Introduction

Once viewed as a distinct era characterized by intense bigotry, nostalgia for simpler times, and a revulsion against active government, the 1920s have been rediscovered by historians in recent decades as a time when Herbert Hoover and his allies worked to significantly reform economic policy.

Author's Perspective

Mark Hendrickson both augments and amends this view by studying the origins and development of New Era policy expertise and knowledge.

Impact of Policy-Oriented Social Scientists

Policy-oriented social scientists in government, trade union, academic, and nonprofit agencies showed how methods for achieving stable economic growth through increased productivity could both defang the dreaded business cycle and defuse the pattern of hostile class relations that Gilded Age depressions had helped to set as an American system of industrial relations.