Historian Presents Free Talk on New Book Exploring American Progressivism and the Coming of the New Deal
(WOONSOCKET, R.I.) ??? On Sunday, April 15, at 1:30pm, the Museum of Work & Culture will welcome historian Robert Chiles for a free talk on his new book The Revolution of ???28: Al Smith, American Progressivism, and the Coming of the New Deal.
The Revolution of ???28 explores the career of New York governor and 1928 Democratic presidential nominee Alfred E. Smith. Chiles peers into Smith???s work and uncovers a distinctive strain of American progressivism that resonated among urban, ethnic, working-class Americans in the early 20th century.
The book charts the rise of that idiomatic progressivism during Smith???s early years as a state legislator through his time as governor of the Empire State in the 1920s, before proceeding to a revisionist narrative of the 1928 presidential campaign, exploring the ways in which Smith???s gubernatorial progressivism was presented to a national audience.
Chiles offers a historical argument that describes the impact of this coalition on the new liberal formation that was to come with Franklin Delano Roosevelt???s New Deal, demonstrating the broad practical consequences of Smith???s political career.
Seating is limited to 75 and is first come, first served.
Chiles earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Maryland. He has published articles in leading journals including Environmental History, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and New York History, and has taught at Loyola University Maryland and Goucher College. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Maryland.
About the Museum of Work & Culture
The interactive and educational Museum of Work & Culture shares the stories of the men, women, and children who came to find a better life in Rhode Island???s mill towns in the late 19th- and 20th centuries. It recently received a Rhode Island Monthly Best of Rhode Island Award for its SensAbilities Saturdays all-ability program.
About the Rhode Island Historical Society
Founded in 1822, the RIHS, a Smithsonian Affiliate, is the fourth-oldest historical society in the United States and is Rhode Island???s largest and oldest historical organization. In Providence, the RIHS owns and operates the John Brown House Museum, a designated National Historic Landmark, built in 1788; the Aldrich House, built in 1822 and used for administration and public programs; and the Mary Elizabeth Robinson Research Center, where archival, book and image collections are housed. In Woonsocket, the RIHS manages the Museum of Work and Culture, a community museum examining the industrial history of northern Rhode Island and of the workers and settlers, especially French-Canadians, who made it one of the state???s most distinctive areas.