Fighting a New Deal: Intellectual origins of the Reagan Revolution, 1932--1952

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dc.contributor.advisorHaskell, Thomas L.en_US
dc.contributor.advisorMcCann, Samuel G.en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberMatusow, Allen J.en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberTwyman, William Gainesen_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberSher, Georgeen_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberAutrey, Herbert S.en_US
dc.creatorEow, Gregory Teddyen_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-10-25T18:29:19Zen_US
dc.date.available2013-10-25T18:29:19Zen_US
dc.date.issued2007en_US
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation locates the origins of the modern conservative movement in the intellectual history of the 1930s and 1940s. I argue that it was during the years of the Great Depression, when laissez-faire capitalism was most discredited, that a group of conservative academics and intellectuals began to lay the foundations for its postwar resurgence. Angered by the New Deal, those intellectual activists honed their free market ideology and began to develop a network through which to distribute it. As a result, they began to lay the intellectual and institutional foundation for the conservative movement. This dissertation recovers a number of narratives that reveal the rudimentary makings of a movement. It was during the 1930s and 1940s that economist Henry Simons worked to turn the University of Chicago's economics department into a bastion of free market sentiment; Leonard Read, after a decade of free market advocacy, created the first libertarian think tank, the Foundation for Economic Education, in 1946; legal scholar Roscoe Pound, worried by the spread of legal realism in the academy and growth of government in Washington, dramatically moved to the political right to make common cause with conservatives; Albert Jay Nock, his protégé Frank Chodorov and Felix Morley created a network of conservative writers and publications that paved the way for William F. Buckley's National Review ; and writers such as Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson made the case for laissez-faire in the pages of popular publications such as the Saturday Evening Post and the New York Herald Tribune . Historians have generally attributed the rise of the modern right to the conservative political mobilization in response to the civil rights movement, campus agitation of the 1960s, and the campaign for women's rights. As a result, historians tend to view the modern conservative movement as a distinctly postwar social and political phenomenon. This dissertation enriches that account by revealing the ties the modern conservative movement has to the years of the Great Depression and the debate over the government's role in the economy.en_US
dc.format.extent295 ppen_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.callnoTHESIS HIST. 2007 EOWen_US
dc.identifier.citationEow, Gregory Teddy. "Fighting a New Deal: Intellectual origins of the Reagan Revolution, 1932--1952." (2007) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/75005">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/75005</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.digital304804768en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/75005en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectAmerican historyen_US
dc.subjectEconomic historyen_US
dc.subjectPolitical scienceen_US
dc.subjectSocial sciencesen_US
dc.subjectIntellectual originsen_US
dc.subjectReagan Revolutionen_US
dc.subjectConservatismen_US
dc.subjectLibertarianismen_US
dc.subjectLegal realismen_US
dc.titleFighting a New Deal: Intellectual origins of the Reagan Revolution, 1932--1952en_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentHistoryen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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