Intellectual Influence
Woodward, starting out on the left, wanted to use history to explore dissent. He approached W. E. B. Du Bois about writing about him, and thought of following his biography of Watson with one of Eugene V. Debs. He picked Georgia politician Tom Watson, who in the 1890s was a leader of Populism focusing the anger and hatred of poor whites against the establishment, banks, railroads and businessmen, and who a decade later became the leader in mobilizing the hatred of the same poor whites against blacks, and a promoter of lynching.
Read more about this topic: C. Vann Woodward
Famous quotes containing the words intellectual and/or influence:
“European society has always been divided into classes in a way that American society never has been. A European writer considers himself to be part of an old and honorable traditionof intellectual activity, of lettersand his choice of a vocation does not cause him any uneasy wonder as to whether or not it will cost him all his friends. But this tradition does not exist in America.”
—James Baldwin (19241987)
“Somewhere along the line of development we discover who we really are, and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone elses life not even your childs. The influence you exert is through your own life and what you become yourself.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (18841962)