Comparative Questions

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

Document Links

Document 23-1: Edward Earle Purinton Celebrates American Business as the Salvation of the World

Document 23-2: Reinhold Niebuhr on Christianity in Detroit

Document 23-3: The Ku Klux Klan Defends Americanism

Document 23-4: Mothers Seek Freedom from Unwanted Pregnancies

Document 23-5: Marcus Garvey Explains the Goals of the Universal Negro Improvement Association

  1. How did Reinhold Niebuhr's view of industrial society and spiritual progress compare with that of Edward Earle Purinton? How might the mothers who wrote to Margaret Sanger have reacted to these views?
  2. How does Purinton's definition of what is American compare with Hiram Evans's characterization of America?
  3. How did Evans's advocacy of the Ku Klux Klan compare with Marcus Garvey's promotion of the UNIA?
  4. What arguments might Purinton have made to respond to the views of Niebuhr, Evans, Garvey, and the mothers in bondage?
  5. According to the documents in this chapter, what were the major divisions in American society, and what should be done, if anything, to repair them? Did the authors of these documents feel that they had the power, or the freedom, to change and improve their situations within the contemporary social and political structure?