Your topic is very interesting to me, but I'm interested in the
way
religion and politics in the Upper Midwest combine to create the
kind of
progressivism that develops in Chicago, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
etc. Of
course, Chicago is a hot bed of progressivism, and there, in
particular,
the social activism of Methodist women welded their gospel
principles to
their socialism. I don't know if religion is also a factor for
Scandinavians in the Upper Midwest. The women's movements are to
an extent
grass roots movements rather than political elites, so beyond
your sphere
of study. Yet, they were a force to be reckoned with. One would
have to
investigate them to understand broad causes of progressivism. How
much
intermixing of Chicago Methodist progressives and Scandinavians
Lutherans there was I don't know.
I am interested in the same region and time period from the
standpoint of
the development of family policy. Scandinavia was first
developing its
family policies during this time, even if they weren't fully
institutionalized until the 1930s. Wisconsin and Minnesota have
also been
leaders among the U.S. states as innovators in family policy,
government
welfare, etc. I am interested in the political and religious
links which
may have developed an ethos more interested in family support as
part of
the welfare state than one finds in other regions of the U.S.
One
speculation is that Lutheran theology, which suggests that God
reigns
over both the civic and religious realms, may have helped to
create this
ethos; the cultural assumptions underlying political
progressivism could
have melded with this. If you have any ideas on this subject, I'm
definitely interested.
Pam Couture theopc@emory.edu