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Dissertation Information for Donald Christopher Gantner

NAME:
- Donald Christopher Gantner

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (2001)

ADVISORS:
- Joyce Oldham Appleby

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Jessica Wang
- Steven Clayman

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Regional imagination and radical conscience: Carey McWilliams in the West

Abstract: During more than two decades in Southern California, radical attorney and journalist Carey McWilliams demonstrated a critical link between social inquiry and political activism. As a social critic and historian, McWilliams' enduring topic was the west. He helped redefine the region's history through studies including Factories in the Field (1939), Brothers Under the Skin (1943), Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (1946), and North From Mexico, The Spanish Speaking People of the United States (1949). As an attorney, McWilliams was often at the center of regional politics. Involved in issues ranging from the rights of migrant workers to questions of racial equality, McWilliams fused critical investigation with social struggle. After the Second World War, McWilliams became editor of The Nation and guided that journal's activist perspective through two decades of the Cold War.

This dissertation is an intellectual biography that examines the work of McWilliams in the west between 1923 and 1946 and places him within the larger intellectual world of the United States. It argues that McWilliams' twin careers of journalism and law created an intellectual praxis as they energized one another. Critical inquiry both fueled and was deepened by political activism. The historical journalism that flowed from McWilliams' project explored the role of history's marginal actors and helped uncover stories obscured by dominant historical narratives. This study argues that McWilliams' work helped provide the component parts of a new reading of the history of the west and pointed toward an ongoing project of western historical revision.

MPACT Scores for Donald Christopher Gantner

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-09-10 22:35:46

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Students under Donald Christopher Gantner

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None