Racism in the Nation's Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson's AmericaBetween the 1880s and 1910s, thousands of African Americans passed civil service exams and became employed in the executive offices of the federal government. However, by 1920, promotions to well-paying federal jobs had nearly vanished for black workers. Eric S. Yellin argues that the Wilson administration's successful 1913 drive to segregate the federal government was a pivotal episode in the age of progressive politics. Yellin investigates how the enactment of this policy, based on Progressives' demands for whiteness in government, imposed a color line on American opportunity and implicated Washington in the economic limitation of African Americans for decades to come. Using vivid accounts of the struggles and protests of African American government employees, Yellin reveals the racism at the heart of the era's reform politics. He illuminates the nineteenth-century world of black professional labor and social mobility in Washington, D.C., and uncovers the Wilson administration's progressive justifications for unraveling that world. From the hopeful days following emancipation to the white-supremacist "normalcy" of the 1920s, Yellin traces the competing political ideas, politicians, and ordinary government workers who created "federal segregation." |
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Racism in the Nation's Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in ... Eric S. Yellin No preview available - 2015 |
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administration African Americans appointed April Archibald Grimké August black Americans black and white black civil servants black clerks black Democrats black employees black federal black government black politicians black politics black Republicans black Washingtonians black workers Booker Bureau capital Census Charles city’s civil rights civil service colored Congress Coolidge Department discrimination District of Columbia earned federal employees federal government file find first folder friction Hamlin ibid John Skelton July June KBFP Labor March McAdoo ment NAACP Negro November Office oflfice oflice ofthe Oswald Garrison Villard Papers patronage PF NPRC president progressive protest Race racial racism Ralph Rattley Reconstruction reel reform Republican Party Ruby Moyse Secretary Senate September social South Swan Kendrick Taft’s Theodore Roosevelt Thomas H. R. Clarke tion Treasury Trotter Tuskegee twentieth century W. E. B. Du Bois Washington WGMP white southerners white supremacy William G William Howard Taft Wilsonian Woodrow Wilson
Bibliographic information
| Title | Racism in the Nation's Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson's America |
| Author | Eric Steven Yellin |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | UNC Press Books, 2013 |
| ISBN | 1469607204, 9781469607207 |
| Length | 301 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |