426 ChapTEr 1 8 | iSolateD no More | period Seven 1890 –1945income taxes; for the unemployed, a German-style network of state-run employ-
ment offices; and, for workers in trades of particularly uneven labor demand,
an untried experiment in pooling the risks of unemployment through state-
administered insurance. The Radical coalitions that governed France between
1899 and 1914, though their failures were greater, proposed no less: progressive
income taxation, public medical assistance to the elderly poor, a legally fixed
maximum working day, tax subsidies for trade union unemployment benefits,
public mediation of labor disputes, and—in a policy reversal that hinted at the
international volatility of the new social politics—German-modeled, compulsory,
old-age insurance. In timing and content, the prewar progressive movement
in American politics fit, as fragment to whole, into this broader North Atlantic
pattern.
— From Daniel t. rogers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age
(Cambridge, Ma: Belknap press of harvard University press, 1998), 56.Using the two excerpts, answer the following questions:- Briefly explain one major difference between Koven and Michel’s and Roger’s histori-
cal interpretations of the reform movement. - Briefly explain how one document from the time period not explicitly mentioned in
the excerpts could be used to support either excerpt. - Briefly explain how one document from Chapter 16, 17, or 18 could be used to sup-
port the excerpt you did not choose in question 2.
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