The Reform Tradition in America

FAIN: FB-12398-75

Frank Annunziata
Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY 14623-5603)

To compare antebellum reformers concerned with temperance, penal reform, religious perfectionism, utopian socialism, women's rights, abolitionism and education with reformers of opposing views. Themes to be investigate include: the regenerate individual; the reform mentality and state intervention; the moral and religious dimension in social reform; state control via a permanent managerial role for public officials; the reformer s social manager; intellectual elites and "deprived groups", social welfare legislation and institutional stability; efficiency and social control mechanisms; the intellectual critique of materialism and the competitive commercial ethos.