Kusch, Fritz
Research fellow at the CRC 1342 "Global Dynamics of Social Policy"
E-Mail: kuschprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
Tel.: 0049 (0)421 – 218 58628
Office: GW2, B 1440
Mailbox: GW2, Level 2B, by D-tower (de: Turm D), box no. 28
Academic Career
Since May 2022 | Ph.D. candidate, Modern and Contemporary History, and research fellow at CRC 1342 "Global Dynamics of Social Policy", University of Bremen |
Since March 2022 | Freelance Seminar Host, Berlin Wall Memorial |
2018 – 2021 | Master of arts in history, Free University Berlin M.A. thesis: "Statue Diplomacy and Steuben Myth. The Erection of the Statues of Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben in Washington and Potsdam 1910/11“ |
2017 – 2021 | Bachelor of arts in turcology, Free University Berlin |
2013 – 2017 | Bachelor of arts in modern and contemporary history (minor: political science), University of Freiburg |
Scholarships
2019 – 2021 | "Deutschlandstipendium" at Free University Berlin, provided by Fritz-Senss-Stiftung |
Ph.D. Project: “The Defenders. The Popularist Attempt to Uphold Protectionism in the United States, ca. 1880-1930” (working title)
This Ph.D. project examines the popularist agitation for protectionist tariff policies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century United States. Since the 1880s, a spectrum of various interest groups, industrial organizations, public activists, and wealthy individuals formed, which attempted to defend the existing protectionist system of high import tariffs against free trade criticism and moderately protectionist reform attempts through popular agitation. This attempt was popular in the sense that it directly addressed the general public and ordinary people. To this end, political campaigns were routinely conducted, pamphlets and leaflets were distributed by the millions, speakers were trained, and a far-reaching set of protectionist press outlets was established. The American Protective Tariff League in New York, the Home Market Club in Boston, and the American Iron and Steel Association in Philadelphia were among the most important organizations.
These popular manifestations of protectionist sentiment, which have, so far, not been studied in great detail, represent the object of analysis in the dissertation’s examination of the broader political culture of American protectionism. It investigates how popular protectionist organizations attempted to establish protectionist positions within public political discourse, and how this succeeded in effectively blocking all efforts at tariff reform, which became increasingly urgent with the rapid industrial development of the United States towards the end of the nineteenth century.
The dissertation aims at a broad conceptualization of protectionism, understanding American protectionism as a form of economic nationalism and, thus, a genuinely political ideology. Therefore, protectionism was not limited to material or economic considerations but consequently connected them to further ideological-political dispositions such as nationalism, exceptionalism, imperialism, and various forms of xenophobia. It is one of the basic assumptions of the project that explanatory approaches based on a narrow, purely economic conceptualization of protectionism overlook the broader political, cultural, and in part identity-forming aspects of protectionist ideology and thus are unsuitable to adequately explain American protectionism and its astonishing longevity. Ultimately, the project aims at a cultural and ideological underpinning of material-economic explanatory approaches – a "colour version of political economy” as Frank Trentmann has described it for the British case.
The analysis of popular protectionist agitation also illustrates how protectionist elites attempted to popularize protectionism, a rather complex economic and political issue quite far away from everyday life, by simplifying, explaining, and emotionalizing it for a broader audience. Also, the project investigates how ordinary Americans perceived the intense tariff discussions of the late nineteenth century, how they made sense of them, participated in them, and connected them to their own lives. In this way, the dissertation follows a younger scholarship on the history of American democracy and examines the developing techniques of political agitation and early attempts to systematically influence public opinion, but also the rules of public political discourse which were renegotiated in the unfolding American mass democracy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
This dissertation is part of the B11-project “Protectionism and Social Policy in the Americas, 1890-2020” of the CRC 1342 “Global Dynamics of Social Policy”
Publications
Journal Articles
- [Forthcoming:] „Capital and Labor United? Workers, Wages, and Tariffs in Late 19th Century Protectionist Agitation", in: Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.
- [Forthcoming:] „Ein Preußenkönig in Washington: Schmeichelpolitik, Statuendiplomatie und deutsche auswärtige Kulturpolitik in den USA im frühen 20. Jahrhundert", in: Forschungen zur Brandenburgischen und Preußischen Geschichte.
- „Peculiar Peoples”: The Hutterites’ Migration to Canada and the Selection of Desirable Citizens, in: Global Histories. A Student Journal 5 (2019), S. 31-47 (mit Derek Hattemer, Selena McQuarrie und Louise Thatcher).
Miscellaneous
Conference report: 'Der andere Sozialstaat': Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Historische Sozialpolitikforschung, in: H-Soz-Kult, 04/15/2024.
Podcast: "Kleio - Historiker:innen der Universität Bremen im Gespräch", Episode 24, 03/15/2024.
The Defenders. The Popular Struggle to Uphold Protectionism in the United States, ca. 1880-1930, poster at the poster session of the 2023 Historikertag, in: L.I.S.A. Wissenschaftsportal der Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung, 09/09/2023.
Book review: James C. Benton: Fraying Fabric. How Trade Policy and Industrial Decline Transformed America, in: H-Soz-Kult, 02/28/2023.
Conference report: Uneasy Neighbours: Conflict and Control in the Colonial City, c. 1870-1940, in: H-Soz-Kult, 11/14/2022 (with Fabienne Müller).
Talks / Conference Papers
"Preparing the Great Tariff Debate. The Rise of Popularist Protectionism in the 1880s", 11/28/2024 in Middelburg (International PhD Seminar, Roosevelt Institute for American Studies).
"'A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush.' Risk and Security Considerations in American Protectionist Thought and Propaganda, ca. 1890-1910", 11/08/2024 in Marburg (Workshop: “Security and Risk – Challenges for Economy and Business in the Global 20th Century”).
"Picturing Protectionism. Karikaturen in der protektionistischen Agitation in den USA im späten 19. Jahrhundert", 06/14/2024 in Bremen (Nordlichter-Treffen).
"The Wage Argument and the Harmony of Interests: Protectionist Labor Agitation in the United States in the Late 19th Century", 06/07/2024 in Bremen (CRC 1342 Retreat).
“Protection and Prosperity. The American Tariff Debate in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era", 04/29/2024 in Bremen (Guest Lecture in “CO-663: History of Globalization", taught by David Noack, Constructor University Bremen).
"German American Ethnicity and Ethnic Memory: The Case of the Steuben Statues 1910/11", 04/22/2024 (Guest Lecture in "GERM 3318-001: Texas German Experiences", taught by Barbara Berthold, University of Texas at Arlington).
"Homemaking Abroad. The 1910/11 Steuben Monuments in Washington and Potsdam and German American Political Engagement", 04/06/2024 in Austin (Texas) (Society for German American Studies Symposium).
“Der gute Preuße? Die Berliner Steubenausstellung 1980 als Teil der Preußenwelle und Ausläufer des deutsch-amerikanischen Steubenmythos“, 02/16/2024 in Berlin (Workshop: "Preußen wieder chic? Die Preußenausstellung 1981 zwischen Politik, Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit“).
"Labor and Capital United? Popular Protectionist Agitation and the Attempt to Win Over Labor in the Late Nineteenth Century", 09/09/2023 (Journal of the History of Ideas Blog Graduate Student Symposium 2023: The Intellectual History of Labor).
"'In a Cloud of Theory'. Die protektionistische Agitation gegen ökonomisches Wissen in den USA, ca. 1880-1920", 07/07/2023 in Aachen (Workshop "Wissensgeschichte").
PhD project presentation, 06/20/2023 in Bremen (Ph.D. Proposal Defense, Doctoral Colloquium of the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences).
PhD project presentation, 03/20/2023 in Heidelberg (Spring Academy of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies).
“A Hero of two Worlds? The 1910/11 Statues of Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben between Memory, Politics, and Diplomacy”, 08/19/2022 in Berlin (6th World Conference of the International Federation for Public History (IFPH)).