Social Outlooks

WORLDS AND SOCIAL OUTLOOKS OF BABBITT, PLUNKITT AND ADDAMS

This essay compares the worlds and social outlooks of fictional character George Babbitt created by novelist Sinclair Lewis, New York politician George Plunkitt and crusader for social justice Jane Addams.

The times in which the careers of Babbitt and Plunkitt peaked, the roaring 20s in the case of Babbitt and the Gay Nineties and early 1900's in the case Plunkitt and the worlds they represented, the political milieu of Hells Kitchen Irish district of the west side of Manhattan which Plunkitt represented and the archetypal middle western metropolis of Zenith where Babbitt was a realtor, were very different. Addams career bridged both periods. Babbitt and Plunkitt shared somewhat similar narrow and materialistic visions and crass approach to life which were characteristic of many Americans who were 'on the make' during those eras. As the daughter of a prominent Illinois politician, Addams understood the middle class mores to which Babbitt aspired and as a social radical, she understood the working class urban neighborhoods in which Plunkitt's political machine operated. She had, however, a very different vision of America than either of them.

Contrasting Backgrounds and Careers

George Plunkitt (1842-1924) was a district leader and ward boss, a machine politician for the Tammany Hall Democratic Party in Manhattan's West Side between the early 1870s and 1905. His life spanned a period of rapid industrialization a

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rite, supporting prohibition as the law of the land while patronizing speakeasies. Plunkitt is opposed to drunkenness stating that "drink is the greatest curse of the day" (Riordon 91). However, he is frank in opposing other laws which would interfere with the workings of machine politics and corruption. He refers to "iniquitous and villainous civil service laws which are destroyin' all patriotism, ruin' the country, and takin' away good jobs from them that earn them" (Riordon 96). Both Plunkitt and Babbitt like the status quo and are against changes that would interfere as they see it with their economic and political self-interests. Again Plunkitt is quite open about his opposition. He says that "the people's voice is smothered by the cursed civil service law; it is the root of all evil in our government" (Riordon 55). Babbitt seeks strength in numbers and reassurance for his conservatism from his fellow members in the various business and social clubs he joins. He is for the Republican Party and sound business practices. He is against socialism, anarchism, strikes, "foreign ideas and communism" and New York City which he says is full of "unnumbered foreigners" (Lewis 151). During his brief rebellion, Babbitt comes to his sense

Category: Literature - S