Nonpolicing, policing and progressivism in eugene, oregon

This article employs cultural Marxist and feminist approaches to assess the relationship between the nonpolicing and policing of class and gender relations during the Progressive Era in Eugene, Oregon, USA. A selective review of the literature on the history of policing prefaces an outline of local history in Eugene. I describe the rationalization of the Eugene Police Department during the Progressive Era. I then ask why the social harm caused by the rise of lumber capitalism (e.g. occupational hazards, disease, injuries and fatalities) did not attract the scrutiny of the newly rationalized police. Applying a similar logic to patriarchal relations, I question why domestic violence and prostitution were so passively policed. Having established some of the political parameters of policing by exploring nonpolicing, I examine those forms of “disorder” which served as major policing foci: labour radicalism, the unemployed and vice.