Rochester Reformers: Changing the World

Catalog description

This course will survey Rochester area social reformers who led a number of critical reform movements, identifying problems with the status quo and proposing solutions to those problems. They worked to establish a new social order and even to perfect society. As an Erie Canal boom town and major manufacturing hub, Rochester inspired generations of famous reformers who made principled arguments for improving urban life and labor relations, ending slavery and securing civil rights for African Americans, and claiming equality for American women. Students will study the historical impact of celebrated social reformers such as Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony as well as less well known figures like religious revivalist Charles Finney, urban park reformer Charles Mulford Robinson, and advocate of the social gospel Walter Rauschenbusch. The course will also introduce contemporary efforts that have attempted to reshape principles of social justice locally and nationally. In the 20th century the social reform movement efforts turned to the ethical and social problems of a modernizing America, debating solutions to the pressing problems of urbanization, immigration, and environmental protection. Students will also work on a community-based research project focusing on the history and impact of particular Rochester reformers.