View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository Copyright 2012 Bryan William Nicholson APPRENTICES TO POWER: THE CULTIVATION OF AMERICAN YOUTH NATIONALISM, 1935-1970 BY BRYAN WILLIAM NICHOLSON DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Dissertation Committee: Professor James Barrett, Chair Professor Akira Iriye, Harvard University Professor Kristin Hoganson Associate Professor Mark Leff ii Abstract This dissertation investigates how privately-operated youth leadership programs promoted citizenship among millions of adolescents and furnished political apprenticeships for many past and current American leaders. It considers four major programs: the American Legion’s Boys’ State and Boys’ Nation; American Legion Auxiliary’s Girls State/Nation; YMCA Youth and Government; the Junior Statesmen of America; and the Society for Ethical Culture’s Encampment for Citizenship (EFC), as well as smaller, likeminded initiatives. From small pilot projects, the programs grew into quasi-official youth movements for the United States responsible for training millions of adolescents and young people in the arts of government. Welding youth politics to the State through a diffuse network of democracy camps, these programs aimed to resolve fears that the next generation of American citizens would be too disaffected or too ignorant to assume leadership of the country and tend the wheels of government. In their hands-on, youth-centered approach to instruction, the programs incorporated tenets of Progressive education and borrowed from models of international youth work. Although the curricula promoted varieties of “civic” nationalism, the general thrust was conservative, especially since programmers generally sought to cultivate a leadership class limited in many ways by gender, race, and physical condition. Over a thirty-five year period, organizers sought to promote various ideological and political agendas, from the maintenance of youth allegiance during the Great Depression and World War II, to the construction of a post-war domestic “consensus” and American hegemony abroad. Students avidly competed to obtain valuable “social capital” to invest in their budding careers. By 1970, the programs had lost favor with many young people and the public because of their inherent conservatism and the curriculum’s perceived lack of relevance to contemporary problems of war and inequality. iii Acknowledgements This project is rooted in personal and political concerns. I have long been fascinated by how people develop their ideological orientation. Seminar work at the University of Illinois allowed me to study transnational youth cultures and political identity. The right radicalization of American society and politics in the 2000’s convinced me that I should investigate how nationalism was transmitted from one generation of Americans to the next. Searching for educational models that promoted this ideology, I turned to my experience as a high school delegate at the American Legion’s Boys State program in California in the early 1990s. My time as an aspirant for elected office was undistinguished, although the episode left a significant impression on me. Determining what this educational experience meant for other delegates and for the political culture of the United States is a central task of this dissertation. From the start, my advisor and mentor, Professor James Barrett gave expert guidance and encouragement, without which this project would never have been completed. Similar credit belongs to Professors Mark Leff and Kristin Hoganson, whose questions and suggestions greatly improved my analysis and prose. Professor Akira Iriye, the dissertation’s fourth reader, inspired me to explore the transnational implications of youth work and 20th century American nationalism and assisted me in publishing my ideas. This dissertation has also benefitted from support given by an exceptional community of scholars from the University of Illinois. I am grateful to Professors David Roediger, Maria Todorova, Bruce Levine, and Leslie Reagan for their instruction and advice. I am also indebted to colleagues and friends among the History Department’s graduate students. Will Cooley, Mike Rosenow, Tom Mackaman, Jullily Kohler-Hausmann, Melissa Rohde, Kwame Holmes, and Brian Hoffman read my work and made incisive criticism. I am particularly grateful to Brian iv Ingrassia and Janine Giordano-Drake, who agreed to be interviewed on their experiences as delegates to Boys’ State and Girls’ State. The members of the Department’s Working Class Reading Group gave me a friendly forum to present chapter drafts. Financial support from the History Department, including two fellowships and smaller grants allowed me to conduct research and present my findings at conferences. Every historian knows that nothing of value gets done at Illinois without the aid of librarians, but special thanks belongs to Mary Stuart of the History and Newspaper Library; John Hoffmann of the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections; and the helpful and efficient staff of the Inter-Library Loan office. Outside of the University, I am grateful for the assistance of individuals connected to the youth citizenship programs studied here, as well as to various others. Ron Engel of the American Legion and Joseph Hovish of the Legion’s Library in Indianapolis made available the records of Boys’ State and Nation. Mr. Engel put me in contact with Helen Kennedy Ryan, daughter of Boys’ State co-founder Hayes Kennedy and custodian of his memory. Officials from the National Legion Auxiliary and from the Auxiliary of Illinois provided similar service in researching Girls’ State. For the history of the YMCA’s Youth and Government program, I am grateful for support given by the Kautz Family YMCA Archives at the University of Minnesota, which took the form of a Clark Chambers travel grant and assistance from archivists Dagmar Getz and Ryan Bean. The Illinois Historical Society awarded me a King V. Hostick grant to conduct research at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. Thanks also go to Tara Craig of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University; Martha Imparato at the Special Collection section of the Mabee Library at Washburn University; the staff of the Daley Library at the University of Illinois, Chicago; and the Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections. Likewise, I thank De Gruyter press for permission a reprint my article, “In America, v the Young Men and Women Would be Told HOW, not WHAT, to Think”: Transnational Exchanges that Shaped U.S. Youth Politics, 1932-43,” which appeared in the March 2011 edition of the online journal New Global Studies. The dozens of program alumni and counselors I spoke with during the course of this study give a human face to youth citizenship education. The information and anecdotes that they shared with me, whether cited in interviews or provided through background conversations, enriched this study immensely. To this day, I am still amazed that these men and women were willing to talk candidly with a grad student about events that occurred years or even decades in the past. Some of my contacts agreed to be interviewed multiple times and patiently fielded my questions, even the long-winded queries that made little sense. Moreover, they graciously supplied references to their friends and colleagues from the programs. I have strived to present their life stories fairly and accurately. To my wife Suzana and daughter Mia, I pledge my abiding love and commitment. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………… ....………..vii INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER ONE: CONSERVATIVE NATIONALISTS ENLIST YOUTH LEADERS TO REJUVENATE THE OLD PATRIOTIC REGIME, 1934-39…………………………………..19 CHAPTER TWO: “IN AMERICA, THE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN WOULD BE TOLD HOW, NOT WHAT, TO THINK”: TRANSNATIONAL INFLUENCES ON UNITED STATES YOUTH MOVEMENTS, 1932-43………………………………………………………………62 CHAPTER THREE: TESTS AND TESTIMONIALS: MOBILIZING YOUNG CITIZENS FOR DEFENSE AND AGAINST PEACE, 1938-42………………………………………………….95 CHAPTER FOUR: BONDING AND BRIDGING SOCIAL CAPITAL IN YOUTH CITIZENSHIP PROGRAMS, 1945-65………………………………………………………...143 CHAPTER FIVE: “USE SALESMANSHIP AND YOU CAN SELL AMERICA”: YOUTH LEADERS AND THE FORMATION OF CONSENSUS POLITICS AT HOME AND ABROAD, 1942-65…………………………………………………………………………….184 EPILOGUE: “THE AMBIGUOUS PATRIOTS”……………………………………………...219 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………243 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AL American Legion ALA American Legion Auxiliary AL-BS American Legion Boys’ State ALA-GS American Legion Auxiliary Girls’ State ASU American Student Union AYC American Youth Congress CMTC Civilian Military Training Corps CP-USA Communist Party, United States DAR Daughters of the American Revolution EFC Encampment for Citizenship GAR Grand Army of the Republic Hi-Y YMCA High School Youth Clubs HFS Highlander Folk School HJ Hitlerjugend IWW Industrial Workers of the World JSA Junior Statesmen of America JSF Junior Statesmen Foundation MUN Model United Nations NBS American Legion Negro Boys’ State NSL National Student League NYA National Youth Administration NY-SEC New York Society for Ethical Culture viii PCZ Panama Canal Zone ROTC Reserve Officers