Research Archive

Research Spotlight aims to shed light on the diverse research culture of Acadia University by celebrating the work and interests of our researchers. Each profile features six questions: five about research, one just for fun. Learn about what’s happening across campus and get to know the faces you see every day.

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Dr. Michael Dennis

History and Classics

Faculty of Arts

In terms of research, what are you working on right now?

I’m currently working on a book about the intellectual and social movement for full employment in the United States during and immediately following the Second World War. In short, wartime production banished the mass unemployment of the Great Depression, and Americans from across the social spectrum organized, wrote, taught, demonstrated, and testified in support of the idea that the US government should guarantee employment when the private sector failed to produce adequate jobs.

This was an intellectual impulse that extended beyond the United States—Britain, Canada, and Australia each saw powerful initiatives for full employment—but consider for a moment the myths of American individualism and self-reliance, which had been shattered by the experience of the Great Depression, and then consider how intriguing it is to see Americans from across the racial spectrum piecing together a new intellectual consensus, the centerpiece of which was the idea that the people had the right to work. Believe it or not, there was a time in American history when a majority of American citizens believed they had a moral entitlement to a job.

That represented a powerful challenge to the alignment of economic and political power in the United States. It was particularly important for the African American challenge to racial inequality.

This book is about that movement and the forces that mobilized to defeat it. Although the focus is on the forties, it will also examine the revival of interest in achieving full employment today.  I’ve also just finished an article on the literary critic Granville Hicks, who, in the late 1930s, turned to thinking about a more democratic and egalitarian political economy, one that would provide full employment as a baseline guarantee.

How does that fit with your broader research interests?

I’ve been intrigued by the political and social history of the interwar years and the New Deal era/WWII—broadly speaking, 1920 to 1948--for quite a while now, researching and writing on the history of relations between capital and labor as well as the history of women’s activism, structural economic change, New Deal political economy, and the civil rights movement during this pivotal period. This was a decisive moment in the American experience, one that accelerated existing movements for social justice, institutionalized the framework of a fragile social democratic state, and produced the political and ideological struggles that endure until today.

What most motivates you to do research?

I suppose the first impulse is a nagging historical curiosity about the “other” America that is frequently absent from Cable News coverage of contemporary US politics. It’s an America that produced personalities, ideas, and policies steeped in the convictions of economic democracy, state responsibility for the disadvantaged, and social interdependency, none of which gel with our image of an America monolithically committed to ‘rugged individualism.’ More than this, however, I’m driven by the slightly idealistic, possibly naïve belief that some of what I do might, in fact, contribute, in some infinitesimal way, to the creation of a more humane, enlightened, and decent society. I believe that an educated historical consciousness is essential to that aspiration.

What tips do you give your students when they embark on a new research project?

Regardless of the subject, try to find a way to use historical research to answer questions that you have about the world, your society, where you come from, where you might like to go.

Read widely to understand the subject, narrow the parameters to make it manageable, but take the opportunity to say something meaningful.

As much as possible, approach research projects on the understanding that the results have real-world implications, that comprehending and explaining the past as effectively as we can has the capacity to enrich ourselves and improve our society.

Do you have any forthcoming publications, events, or talks we should look out for?

There is the book on the movement for full employment that will be published by Columbia University Press, and I also have a review essay on the American left in the twentieth century that will soon appear in Labour/Le Travail. Additionally, I’ve just published “The Idea of Full Employment: A Challenge to Capitalism in the New Deal Era” in Labor: Studies in Working-Class History.

Tell me, what are you reading, watching, or listening to for fun these days?

Well, I’m currently re-watching “Six Feet Under,” and am amazed by the show’s exceptional scriptwriting but also by how it functions as a time-capsule of an America in the throes of political and cultural changes, the consequences of which are only becoming evident today. I’m also finally—finally! reading Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past (Swann’s Way) after having said for years and years: ‘I’ve got to read that book.’ Now I am, and I can say it is every bit as lyrical, ethereal, and absorbing as I hoped it would be.

Contact Dr. Michael Dennis
Phone: (902) 585-1377
Email: michael.dennis@acadiau.ca

Research Spotlight is an initiative of the Research & Graduate Studies office. If you would like to suggest someone to be featured in this series, or if you would like to be featured yourself, please contact Deborah Hemming, Research & Innovation Coordinator: deborah.hemming@acadiau.ca

You can also download the form below, fill in your responses, and return it to Deborah by email.