A Fierce Discontent : The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920

Rating:
Summary: Ultimately unsatisfying, 2.5 Stars
Review: "Progressivism" is one of the vaguer words in the history of American politics, and we could always do with a new attempt to define it. And Michael McGerr's new book starts out promisingly. There is an apparently detailed description of the very rich, workers and farmers which appears to be based on the latest research. The book is supported with sixty pages of notes, though there are no archival sources, and the primary sources are mostly from the usual suspects (Wilson, Roosevelt, Jane Addams, plus a few memoirs from Hamlin Garland and Rahel Golub.) McGerr continues with a discussion of the middle class, and how concern over increasing class conflict and social instability encouraged them to support a Progressive philosophy-one that encouraged a sense of association instead of the old individualism, as well as a strong Protestant moralism that valued duty and discouraged pleasure. He then looks at how Progressives sought to change Americans, such as by encouraging school attendance, supporting prohibition, attacking divorce and improving country life. There then follow chapters on limiting class conflict, regulating big business, and imposing segregation. However, Progressivism does meet its nemesis. The rise of the automobile and modern transportation, the rise of popular amusements and jazz, and a more liberal attitude towards sexuality threatens Progressivism's stern ethic. The attempts to encourage government regulation in the First World War only undercut support for it, leading to the disastrous electoral defeat of 1920. In the end, McGerr concludes, this reinforces the "basic lesson" that "reformers should not try too much."

Unfortunately on closer examination one sees that McGerr has produced a superficial book. It's not just that looking at the endnotes one finds that most of the book could have been written a decade earlier with little loss, with some chapters printed two or three decades earlier. It's not just that the chapters on labor and business are not especially original. There are larger problems with causation and logic. One of the things researchers in the seventies and eighties noted about Progressivism was its variety. It had supporters in all regions, it appealed to workers and farmers as well as the middle class, it appealed to immigrant Catholics, Protestant moralists, and secular intellectuals. Progressives could be in both parties, and included racist imperialists and the most humane socialists. Instead of dealing with this variety, McGerr limits it to the middle class, since none of the other groups "advocated the full range of progressive positions as consistently as the middle class did." The problem is that the same middle class made up the overwhelming majority of politicians in the unProgressive Gilded Age, as well as the overwhelming majority of politicians in the age of Harding and Hoover. In the fifties Richard Hofstadter introduced the idea of "status anxiety." This idea was a flawed one, but at least it tried to explain why some of the middle class supported Progressivism and others didn't. McGerr never does so.

There are other gaps. There is no discussion of Progressivism in a comparative context, so we do not learn how successful they were in comparison with their European contexts (This is especially true of their view of the state). Much discussion of Progressivism asks about its connection with modernity. Was the Progressive endorsement of such things as prohibition and racial segregation a sign of its reactionary character? Or did such measures show how "modern" apparently reactionary people as prohibitionists and racists were? And if so, what does that say about modernity as a whole? McGerr does nothing to answer this question. There is no discussion of foreign policy before the First World War, no real discussion of why the United States entered the war, and little discussion of its postwar plans. This complicates the whole idea of a Progressive break with its predecessors and successors. There are obvious continuities with McKinley and Roosevelt, and scholars such as William A. Williams and Frank Costigliola have pointed out that the twenties was not an era of simple minded isolationism.

There are problems with McGerr's emphasis on pleasure as the solvent of Progressivism. There is an emphasis on increasing sexuality, but there are no facts about illegitimacy, pre-marital sex, prostitution or abortion. Moreover, far from dying in 1920, the twenties marked the triumph of Prohibition, and it was still an electoral winner for Herbert Hoover in 1928. Not did Protestant Hegemony go away either. At other points McGerr takes his sources' complaints at face value, whether about Progressive distaste for the vulgarly wealthy or Republican complaints about the First World War. It is not clear why regulation of the economy should be so fatal to the Democrats, when conservatives accepted a version of it in Britain and France and won the post-war elections. And to say that Progressives shouldn't have tried too hard simply reflects journalistic cant and its willingness to split the differences between the two sides, as well as its easy contempt for people with more principle. One could ask industrial workers denied a union, immigrants and African-Americans living with the GOP's enormous condescension, or Sacco and Vanzetti whether Republican domination was simply part of the natural balance of things. Ultimately this is a book that is less than it appears. In such works scholars tend to summon up amusing anecdotes as a substitute for analysis. But McGerr is no Orlando Figes or Simon Schama. The most memorable story concerns the fact that J.P. Morgan, when he didn't like the tune of the hymn being played, would ostentatiously jingle the coins in his pocket. Those crazy rich people.

Rating:
Summary: Ultimately unsatisfying, 2.5 Stars
Review: "Progressivism" is one of the vaguer words in the history of American politics, and we could always do with a new attempt to define it. And Michael McGerr's new book starts out promisingly. There is an apparently detailed description of the very rich, workers and farmers which appears to be based on the latest research. The book is supported with sixty pages of notes, though there are no archival sources, and the primary sources are mostly from the usual suspects (Wilson, Roosevelt, Jane Addams, plus a few memoirs from Hamlin Garland and Rahel Golub.) McGerr continues with a discussion of the middle class, and how concern over increasing class conflict and social instability encouraged them to support a Progressive philosophy-one that encouraged a sense of association instead of the old individualism, as well as a strong Protestant moralism that valued duty and discouraged pleasure. He then looks at how Progressives sought to change Americans, such as by encouraging school attendance, supporting prohibition, attacking divorce and improving country life. There then follow chapters on limiting class conflict, regulating big business, and imposing segregation. However, Progressivism does meet its nemesis. The rise of the automobile and modern transportation, the rise of popular amusements and jazz, and a more liberal attitude towards sexuality threatens Progressivism's stern ethic. The attempts to encourage government regulation in the First World War only undercut support for it, leading to the disastrous electoral defeat of 1920. In the end, McGerr concludes, this reinforces the "basic lesson" that "reformers should not try too much."

Unfortunately on closer examination one sees that McGerr has produced a superficial book. It's not just that looking at the endnotes one finds that most of the book could have been written a decade earlier with little loss, with some chapters printed two or three decades earlier. It's not just that the chapters on labor and business are not especially original. There are larger problems with causation and logic. One of the things researchers in the seventies and eighties noted about Progressivism was its variety. It had supporters in all regions, it appealed to workers and farmers as well as the middle class, it appealed to immigrant Catholics, Protestant moralists, and secular intellectuals. Progressives could be in both parties, and included racist imperialists and the most humane socialists. Instead of dealing with this variety, McGerr limits it to the middle class, since none of the other groups "advocated the full range of progressive positions as consistently as the middle class did." The problem is that the same middle class made up the overwhelming majority of politicians in the unProgressive Gilded Age, as well as the overwhelming majority of politicians in the age of Harding and Hoover. In the fifties Richard Hofstadter introduced the idea of "status anxiety." This idea was a flawed one, but at least it tried to explain why some of the middle class supported Progressivism and others didn't. McGerr never does so.

There are other gaps. There is no discussion of Progressivism in a comparative context, so we do not learn how successful they were in comparison with their European contexts (This is especially true of their view of the state). Much discussion of Progressivism asks about its connection with modernity. Was the Progressive endorsement of such things as prohibition and racial segregation a sign of its reactionary character? Or did such measures show how "modern" apparently reactionary people as prohibitionists and racists were? And if so, what does that say about modernity as a whole? McGerr does nothing to answer this question. There is no discussion of foreign policy before the First World War, no real discussion of why the United States entered the war, and little discussion of its postwar plans. This complicates the whole idea of a Progressive break with its predecessors and successors. There are obvious continuities with McKinley and Roosevelt, and scholars such as William A. Williams and Frank Costigliola have pointed out that the twenties was not an era of simple minded isolationism.

There are problems with McGerr's emphasis on pleasure as the solvent of Progressivism. There is an emphasis on increasing sexuality, but there are no facts about illegitimacy, pre-marital sex, prostitution or abortion. Moreover, far from dying in 1920, the twenties marked the triumph of Prohibition, and it was still an electoral winner for Herbert Hoover in 1928. Not did Protestant Hegemony go away either. At other points McGerr takes his sources' complaints at face value, whether about Progressive distaste for the vulgarly wealthy or Republican complaints about the First World War. It is not clear why regulation of the economy should be so fatal to the Democrats, when conservatives accepted a version of it in Britain and France and won the post-war elections. And to say that Progressives shouldn't have tried too hard simply reflects journalistic cant and its willingness to split the differences between the two sides, as well as its easy contempt for people with more principle. One could ask industrial workers denied a union, immigrants and African-Americans living with the GOP's enormous condescension, or Sacco and Vanzetti whether Republican domination was simply part of the natural balance of things. Ultimately this is a book that is less than it appears. In such works scholars tend to summon up amusing anecdotes as a substitute for analysis. But McGerr is no Orlando Figes or Simon Schama. The most memorable story concerns the fact that J.P. Morgan, when he didn't like the tune of the hymn being played, would ostentatiously jingle the coins in his pocket. Those crazy rich people.

Rating:
Summary: Building a Middle-Class Paradise
Review: In A FIERCE DISCONTENT, Michael McGerr, has written compact history of progressivism -- the wide, complex river of reform that began to overrun the constrictive banks of Victorianism in the 1870s, gathered force and power with the tacit and sometimes outright approval of the administrations of Teddy Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson, and then vanished into the great cataract of the Red Scare in the immediate aftermath of WWI. Through a narrative of the social and economic cross-currents which progressives attempted either to control or unleash, a narrative interwoven with a terse biographies of reformers as well as those whom they hoped bring into confluence with their vision of the "middle-class paradise" (in William James' scornful elitist characterization), McGerr tells a story of epic sweep.

"To change other people; to end class conflict; to control big business; to segregate society" were, according to McGerr, the four quintessential battles of the progressive movement. With this formulation he thus includes Carrie Nation as a progressive, making a strong argument that in her attacks on drinking and barrooms she was attempting to change the behavior of men, and in so doing, improve the lives of women, and change society for the better. He also includes Frank Lloyd Wright, who in his "destruction of the box" and the creation of the prairie style attempted to refashion the very spaces that people lived in. Along the way, we fall in with Jane Addams, Roosevelt, the Wobblies, Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, and less well-known people such as Rahel Golub, a young girl from New York's Lower East Side who develops the "double vision" of the immigrant daughter -- one eye seeing the middle-class America as embodied by the settlement workers, and the other eye seeing the inside of her tenement, her workbench and her suddenly constrained life.

By concentrating on the extra-political activities of the progressives, such as the anti-divorce and Chatauqua movements, McGerr shifts the emphasis away from usual story of the Progressives later political interventions. What comes across most clearly in this history therefore is the evangelical zeal with which the reforming middle-class attempted to change not just the economic and social arrangements of America and the American state, but the American people. They sought to spread their "Social Gospel" among both the lordly "upper ten" at the top and the working classes who slaved at the bottom in the sweatshops. Believing that if these undisciplined classes at the extremes of the spectrum could be made to see the error of their ideological assumptions and adopt the progressive ideal of "association," (as opposed to the creed of individualism among the "upper ten" and the mutualism of the working classes), then these groups would come to see the wisdom of the progressive approach.

Progressives attempted to bridge the social distance between the rich and poor through the mediating ideology of association. An ideology probably more socialistic than they would care to admit, the progressives of the middle-class, their lives transformed by the dislocations caused by rampant industrial capitalism of period after the Civil War, attempted, in turn, to transform society at large, to domesticate its protagonists and harness its chaotic and often violent energies. As McGerr points out, for the poor that meant such programs the establishment of settlement houses in their neighborhoods, such as Jane Addams Hull-House, where the poor could be gently brought into contact with their social betters, and indoctrinated into the ways of the progressivism. (Indoctrination is perhaps too strong a word here for the progressives never had one single absolute agenda, which turned out to be both one of its strengths and its liabilities).
For the wealthy they first used the weapon of public remonstrance, raising a hue and cry over the immoral extravagance of the lifestyles of the hyper-rich during the Gilded Age. The ultra-rich were taken to the woodshed by such progressives as Thorstein Veblen; eventually they learned never to expose themselves to such scrutiny. Later, as reformers grew in power and influence, political strategies were instituted: the progressive income tax and, depending on Roosevelt's political needs, trust-busting, and labor negotiations.

We can now see that in the last of the four battles -- to segregate society -- that the "good" intentions of Progressives had in this battle actually caused harm to the American promise of equality of opportunity and social justice. Under the spell of eugenics as elaborated by sociologists and anthropologists, progressives encouraged segregation as a means to avoiding conflict. Progressives looked away as African Americans, two generations after the Civil War and increasingly unwilling to toe the racial line any longer, were viciously "put in their place" by lynch mobs and a revived KKK across the South. McGerr notes that the politics of exclusion were reversed for the Indians. The Federal government worked hard to assimilate American Indian tribes. The difference? Land. To get Indian land the government under Roosevelt passed legislation that gave Indians individual title to parcels of land. Then, the ten of thousands of acres stolen through this process were then were sold to speculators and ranchers.

Nearly overwhelmed by the assault of modernism as it broke down categories of time and space, the rise of individualism in the modernist movements in art, architecture and literature, and by the pleasure principle of early consumer society, progressive morality shifted to include the possibility of both collectivism and individualism. But when the Red scare broke, when even a secular saint like Jane Addams was suspected of being a Bolshevik, the death knell for progressivism was sounded. McGerr suggests that we live in the disappointed wake of the progressive era, and in the flotsam and jetsam of gutted programs, half-funded reforms and rhetoric. Poisoned by the relentless stream of invective poured out on liberal reform and big government by conservatives from Coolidge on, the epic attempt to reform America has resulted in the "less-than-epic" politics of today where we are skeptical of both government and of reform.

Rating:
Summary: Ambiguities of reform
Review: This well-done account of the rise of the Progressive Movement is as good on the history of the period, and is studded with many interesting details about the Victorian period in the gestation of the great challenge to the world of big business. Notable, and what makes the book out of the ordinary, is depiction of the limits of the movement seen in the account of the movement's attitudes toward segregation. This was also the era of consolidated Jim Crow, where were the Reformer? The book is food for thought indeed given the strange similarity to our own era of politics, or lack of it.