The Contemporary History Institute fall series concludes with Jack Epstein on “Building an Anti-Racketeering State, 1920-1970: New Historical Approaches to 20th Century American Domestic Politics” on Thursday, Oct. 23, at 4:30 pm in Baker 242.
Jack Epstein
Epstein is a graduate student and doctoral candidate int the Contemporary History Institute and the Ohio University Department of History. He is a recipient of numerous graduate student grants, both at Ohio University and nationally, including the Baker Peace Prize and a one-year fellowship at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs.
Epstein discusses his dissertation, “Building an Anti-Racketeering State: Localized Urban Commercial Markets and the Historical Origins of America’s Contemporary Crime Control State, 1920-1970.” Epstein’s work is a legal, public policy and intellectual history of the “deep origins” of the landmark 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a seminal law in American 20th century history, but the subject of very little historical analysis.
His dissertation challenges contemporary notions of how scholars view the development of 20th century American domestic politics, including the importance of “mainstream” New Deal economic reform, the federal courts’ alleged role as protectors of civil liberties, and the centrality of the presidency in implementing core areas of domestic policy. The focus of “Building an Anti-Racketeering State” is on the federal courts and Congress—and how these institutions have used, often with subtle inventiveness, criminal law to discipline and punish local labor unions and, as the 29th century progressed, broader swathes of economic and political conduct in local, urban markets.
In a contemporary age with no American trade unionism to speak of, an ongoing and booming system of state and federal penitentiaries, tightly constrained notions of First and Fourth Amendment rights, and an Executive Branch typically and consistently unable to pass key elements of domestic policy reform, Epstein’s dissertation is the suggestive beginning of new ways for scholars to approach an understanding of 20th century American domestic statecraft.
This event is free and open to the public.
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