The rhetorical critique of institutions, community, and social change: Rhetorics of risk and the Progressive Era child welfare movement

This dissertation examines the relationship of rhetoric and rhetorical theory to social theory. It argues that theories of social order could better account for social change through an understanding of rhetoric and rhetorical theory. The dissertation analyzes and compares theories of social order: those of George Herbert Mead, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Mary Douglas are compared and contrasted along the dimensions of four key terms: institutions, community, self identity, and risk. Each theorist posits a different dynamic among these key terms. The comparison among these three theorists defines a theoretical space termed a "discussion field". The discussion field is a theoretical space in which a case study can be analyzed without reducing it to the assumptions of a single theory: without either deconstructive atomism or nostalgic anachronism. The discussion field allows for the reanimation of the convergent tendencies of discourse while preserving its tensions and conflicts. The case study is the child welfare movement in the progressive era, 1900 to 1920, which successfully generated a consensus for social change by thematizing the relation of maternity, mother and child, and especially infant welfare, as a defining symbol of industrial urban social problems, and also as a sign of the potential for social progress. The progressives attempted to enact a peculiarly American vision of community in addressing these problems. Three strategies of constructing social space for discussion and persuasion were designed by the progressives: the settlement house, the welfare exhibition, and the "Better Baby" contest. Discourses of these three strategies for engineering community are interpreted in triangulation of the terms of Mead's pragmatism, Lyotard's postmodernism, and Douglas' "culture theory" of mediated consensus.