The radical fund : how a band of visionaries and a million dollars upended America / John Fabian Witt.
| Author/creator | Witt, John Fabian author. |
| Format | Book |
| Edition | First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. |
| Publication | New York : Simon & Schuster, 2025. |
| Copyright Date | ©2025 |
| Description | xix, 712 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm |
| Subjects |
| Physical medium | illustrations. |
| Physical medium | plates. |
| Contents | Cast of characters: the world of the Garland fund -- Prologue: a curious inheritance -- Part I: Mass democracy in America. Democratic faith ; The Education of Roger Baldwin ; The People Can Rule ; Outrage of the Century -- Weapons of truth ; You Will Be Suppressed ; Not by Bread Alone ; War Fever -- The less we know ; A Preparatory School of Crime ; Blanket of Silence ; The Best Test of Truth? -- Freedom and economics ; A Civil Liberties Union ; The New Benevolence -- Garland's million ; Cause of All Unhappiness ; A Trust Fund for Pioneering Enterprises ; The Left Compass -- Free love farm -- Part II: Against Jim Crow. The usual crime ; The Fury of the Mob ; Greatest American Game ; Explode the Rape Myth -- Educate the masses ; Cash Value ; Out of Our Field ; Fasten Slavery Permanently -- First victories ; Thunder Bolt from a Clear Sky ; The Most Celebrated of Cases ; Nothing Except Power -- Capturing the captors ; Fascinating Perils ; Culture for the New Masses ; The Vanguard -- Money haters and tax lawyers -- Part III: American revolutionaries. Nothing in common ; A Rebel Girl Smashes the Chains ; Sabotage ; The IWW Does Not Believe in Violence -- Industrial democracy ; Sacco and Vanzetti ; I Shall Not Leave This Platform ; Brookwood -- The messenger ; The Most Dangerous Negro in America ; Upon the Shoulders of Black Abolitionists ; A Quitter Never Wins -- Millennia don't just happen ; The Black Belt ; A Revolution in Economic Life ; Kindergarten Propositions -- Radical enterprises -- Part IV: Outsiders on the inside. A way of action ; The Public and Its Government ; Powers of the Hualapai ; Evil Eye and Unequal Hand -- Scottsboro and after ; Tactics for Mass Pressure ; The Cost of Skin Pigmentation ; Outstanding Accomplishment -- Use this weapon ; Brookwood Unbound ; Affirmative Legal Action ; Sit-Down Strike -- Switch in time ; Vanguard of the Black Workers ; Power Plays -- A rather astonishing fund -- Epilogue: legacies -- Appendix A: Gifts, 1922-1941 -- Appendix B: Garland fund outlays, 1922-1041 -- Appendix C: Board of directors, 1922-1941 -- Appendix D: Note on language. |
| Abstract | In 1922, a young idealist named Charles Garland rejected a million-dollar inheritance. In a world of shocking wealth disparities, shameless racism, and political repression, Garland opted instead to invest in a future where radical ideas -- like working-class power, free speech, and equality -- might flourish. Over the next two decades, the Garland Fund would nurture a new generation of wildly ambitious progressive projects. The men and women around the Fund were rich and poor, white and Black. They cooperated and bickered; they formed rivalries, fell in and out of love, and made mistakes. Yet shared beliefs linked them throughout. They believed that American capitalism was broken. They believed that American democracy (if it had ever existed) stole from those who had the least. And they believed that American institutions needed to be radically remade for the modern age. By the time they spent the last of the Fund's resources, their outsider ideas had become mass movements battling to transform a nation. A luminous testament to the power of visionary organizations and a meditation on the vexed role of money in American life, The Radical Fund is a hopeful book for our anxious, angry age -- an empowering road map for how people with heretical ideas can bring about audacious change. -- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 583-679) and index. |
| Genre/form | Informational works. |
| Genre/form | Biographies. |
| Genre/form | Documents d'information. |
| Genre/form | Biographies. |
| LCCN | 2025414632 |
| ISBN | 9781476765877 (hardcover) |
| ISBN | 1476765871 (hardcover) |
| ISBN | (ebook) |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyner | General Stacks | HN90 .R3 W58 2025 | ✔ Available | Place Hold |