The radical middle class : populist democracy and the question of capitalism in progressive era Portland, Oregon / Robert D. Johnston.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Rehabilitating the American middle class -- Rethinking the middle class: politics, history, and theory -- Curt Muller and the capitalist middle class: social misconstruction of reality -- Harry Lane and the radicalism of middle-class reform -- The populist political economy of progressive era Portland -- The contours of class in Portland -- Capitalism, anticapitalism, and the solidarity of middle class and working class -- Petit bourgeois politics in Portland and world history -- Will Daly: the petit bourgeois hero of labor -- "The most complete democracy in the world": the populist radicalism of direct democracy -- Direct democracy as antidemocracy? The evolution of the Oregon system, 1884-1908 -- Direct democracy's mechanic: William S. U'Ren -- From the grand reorganization to a syndicalism of housewives: feminist populism and the other spirit of '76 -- The political economy of populist democracy: the single tax movement in Portland, 1908-1916 -- A populism of the body: the rationality and radicalism of antivaccinationism -- A deluded mob of ignorant fools? The historiography of antivaccination, and the risks of vaccination -- Shutting down the schools: parents and protest in Mt. Scott -- From the death of a child to sedition against the state: the life and ideology of Lora C. Little -- Direct democracy and antivaccination -- The success and radicalism of antivaccination -- The uses of populism after progressivism: the 1922 school bill and the triumph of the Ku Klux Klan -- School boards and strikes: petite bourgeoisie against elite -- Liberal populism: the compulsory public school bill -- Corporate tools: the middling world of the Portland Klan -- The Producer's Call and the Portland Housewives' Council: the tenuous survival of petit bourgeois radicalism -- Conclusion: populism, capitalism and the politics of the twentieth-century American middle class -- The lower middle class in the American century -- The fate of populism: moral economy and the resurgence of middle-class politics.

"America has a long tradition of middle-class radicalism, albeit one that intellectual orthodoxy has tended to obscure. The Radical Middle Class seeks to uncover the democratic, populist, and even anticapitalist legacy of the middle class. By examining in particular the independent small business sector or petite bourgeoisie, using Progressive Era Portland, Oregon, as a case study, Robert Johnston shows that class still matters in America. But it matters only if the politics and culture of the leading player in affairs of class, the middle class, is dramatically reconceived."--Jacket

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