Documenting United States History

372 Chapter 16 | prosperity and reform | period seven 1890 –1945

argues chronic ferment of mind, and ferment of mind is a serious handicap to both

happiness and efficiency. Nor is self-discussion the only exhibit of restlessness the

American woman gives. To an unaccustomed observer she seems always to be run-

ning about on the face of things with no other purpose than to put in her time. He

points to the triviality of the things in which she can immerse herself—her fan-

tastic and ever-changing raiment, the welter of lectures and other culture schemes

which she supports, the eagerness with which she transports herself to the ends of

the earth—as marks of a spirit not at home with itself, and certainly not convinced

that it is going in any particular direction or that it is committed to any particular

worth-while task.

Perhaps the most disturbing side of the phenomenon is that it is coincident

with the emancipation of woman. At a time when she is freer than at any other

period of the world’s history—save perhaps at one period in ancient Egypt—she is

apparently more uneasy.

Ida M. Tarbell, “The Uneasy Woman,” American Magazine 73, no. 4 (January 1912): 259.

p raCtICING historical thinking

Identify: Is Tarbell for or against the emancipation of women? Explain.

Analyze: Why does Tarbell call the women of her day “uneasy”?

Evaluate: To what extent is Tarbell’s statement about women’s “fantastic and

ever-changing raiment” an indictment of the job-seeking women shown in Docu-

ment 16.4? Explain.

Document 16.8 CLifford k. BerryMan, “dr. new deal”

1934

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) was elected in a landslide victory in

1932 in the midst of the Great Depression, the greatest economic crisis the United States

had ever faced. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” was largely an attempt to use governmental

power to improve the economic crisis through programs such as the Civilian Conserva-

tion Corps (CCC) and the National Recovery Act (NRA).

tOpIC II | the progressive Critique and new deal response 373

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