Oregon's Others
Gender, Civil Liberties, and the Surveillance State in the Early Twentieth Century
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Washington Press
Published:25th Jun '24
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£97.16was £107.95(9780295752570)
Finalist for the Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction, Oregon Book Awards, sponsored by Literary Arts
Nativism, pseudoscience, and the campaign against the enemy withinIn the era of the First World War and its aftermath, the quest to identify, restrict, and punish internal enemy “others,” combined with eugenic thinking, severely curtailed civil liberties for many people in Oregon and the nation. In Oregon’s Others, Kimberly Jensen analyzes the processes that shaped the growing surveillance state of the era and the compelling personal stories that tell its history. The exclusionary and invasive practices ranged from multiple wartime registrations for women and the registration of “enemy aliens” to the incarceration of women with sexually transmitted diseases, the use of deportations, and forced sterilization at the Oregon State Hospital and other institutions. But some Oregonians resisted the restrictions and challenges to their civil liberties. Their fierce determination to maintain their rights and freedoms fueled movements for human rights, social justice, and dissent that still reverberate today.Comprehensive and compelling, Oregon’s Others examines the collision of civil liberties and persecution through the lens of gender, gender identity and presentation, ability, race, ethnicity, and class.
"Much of what Jensen uncovers in Oregon's Others is disturbingly relevant at a time in which politicians routinely vilify immigrants and bodily autonomy is under attack. Jensen’s primary research is wide-ranging and impressive, and she draws on numerous contemporary scholars to reframe archival materials in provocative ways. While this book will be of particular interest to scholars of Oregon history, it also exposes the darker side of the Progressive Era in general."
* Western Historical Quarterly *"A great strength of this work is the portrayal of women resisting, disrupting, and acting against legal attempts to control their lives, while also revealing how some women--namely white women of greater socioeconomic means--participated in these systems of surveillance and oppresion. . . . This book reveals the intensity of surveillance systems in the early 20th century and how impactful even briefly existing policies were on marginalized populations both during and after the war."
* Pacific Northwest Quarterly *"Readers of Oregon's Others will find a rich history of the state that examines stories of oppression and exclusion together with narratives of dissent and resistance, expanding our understanding of the struggle for civil rights and liberties."
* Pacific Historical Review *"[M]eticulously crafted . . . Jensen has produced a highly relevant book for today. She successfully shows how this earlier era was vital in the formation of laws that severely curtailed civil liberties and demonstrates Oregon's role as a national leader in sanitation movements, wartime bond sales, and eugenic laws passed in other states. This book illustrates the dangers of letting such laws go uncontested and the importance of examining our history to understand what potential impacts laws like these can have for generations to come."
* Women and Social Movements in the United StatISBN: 9780295752587
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 476g
348 pages