Page 85 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

P1: IPI/IBE/IRR/GYQ
10:39
August 13, 2002
CY101-Bimber
CY101-02
0 521 80067 6
Information Revolutions
YWCA,PlannedParenthood,BigBrothers/BigSisters,theNationalEaster
Seal Society, the American Lung Association, and the Mental Health As-
sociation, along with service organizations such as Rotary International
and Lions Clubs.
New religious associations also sprang up between 1880 and 1920
(especially for Catholics and Jews), as did educational organizations and
sports and hobby groups tailored to bowling, chess, gardening, golf, cat
and dog ownership, skiing, soccer, power boating, and stamp and coin
collecting. New national identity associations were also founded during
this period for the Danes, Irish, Italians, Norwegians, and Poles.
The transforming economy sparked a wealth of new business groups.
Intheretailsector,newgroupsincludedtheNationalAutomobileDealers
Association, the American Association of Booksellers, the Direct Mar-
keting Association, the National Association of Grocers, the National As-
sociation of Retail Merchants, and the National Restaurant Association.
Other business groups formed in this forty-year window for contractors,
advertisers, motor vehicle manufacturers, food supply industries, and oil
companies, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Agricultural as-
sociations formed around the interests of the fading agricultural sectors
of the economy, such as the National Dairy Council and the American
Farm Bureau Federation.
The association category with the greatest growth was the professional
group. Distinct national-level associations developed for these and other
professionals: engineers (electrical, chemical, agricultural, mechanical,
safety, and naval), foresters, geographers, geologists, economists, ento-
mologists, historians, illustrators, journalists, physicians, accountants,
mathematicians, actors, anthropologists, archeologists, astronomers,
zoologists, school principals, legal secretaries, sociologists, surgeons,
English teachers, nurses, photographers, and psychologists. 92 Capping
off this ferment in association-building was the establishment in 1920 of
the American Society of Association Executives.
Before the Civil War, there had been were less than ten major civic as-
sociations in the United States, and only two with memberships totaling
1 percent of eligible citizens: the International Order of Odd Fellows and
the Order of the Sons of Temperance. By the 1920s, twenty-six groups
enrolled over 1 percent of the eligible citizens, from the Farm Bureau to

92
For a list of groups founded in the United States between 1880 and 1920, see World
Almanac and Book of Facts (Mahwah, N.J.: Funk and Wagnalls, 1994).

68