To Promote the General Welfare The Case for Big Government

Americans love to hate their government, and a long tradition of anti-government suspicion reaches back to debates among the founders of the nation. But the election of Barack Obama has created a backlash rivaled only by the anti-government hysteria that preceded the Civil War. Lost in all the Tea Party rage and rhetoric is this simple fact: the federal government plays a central role in making our society function, and it always has. Edited by Steven Conn and written by some of America's leading scholars, the essays inTo Promote the General Welfareexplore the many ways government programs have improved the quality of life in America. The essays cover everything from education, communication, and transportation to arts and culture, housing, finance, and public health. They explore how and why government programs originated, how they have worked and changed--and been challenged--since their inception, and why many of them are important to preserve. The book shows how the WPA provided vital, in some cases career-saving, assistance to artists and writers like Jackson Pollock, Dorothea Lange, Richard Wright, John Cheever, and scores of others; how millions of students from diverse backgrounds have benefited and continue to benefit from the G.I. Bill, Fulbright scholarships, and federally insured student loans; and how the federal government created an Interstate highway system unparalleled in the world, linking the entire nation. These are just a few examples of highly successful programs the book celebrates--and that anti-government critics typically ignore. For anyone wishing to explore the flip side of today's vehement attacks on American government,To Promote the General Welfareis the best place to start.

Steven Conn is Professor and Director of Public History at Ohio State University. His books include Do Museums Still Need Objects?, Metropolitan Philadelphia: Living with the Presence of the Past, and History's Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century. He is the founding editor of the online magazine Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective.

Editor's Preface
1. Looking for Government in All the Wrong Places, Brian Balogh
2. Transportation and the Uniting of the Nation, Zachary M. Schrag
3. Uncle Sam at the Blackboard: The Federal Government and American Education, Jonathan Zimmerman
4. Banking on Government, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer
5. Twenty-Nine Helmets: Government Power and the Promise for Security, Kevin Boyle
6. The Right to a Decent Home, Thomas J. Sugrue
7. Solving the Nation's Number One Health Problem(s), Karen Kruse Thomas
8. Culture for the People: How Government Has Fostered the Arts and Culture, Steven Conn
9. From Franklin to Facebook: The Civic Mandate for American Communications, Richard R. John
10. From Endeavor to Achievement and Back Again: Government's Greatest Hits in Peril, Paul C. Light
Notes
Contibutors
Index