IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/povpop/v2y2010i2p145-188.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dwight Macdonald and Poverty Discourse, 1960‐1965: The Art and Power of a Seminal Book Review

Author

Listed:
  • Linda M Keefe

Abstract

This paper examines the role Dwight Macdonald and his review essay “Our Invisible Poor” (New Yorker, January 1963) played in bringing American poverty into U.S. public discourse in the early 1960s. Macdonald's article furthered the discussion about poverty that Michael Harrington's book, The Other America, had begun the previous year. It thereby spurred legislative action to remedy the social ills of American poverty through the Kennedy/Johnson administrations' War on Poverty by 1965. Set within a complex matrix of social, cultural, political, and historical forces, Macdonald's article was widely read, expansively disseminated, and had an important impact on legislation. This essay is built upon the scholarship of David Paul Nord and his ideas about communities of journalism. The impact of Macdonald's essay is examined through a review of secondary sources and primary research in Macdonald's papers, the New Yorker archives, and discourse analysis of New York Times coverage.

Suggested Citation

  • Linda M Keefe, 2010. "Dwight Macdonald and Poverty Discourse, 1960‐1965: The Art and Power of a Seminal Book Review," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(2), pages 145-188, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:povpop:v:2:y:2010:i:2:p:145-188
    DOI: 10.2202/1944-2858.1064
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1944-2858.1064
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1944-2858.1064?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:povpop:v:2:y:2010:i:2:p:145-188. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1944-2858 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.