for social change and protection of the disadvantaged.
Industry:Culture
(1892 – 1973) Buck grew up in China with her missionary parents, returning several times during her career and even teaching at Nanjing University. Her experiences of the small Chinese farming villages fueled a prolific writing career, including over 100 works. Her second novel, The Good Earth, high-lighted a Chinese peasant family and earned her the Pulitzer Prize (1932), leading to the Nobel Prize for Literature (1938). Her novels also were frequently adapted to stage and screen with predominantly white casts: The Good Earth (1937), with Paul Muni and Luise Rainer, and Dragon Seed (1944), with Katharine Hepburn and Walter Huston. Buck created a foundation for international child assistance and Welcome House Social Services, an international adoption agency.
Industry:Culture
(1893 – 1969) Industrial designer and head of styling at General Motors (1926–59), Earl was responsible for the general trends in American automobile styling from the 1920s to the end of the 1950s, most notably for the excesses of fins, chromium, curved glass and other styling details of post-Second World War American car design. Earl gave buyers a little Hollywood glamour and individuality at massproduction prices in designs that captured the optimistic, technological zeitgeist, appealing to the dreams and aspirations of the rapidly expanding, affluent middle class. Earl’s department was also responsible for most GM designs, including buses, trains and home appliances.
Industry:Culture
(1893 – 1986) French-born industrial designer of America’s modern style, emphasizing streamlined flow and legibility Thomas Hine characterized him as an engineer “of the emotions, making the connection between people and machines” (1986:62). His classic designs include American icons such as the Coca-Cola bottle and the Greyhound bus, yet his work ranged from fashion, cookware and copy machines to automotive innovations for Studebaker and the American space program. Apart from his influence from the 1930s onwards in shaping the present and future, he was also a precursor to conglomerates through which architects (Michael Graves), fashion designers (Ralph Lauren) and home advisors (Martha Stewart) have created packaged styles for living as mass-market consumer.
Industry:Culture
(1894 – 1961) Poet, cartoonist, playwright and essayist, Thurber’s wry humor explored alternative relations of gender in which men sought less to dominate than to escape from gender battles, work and modernity. A frequent contributor to the New Yorker, Thurber’s bestknown works include Is Sex Necessary? (with E.B. White, 1929), “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1942) and the Thurber Carnival (1945), as well as children’s books and a memoir, The Years with Ross (1959). Films and a television series have been based on his works.
Industry:Culture
(1894 – 1962) African American sociologist who made important contributions to understanding black experience. Frazier generally used an assimilation model, arguing that Africans had been stripped of their culture during the process of enslavement in Africa, the middle passage, and slavery in the Americas, and tended to see black culture negatively The Negro Church (1962) was becoming more like its white counterpart, while the Black Bourgeoisie (1957) was characterized by people who had “escaped into a world of makebelieve.” Frazier’s ideas were picked up by people like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose arguments about the black family being a “tangle of pathology” were based on The Negro Family (1939). Though these ideas were largely discredited as “blaming the victim” in the 1970s, they have found their way back into mainstream political discourse, especially in arguments about the underclass and the need for welfare reform.
Industry:Culture
(1894 – 1973) Known as the foremost director of westerns in Hollywood history none of Ford’s six Academy Awards for direction were for westerns. Renowned worldwide as one of America’s finest cinematic storytellers, principally because of his blending of characterization, action, dialogue and landscape, Ford, who directed 125 films from 1917 to 1966, was born John Martin Feeney in Maine, and moved to Hollywood in 1914. Both lauded and criticized for his patriotism, sentimentality pride in being Irish American, political conservatism, irascibility and loyalty to friends, many of whom, like John Wayne and James Stewart, were part of his acting “family,” Ford remains one of the undisputed geniuses of American narrative cinema.
Industry:Culture
(1894 – 1980) President of the AFL-CIO from 1955 to 1979, George Meany was the most powerful labor leader at a time when labor unions had considerable influence in American politics.
Born in New York City, Meany rose through union ranks to become the president of the New York State Federation of Labor and then head of the American Federation of Labor in 1952. With the strength of the CIO compromised by the purges of communists, Meany was able to merge the two labor organizations, becoming the new federation’s first president. Generally conservative in inclination (he refused to endorse the March on Washington), Meany was angered by Democratic Party reforms in 1972. He refused to support George McGovern for US president, the first time a labor leader had not supported Democrats since the New Deal. Meany renewed his support for the Democrats in 1976, but later denounced Jimmy Carter’s stagflationary economic policies. Having indirectly aided Richard Nixon, he did the same for Ronald Reagan, whose policies after Meany’s death would significantly diminish the power of unions.
Industry:Culture
(1894 – 1991) Dramatic doyenne of American modern dance. As both dancer and choreographer, Graham incorporated American cultural themes and classical dramas into her repertoire, translated into strong bodily expression and vivid movements. She also worked with major American composers like Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber.
Industry:Culture
