The Americanization of West Virginia: Creating a Modern Industrial State, 1916-1925

Local teachers and ministers extolling the virtues of hard work and loyalty to God and country. Veterans\u27 groups and women\u27s clubs promoting the military fighting radicalism, and equating business and patriotism. Industrial leaders gaining legal as well as moral influence over national domestic policy. Such scenes might seem to be lifted from a Sinclair Lewis novel or a Contract with America publicity video. But as John C. Hennen shows in this piercing analysis of early-twentieth-century American political culture, from 1916 to 1925 Americanization became the theme—indeed, the script—not only of West Virginia but of the entire nation. Hennen\u27s interdisciplinary work examines a formative period in West Virginia\u27s modern history that has been largely neglected beyond the traditional focus on the coal industry. Hennen looks at education, reform, and industrial relations in the state in the context of war mobilization, postwar instability, and national economic expansion. The First World War, he says, consolidated the dominant positions of professionals, business people, and political capitalists as arbiters of national values. These leaders emerged from the war determined to make free-market business principles synonymous with patriotic citizenship. Americanization, therefore, refers less to the assimilation of immigrants into the national mainstream than to the attempt to encode values that would guarantee a literate, loyal, and obedient producing class. To ensure that the state fulfilled its designated role as a resource zone for the perceived greater good of national strength, corporate leaders employed public relations tactics that the Wilson administration had refined to gain public support for the war. Alarmed by widespread labor activism and threatened by fears of communism, the American Constitutional Association in West Virginia, one of dozens of similar organizations nationwide, articulated principles that identified the well-being of business with the well-being of the country. With easy access to teacher training and classroom programs, antiunion forces had by 1923 rolled back the wartime gains of the United Mine Workers of America. Middle-class voluntary organizations like the American Legion and the West Virginia Federation of Women\u27s Clubs helped implant mandated loyalty in schoolchildren. Far from being isolated during America\u27s transformation into a world power, West Virginia was squarely in the mainstream. The state\u27s people and natural resources were manipulated into serving crucial functions as producers and fuel for the postwar economy. Hennen\u27s study, therefore, is a study less of the power or force of ideas than of the importance of access to the means to transmit ideas. The winner of the1995 Appalachian Studies Award is a significant contribution to regional studies as well as to our understanding of American culture during and after World War I. John C. Hennen earned his doctorate at West Virginia University and is currently a visiting instructor of history at the University of Kentucky.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/1118/thumbnail.jp

Why do intelligent and experienced boards make poor decisons? The Irish Banking Crisis Case Study.

ABSTRACT My thesis focuses on three related research themes. First, to provide academic rigour to the assertions of the Nyberg Report (2011) that the Irish banks were characterised by both groupthink and herding in the lead up to the recent financial crisis. The Nyberg Report was commissioned by the Irish government to provide explanations for the causes of the Irish financial crisis. In particular my thesis explores whether the board of Anglo Irish Bank (Anglo) was characterised by groupthink tendencies and whether the other Irish banks looked to emulate Anglo’s strategy. Second, my thesis will develop a theoretical model which identifies characteristics associated with the increased vulnerability of a board to a poor decision process . In particular the model will focus on the interplay between normative and informative influences on decision process and how these can and do interact with director skill levels. Five research questions are developed and my theoretical model of VPDP is applied to the Irish bank case study. Information will be gathered through a process of semi-structured interviews and an analysis of existing literature, official reports and annual financial statements. Third, a series of recommendations are made which are derived from the model itself and are intended to reduce the likelihood of boards pursuing a poor decision strategy and in increasing the likelihood of a robust boardroom challenge

Dover's 'bunker mentality' : Dover, its people and its tunnels in two world wars

This thesis is a re-evaluation of the effects of two world wars on the town of Dover. The aim of the thesis is to show how the townspeople reacted to the new phenomena of bombardment from the air. Aerial bombing has become an accepted part of modem warfare but it was virtually unthought-of in 1914. In 1939 aerial bombing had become a part of warfare whilst shelling from sites in France added another unexpected twist to the town’s fortunes. The thesis will show that a common goal existed, in both world wars, namely the winning of the war, but that disagreement on how to reach that goal also existed. It will also show the interactions between national and local agencies which controlled ordinary people’s lives during warfare and that national priorities are not necessarily the same as those of a local community. To analyse the civilian reaction it has been necessary to review also the way that the military reacted to the same threats. This military presence has remained a part of the town’s fabric for centuries and without an evaluation of this aspect the civilian reactions cannot be placed in their full context. The Dover area is riddled with tunnels. This has come about because of both military and civilian needs. The civilian tunnels have served as storage space and dwellings over the centuries. During the twentieth century they became more important to the town than at any point in the past. To the people of Dover the Tunnels’ were a fact of life but few would have envisaged their full significance before the first bomb fell on the town in 1914. Life in the ‘frontline’ of two world wars was a difficult experience for the people of Dover. Daily life was interrupted by bombing and shelling attacks. In such a situation it was inevitable that the people developed a ‘bunker mentality’. The most visible facet of this mentality was the town’s desire for more air raid shelters. It was also apparent in the reaction of the town to the restrictions of British officialdom and to what was perceived as negative press and radio reports

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ROMANIA

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main opportunities and limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The survey was defined with the aim to involve the highest possible number of relevant CSR topics and give the issue a more wholesome perspective. It provides a basis for further comprehension and deeper analyses of specific CSR areas. The conditions determining the success of CSR in Romania have been defined in the paper on the basis of the previously cumulative knowledge as well as the results of various researches. This paper provides knowledge which may be useful in the programs promoting CSR.Corporate social responsibility, Supportive policies, Romania

An ethnographic investigation of the relevance of shop floor culture to effective safety communication in an Australian minerals refinery

Many organisations which aim to achieve excellent workplace safety choose \u27culture change\u27 as the means to achieve this. They make use of employee communication media to help re-form the values, beliefs, norms and behaviours which are generally thought to comprise culture. However, culture is a complex and profound phenomenon. Successful communication between two culturally separate groups requires each to achieve an understanding of the other, no less so in workplaces than in societies composed of different cultures.Yet even employers who believe in communicating fully with their workforces find it difficult to convey viewpoints other than their own. Their communication tends therefore to be one-directional, asymmetrical and controlling, typified by the ubiquitous staff newsletter containing articles about people\u27s contribution to corporate goals. The messages contained in such media have little or none of their desired effect because they tend to be re-interpreted via the cultural forces of the workers to whom the messages are directed.This study investigated a large industrial minerals refinery to analyse the working lives of shop floor employees and the effectiveness of various communication channels. It focused on one group to whom safety messages were communicated, the shop floor `crews\u27, and examined how the organisation\u27s hierarchy, rules, and informal organisation mediated this communication

Viet Nam Generation, Volume 6, Number 3-4

Edited by Dan Duffy and Kali Tal. Contributing editors: Renny Christopher. David DeRose, Alan Farrell. Cynthia Fuchs, William M. King. Bill Shields, Tony Williams, and David Willson

Cleveland: Confused City on a Seesaw

No detached, scholarly, objective examination of the past, this is an eyewitness account of Cleveland during Phil Porter\u27s fifty-year career as a working newspaperman in the city, told in his own blunt, subjective, often controversial style. Phil Porter retired in 1966 as executive editor of The Plain Dealer. Original publication date 1976.https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clevmembks/1051/thumbnail.jp

The theatre of violence: narratives of protagonists in the South African conflict

This profound and deeply compassionate study aims to reach into the complexities of political violence in South Africa between 1960 and 1994, and to expand our understanding of the patterns of conflict that almost drew South Africans into a vortex of total disintegration during the apartheid era. This book is used in the teaching of critical and social psychology at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. While many accounts have focused on the victims of state repression, this unique volume documents the often contradictory and confusing stories of those who acknowledge having committed some dreadful deeds. Individuals on various sides of the apartheid divide, from state security structures to the ANC, PAC and grassroots, activists, tell their own stories. The central focus is to give an account of the actions of the perpetrators, here depicted as competing protagonists in an arena of violence. It examines the violence forensically, through its public and popular representations, academically and, finally, through the narrative approach, drawing on a rich analysis of stories from different sides. The authors also offer the first critical examination of the TRC's amnesty process, show how media representations of perpetrators inform public perceptions, and scrutinise international scholarly writings on the issue of political violence. Suggestive and intriguing, The Theatre of Violence opens a fresh examination of the erstwhile taken-for-granted understandings and attempts to address a range of questions that are often not considered, and perhaps cannot be considered, in a dispassionate way. It is in many ways an optimistic study, holding out the possibility of a society that can understand and take steps to minimise the perpetration of gross violations of human rights