Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism

Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism

Author: Brendan Goff

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2021-07-06

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 0674989791

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A new history of Rotary International shows how the organization reinforced capitalist values and cultural practices at home and tried to remake the world in the idealized image of Main Street America. Rotary International was born in Chicago in 1905. By the time World War II was over, the organization had made good on its promise to Ògirdle the globe.Ó Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism explores the meteoric rise of a local service club that brought missionary zeal to the spread of American-style economics and civic ideals. Brendan Goff traces RotaryÕs ideological roots to the business progressivism and cultural internationalism of the United States in the early twentieth century. The key idea was that community service was intrinsic to a capitalist way of life. The tone of Òservice above selfÓ was often religious, but, as Rotary looked abroad, it embraced Woodrow WilsonÕs secular message of collective security and international cooperation: civic internationalism was the businessmanÕs version of the Christian imperial civilizing mission, performed outside the state apparatus. The target of this mission was both domestic and global. The Rotarian, the organizationÕs publication, encouraged Americans to see the world as friendly to Main Street values, and Rotary worked with US corporations to export those values. Case studies of Rotary activities in Tokyo and Havana show the group paving the way for encroachments of US powerÑeconomic, political, and culturalÑduring the interwar years. RotaryÕs evangelism on behalf of market-friendly philanthropy and volunteerism reflected a genuine belief in peacemaking through the worldÕs Òparliament of businessmen.Ó But, as Goff makes clear, Rotary also reinforced American power and interests, demonstrating the tension at the core of US-led internationalism.


Australia's First Rotary Club

Australia's First Rotary Club

Author: Owen Parnaby

Publisher: Melbourne University Publish

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9780522850314

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The Rotary Club of Melbourne was the first of its kind in Australia. Since its inaugural luncheon on 21 April 1921, the club has had an outstanding record of philanthropic endeavour and charity work, as well as service to the cause of Rotary on the international scene. The list of members of the early Melbourne club reads like a Who's Who of Australian businessmen since World War I. In later years, with the increase in the number of Melbourne-based clubs, not to mention the admission of women members in the late 1980s, the range and interests of members was less concentrated, leading to a greater diversity of activities. The Melbourne club is now faced with changing social and economic conditions that are causing the breakdown of community cohesion. The first Rotary Club was born out of a response to the competitive and harsh business environment of Chicago in 1905. The Melbourne club is responding to similar conditions by seeing them as an opportunity to expand the tradition of service.


Service Clubs in American Society

Service Clubs in American Society

Author: Jeffrey A. Charles

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 9780252020155

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Placing the clubs in the context of twentieth-century middle-class culture, Charles maintains that they represented the response of locally oriented, traditional middle-class men to societal changes. The groups emerged at a time when service was becoming both a middle-class and a business ideal. As voluntary associations, they represented a shift in organizing rationale, from fraternalism to service. The clubs and their ideology of service were welcome as a unifying force at a time when small cities and towns were beset by economic and population pressures.