ABSTRACT
In 1918, however, Parrington obviously felt that he needed to justify the literary origins of his radicalism to his social science–oriented Progressive contemporaries. In 1920 Parrington acted upon the declarations of radicalism in his “Autobiographical Sketch” and Harvard class’s Sixth Report by casting his presidential vote, along with nearly a million other politically dissatisfied citizens, for Socialist party leader Eugene V. Debs. Radicalism offered both a niche from which they could fulfill the traditional function of an intellectual class, that of critiquing society and developing new ideas, and a solution for their feeling of uselessness in having no structurally approved function. Parrington states that his intellectual development “may seem strange to a younger generation,” many members of the generation who came to maturity after First World War would find his approach to politics through culture congenial. The expanding middle-class business ethic was shouldering aside the ideal of literary culture that had given a role to nineteenth-century intellectuals.
