World War
I to the Present
The
modern era is best studied in the superabundant government publications,
newspapers, and manuscript collections. Few interested students
have the time, training, or inclination to do that, of course.
But this era of Connecticut history had relatively little written
about it in general secondary accounts.
Bingham's
work is stronger than Van Dusen's for political history of the
20th century to 1960. Herbert Janick's volume in the Pequot Series,
designed for high school use, has short, useful bibliographies
at the end of each chapter, but his little volume does not pretend
to be a definitive study.
Beyond
what is found in general histories, very little has been written
about Connecticut during World War I. What there is focuses for
the most part on the state's role as munitions maker for the world--after
1917 only for the Allies and associated powers, of course. There
are two histories of the famous 26th Yankee Division:
Benwell,
Henry A. History of the Yankee Division. Boston: The Cornhill
Co., 1919. A work of nearly 300 pages that includes a "Roster
of Officers," written by a journalist. Except for the "Roster",
investigators will do better with the following book.
Taylor,
Emerson Gifford. New England in France, 1917-1919: A History
of the 26th Division, U.S.A. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1920. The author was a major and acting chief of staff.
A thorough study with a good index, but no citation of sources.
The
best work on society and politics in Connecticut during the war
is a doctoral dissertation: Bruce Fraser, "Yankees at War:
Social Mobilization on the Connecticut Homefront, 1917-18"
(Columbia, 1976). Studies of the home front have focused on national
efforts to mobilize resources and opinion, Fraser tells us, but
"traditional explanations of the exercise of power and influence"
in mobilization "have never been tested on the local level."
He makes that test and finds that the "ideological climate
in which the war effort progressed in Connecticut was shaped less
by the intentions of federal propagandists than by the cultural
anxieties of the state's old line elite. In Connecticut, the wartime
need for a clear statement of core values and beliefs around which
society could cohere came just at the time that elite illusions
about the unquestioned dominance of old-line culture suddenly
collapsed. The Administration's creation of the state council
network in the early days of the war provided a convenient vehicle
through which the supremacy of old-line values in the state could
be reestablished. The Connecticut experience demonstrates the
ability of energetic local organizations in 1917-1918 to alter
significantly a wide range of mobilization arrangements made in
Washington." (from the abstract)
In
"Mobilization and Cooperative Federalism: The Connecticut
State of Defense, 1917-1919," in The Historian 42
(November, 1979) 1:58-84, William J. Breen chides Fraser for emphasizing
the role of the Connecticut Council in preserving "old-line
values" against Federal intrusion--a "gate-keeping function"--rather
than its two-way "cooperative federalism" function,
which Breen stresses. "Connecticut had one of a small group
of really outstanding state councils which made a genuine contribution
to the war effort on the home front." (p. 84) See also Breen's
"Social Values Through Mobilization Programs: The Connecticut
State Council of Defense, 1917-1918," in Elaine F. Barry
and Norman D. Harper, eds., American Studies Down Under:
Pacific Circle 4 (Australian and New Zealand American Studies
Association, 1978), pages 235-58. Breen teaches at LaTrobe University
in Melbourne.
A
few articles and a couple of dissertations discuss politics and
society in the 1920s.
Dahill,
Edwin. "Connecticut's J. Henry Roraback." Doctoral dissertation,
Columbia, 1971. See below, in the "Biographies" section.
Buenker,
John D. "The Politics of Resistance: The Rural-Based Yankee
Republican Machines of Connecticut and Rhode Island," New
England Quarterly 47 (June, 1974) 212-37.
Janick,
Herbert. "Senator Frank Brandegee and the Election of 1920."
The Historian 36 (May, 1973). Explores a moment in the
life of this Republican political heavyweight from New London,
senator from 1905 to 1924.
Kammerman,
David. "Reflections Upon an Anti-World War II Letter: John
A. Danaher and United States Intervention in World War II."
Connecticut History 23 (April, 1982) :46-55. This is an
important contribution to the very thin literature of the period.
Danaher makes an emotional but well-reasoned plea for non-intervention.
The article includes the text of a letter of May 29, 1941, and
a brief biography of Danaher, a Republican, then a U.S. senator.
The author was Danaher's executive secretary.
Lancaster,
Lane W. "Background of a State Boss." American Journal
of Sociology 35 (March, 1930) 5. The author concludes that,
in 1930, "The 'boss' system of Connecticut, while operating
in a highly urbanized environment, rests essentially upon a rural
and small-town point of view. While the population of pure native
stock is but a small proportion of the total, the present [1930]
system is primarily the product of the hold which that section
of the population has upon the government of the state."
(p. 783) This is largely the story of Roraback. Lancaster cites
a wealth of sources, but among the most interesting are three
articles in the National Municipal Review: "The Democratic
Party in Connecticut," and "Connecticut Consolidates
State Financial Control," both in 18 (August, 1928) :451-55
and 265-67; and "Rotten Boroughs and the Connecticut Legislature,"
13 (1924) :678-83.
Mitchell,
Rowland Lippincott, Jr. "Social Legislation in Connecticut.
1919-1939.” Doctoral dissertation, Yale, 1954. Progressive reforms
were tempered in the 1920s because of Connecticut's economic slowdown
relative to other states, rural dominance of the General Assembly,
and one-party dominance by a laissez-faire, business-oriented
Republican leadership. The Depression acted as a catalyst, however,
and ultimately all the reformers' programs were enacted. "If
Connecticut's case was typical, however, the Federal government
in becoming more active, had not usurped any power. On the contrary,
the state had demonstrated that it was both unwilling and, more
important, unable in many cases to deal with the economic and
social needs of the wage earners." (p. i).
Shubert,
Bruce. "The Palmer Raids in Connecticut." The Connecticut
Review 5 (October, 1971) 1. Some of the most inhumane and
illegal acts by U.S. Attorney General Palmer were carried out
in Bridgeport and other places in the state against Russian immigrants,
who were jailed, held incommunicado, and sent out of the country.
The
New Deal era is discussed in Mitchell, above, and in two doctoral
dissertations:
Lombardo,
Peter Joseph, Jr. "Connecticut in the Great Depression, 1929-1933"
(Notre Dame, 1979). This is a narrative of 257 typescript pages
that brings together a considerable body of information not elsewhere
collected. Lombardo concludes that, though Governor Cross, "characteristically
called for a middle way.... Connecticut was entering a 'New epoch'
in history." (from the abstract)
Murray,
Mary Hickson. "Wilbur L. Cross: Connecticut Statesman and
Humanitarian, 1930-1935" (University of Connecticut, 1972).
Sister Mary Murray examines changes in social welfare policy,
government reorganization, and the disintegration of the Republican
machine.
See
also "Homer S. Cummings and the 1932 Presidential Campaign"
CHS Bulletin 48 (Winter, 1983) 1:1-9, by Thomas T. Spencer.
"Cummings, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee...served
as official advisor on the Roosevelt campaign staff, floor leader
for the Roosevelt forces at the Democratic National Convention...[and]
as Attorney General."
Published
recently is a revised and completely rewritten version of a biography
of John Bailey by Joseph Lieberman. The biography is listed in
the "Biographies" section below. The new work is The
Legacy: Connecticut Politics, 1930 to 1980 (Hartford: Spoonwood
Press, 1981). The work still focuses on Bailey, but Lieberman,
a practicing politician, covers all the elections, politics, and
significant governmental affairs during the half century included.
Lieberman's last chapters constitute primary source materials:
he was a participant in the events he discusses. The work will
fill an obvious gap in the state's political history.
See
also George J. Bassett, "Bank Closings in Connecticut,"
in Connecticut Bar Journal 16 (July, 1942) 3:208-22. There
were fifty mergers or liquidations in Connecticut between 1930
and 1933. The author was state bank commissioner.
An
interesting peek into the private lives of young Connecticut men
and women during the Depression is People Who Intermarry: Intermarriage
in a New England Industrial Community (Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press, 1946), by Milton L. Barren. The town is Derby.
The bulk of Barron’s book examines every marriage in town between
1930 and 1940. Barron found that the incidence of ethnic and racial
intermarriages varied directly with the differences between bride
and groom--lowest when involving different races, higher when
religions differed, and highest when only ethnic differences were
present.
There
are a number of works that examine aspects of Connecticut society
since the Depression, but none that look at participation by state
figures and organizations in World War II. Politics during that
era, however, are ably described and analyzed in John W. Jeffries’
Testing the Roosevelt Coalition: Connecticut Society and Politics
in the Era of World War II (Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1979), based on a 1973 Yale dissertation. This is an authoritative,
scholarly work. Between 1928 and 1936, stress and change--Al Smith,
ethnic concerns, the Depression, and the New Deal--tended to reinvigorate
Connecticut politics, Jeffries tells us. FDR's coalition of 1932
and 1936 felt its first real strains when Italians bolted the
party in significant numbers because of Roosevelt's pro-Allied
position, and were further alienated during the War. But despite
this major defection and Republican victories after the War, Jeffries
finds, voting patterns were fairly continuous, those of the 1940s
closely resembling those of 1936. "The Roosevelt coalition
had [by 1948] in the main become the Democratic coalition, and
the Democrats remained the true majority party of the state."
(from the dissertation abstract)
Works
focusing on politics and society since World War II are not numerous,
but interested readers can find useful items in the "Biographies”
section. Government publications have been omitted from this bibliography
as a general category; nevertheless, a few creep in here and there.
One of those is Gerald Sirkin's The Connecticut Economy: An
Economic Study, 1939-1956 (Hartford: Connecticut Development
Commission, 1957). The Commission has published many such works,
but Sirkin's is one of the most general. William Edward Leuchtenburg's
Flood Control Politics: The Connecticut River Valley Problem,
1927-1950 (Cambridge: Harvard University press, 1953), based
on a Columbia doctoral dissertation, analyzes a regional issue
that achieved national proportions. One would expect disagreement
over various technical questions and location of dams, Leuchtenburg
suggests, but what is surprising is the bitterness of the strife,
the important part flood control played in the political contests
of the period, and the elevation by 1950 of the resources fight
in New England to a national issue, finding a place in the president's
State of the Union message. (P. 1)
In
an attempt to resolve these conflicts, the Connecticut Valley
states have sought to rely on the doctrine of states' rights.
. . . Largely as a consequence of the acceptance of this doctrine,
the states have attempted to develop the Valley by ignoring the
principle that sound river valley development is based on treating
the river basin as a single unit. The result has been a chronicle
of failure [as of 1951]. (p. 257)
W.
Duane Lockhard's 1952 Yale dissertation, "The Role of Party
in the Connecticut General Assembly, 1931-1951," resulted
in an article, "Legislative Politics in Connecticut,"
American Political Science Review 48 (March, 1954) and,
expanded in New England State Politics (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1959).
Speel,
Robert W. Changing Patterns of Voting in the Northern United
States: Electoral Realignment, 1952-1996. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. See review in Journal
of American History 86 (December 1999) 3: v. 1405.
White,
John Kenneth. The Fractured Electorals: Political Parties and
Social Change in Southern New England, Hanover, University
Press of New England, 1983. Deals with politics in Rhode Island,
Massachusetts and Connecticut c. 1960 to 1982. White sees a virtual
one-party Democratic dominance. The major shifts have been: 1)
Immigrant-Catholic vs Protestant replaced by college-bred
professionals vs old industrial workers; 2) parties threatened
by free-lancing politicians and the electronic media as linking
the people with the government.
Contemporary
history can be studied through sociology, economics, and political
science, so that serious scholars will have to do an interdisciplinary
bibliographic search to get any real depth. Check also under "Industry,"
"Urban," "Immigration and Ethnic," and "Black"
topics in this bibliography. Central materials--indeed, of greater
importance than those listed above--will be found in the "Biographies"
section under William Benton, Raymond Baldwin, Simeon E. Baldwin,
Chester Bowles, Wilbur Cross, Richard Lee, and Wilbert Snow.
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