Book Review| March 01 2016 Soapbox Rebellion: The Hobo Orator Union and the Free Speech Fights of the Industrial Workers of the World, 1909–1916 Soapbox Rebellion: The Hobo Orator Union and the Free Speech Fights of the Industrial Workers of the World, 1909–1916. By Matthew May. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2013; pp. xiii + 176. $39.95 cloth. Mary Anne Trasciatti Mary Anne Trasciatti Hofstra University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2016) 19 (1): 141–144. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.19.1.0141 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Mary Anne Trasciatti; Soapbox Rebellion: The Hobo Orator Union and the Free Speech Fights of the Industrial Workers of the World, 1909–1916. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 March 2016; 19 (1): 141–144. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.19.1.0141 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2016 Michigan State University Board of Trustees. All rights reserved.2016 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

ABSTRACT This article considers versions of kairos within the context of World War I and the 1917 Espionage Act, a U.S. law that significantly narrowed parameters for free speech to protect the national interest. Many political activists and pacifists who perceived the war as an opportune moment for a critique of state power and corporate interests suffered material consequences for making such a critique—or remained silent for fear of consequences. While affirming the materiality of kairos and the centrality of body performance, I suggest an expanded version embodying the principle that freedom to respond to kairotic moments is always a product of struggle.

Alfonso Arbib-Costa's 1909 Arbib-Costa , Alfonoso . Manuale di Corrispondenza Commercial, Familiare, e Amorose Italiana-Inglese . New York : Italian Book Company , 1909 . [Google Scholar] Manuale di Corrispondenza Commerciale, Familiare, e Amorose Italiana-Inglese offered letter-writing instruction to Italian immigrants hoping to succeed in American business and social circles. The book contained some theory, but was primarily a collection of model letters, or formulary. This article identifies the text as one of a distinct type of bilingual, bicultural letter-writing handbooks for immigrants that arose in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, situates it in the American parlor rhetoric tradition, and analyzes its theoretical content and models. Although formularies are often overlooked by scholars, they are rich texts that reveal important connections between rhetoric and culture. Formularies for immigrants are particularly interesting because they clearly demonstrate how attempts at social engineering may be embedded in rhetorical pedagogy. The study concludes with a call for additional research into this area of rhetorical history, which remains largely unknown.

Abstract This essay offers an analysis of “The Truth about the Paterson Strike,” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's 1914 speech containing her ideas about the nature of propaganda in radical working-class movements. Flynn defines propaganda as ideological education, and her speech highlights the importance of oratory to early twentieth century radical propaganda campaigns. These ideas belie fundamental principles of contemporary propaganda studies, which define propaganda as manipulative, mass mediated persuasion to advance the interests of powerful elites and institutions, and contain oratory within the ethical art of rhetoric. The study concludes by recommending that the purview of propaganda studies be expanded to include Flynn's activities and those of other radical propagandists.