A Fierce Discontent

“The Progressive Era is more than a matter of nostalgia. It is the argument of this book that progressivism created much of our contemporary predicament.”

In the Preface, McGerr explains how the Progressive Era is relevant to contemporary American life. He argues that today, Americans are extremely disengaged with the government and with political life, and politicians are still wary of overstepping the boundaries that progressive reformers boldly overstepped years ago. Progressive reformers had huge expectations for the future of society, which they believed their reform efforts could achieve. Those expectations were never met; observant of the great disappoint these unmet expectations brought to society, politicians have since been cautious to set new expectations. 

“Americans’ ambivalent attitudes toward politics and the state, our skepticism about reform, our fear of government’s power, and our arm’s-length relationship with political leaders have their roots before the ages of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, in the few dramatic decades at the turn of the previous century.” 

McGerr identifies the specific contemporary political attitude that he believes resulted from America’s Progressive Era. These attitudes—ambivalence, skepticism, fear, and distance—stand in stark contrast to the attitudes of Americans toward politics and government power during the Progressive Era. Though some might point to the reforms and policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, or Ronald Reagan as being revolutionary or radical, McGerr insists that the true roots of today’s troubling attitudes toward politics and government reach back even further to the Progressive Era at the turn of the 20th century.

“The classes held distinctive views on fundamental issues of human existence: on the nature of the individual; on the relationship between the individual and society; on the roles of men, women, children, and the family; and on the relative importance of work and pleasure. What would become the Progressive Era—an extraordinary explosion of middle class activism—began as an unprecedented crisis of alienation amid the extremes of wealth and poverty in America.” 

This quotation explains the “evil” that was the source of middle-class reformers’ “fierce discontent”: class conflict between the wealthy and the poor in America. Progressives recognized that a difference in views on four issues of human existence caused this alienation between the classes. These issues, as mentioned in the quotation, included how the wealthy and the poor understood the nature of the individual person, the relationship between individual people and society, the roles of women, children, and the family, and the importance of work and pleasure in relation to each other. As the middle class reformers saw it, both the wealthy and the poor held extremely harmful views on each of these issues and needed guidance to assume a more productive view of each issue. Middle class reformers believed that if all classes adopted middle class values, society as a whole would be much better off and class conflicts would cease.

“So alien in condition and outlook, farmers, workers, and wealthy almost inevitably came into conflict. The relentless development of the industrial economy, the increasing spread of news in papers and magazines, and the unceasing political contests of a democracy all made the different classes constantly aware of one another and generated the many signs of friction in late nineteenth-century America. It was an unstable situation—the more so because each group suffered from organizational weakness and internal divisions.” 

McGerr admits that external, global changes fueled the conflict between the classes, in addition to the differing values on the “fundamental issues of human existence” mentioned in the previous quotation. The wealthy and the poor did not just hold differing values; they also experienced drastically different living conditions, rapid changes resulting from the continued development of an industrial economy, greater access to news about members of different classes, and the confusing role of politics in shaping the conditions of their lives. By highlighting the external conditions that shaped class conflict at the turn-of-the-century, McGerr brings up a truth that middle-class reformers eventually came to see as well: Reform could not only target the values and behavior of individuals. Reform efforts also had to address the frequently unfair living conditions people experienced inherent to their membership in a certain class.

“In some ways, the Progressive Era emerged from a middle class that could not cope with its own affluence.” 

This quotation refers to the identity crisis experienced by the Victorian middle class as industrial capitalism took over American society. Their parents’ generation lived lives of tranquil domesticity, revered individualism, and practiced self-discipline and self-denial, but the new affluence of the younger middle-class generation disrupted these values and practices. Their newfound affluence caused a sort of identity crisis; they knew that their parents’ values did not fit with the new conditions of middle-class life, but they were not sure which values should replace the old ones.

“Class conflict was fundamental to the Victorians’ experience of industrial capitalism. Profoundly affected by the class differences and antagonisms all around them, they gradually became more willing to see and explore what the rich preferred to deny—the truth, as economist Richard T. Ely put it, that ‘men exist in classes….’ ‘We do not like to acknowledge that Americans are divided into two nations,’ Jane Addams observed. For her and for other Victorians, those ‘two nations’ were the working class and the upper class.” 

The lives of the working and upper classes were utterly polarized; it was as though they were living in two different Americas. There was the America that the wealthy experienced—full of opportunity, abundant resources, and leisure—and the America that the working class experienced, characterized by self-denial, grueling working hours with low wages, minimal resources, and little hope of upward mobility. It was exceedingly rare that people from the working class would ever interact with people from the upper class, and vice versa. Because the wealthy thrived in this class system, there was little reason for them to want to change it; conversely, the working class had little power to change the system. The middle class, however, who benefitted from some of the privileges of the wealthy class while also understanding the experiences of the working classes, did have the resources and education to attempt to end this class conflict. However, their efforts to quell class conflict were not entirely selfless: The behaviors of both the working and upper classes had a direct impact on the middle class’s business opportunities and tranquility in life. In order to ensure their own happiness, the middle class needed to remake the working and upper classes in the image of middle-class values. 

“With this resolve, the Victorians’ new identity became clear. By the end of the 1890s, the middle class had not only rejected its longstanding individualism; it had also adopted a new ‘creed,’ the will to use association and the state to end class conflict and the other problems of industrial capitalism. This imperative to turn outward, combined with the reform of domesticity and the reconsideration of work and pleasure, made the Victorians a new class. By the turn of the century, they had become ‘progressives.’” 

Here, McGerr gives a complete definition of progressivism and demonstrates how the middle class at the turn-of-the-century differentiated itself from the old Victorians of the 19th century. Middle class progressives struggled to find their way in the new industrial society and found solace in their ability to define a new identity for their class. Defining their identity was a necessary precursor to pursuing reform of the rest of society. Once progressives knew who they wanted to be, they could start their crusade to create the rest of society in their own image.

“In large part, then, the attempt to reshape adult behavior centered above all on campaigns to remove the trinity of temptations—drink, prostitution, and divorce—from the social environment.” 

This quotation shows progressive reformers’ belief that a key component in changing the behaviors of adults in society—particularly those of the working and upper classes who, in their own ways, engaged in “the trinity of temptations”—was to remove access to vices. Progressives held that engaging in such vices contributed to the dissolution of social institutions at the core of American culture, like the nuclear family.

“By the early twentieth century, most reformers no longer believed that women turned to prostitution because they were innately immortal. To some observers, it was plain that inadequate incomes, among other circumstances, led young working-class women to become prostitutes. In the short run, at least they could make a better living from the ‘social evil’ than from the low-paying, legal jobs typically open to them. Economic need, it seemed, produced prostitution.” 

This quotation highlights how perspectives changed within the progressive movement around the turn-of-the-century. At the beginning of the progressive movement, many reformers believed that those who pursued “evil” in society were personally evil. As sociologists conducted research and reformers became better informed, they realized that difficult life circumstances led many people from the working classes to pursue or participate in certain vices—prostitution being merely one of them. As reformers interacted with people from the working class and saw what their lives were like, they were able to initiate an important shift in the progressive movement. Rather than solely seeking to change the individual person from within, they also began seeking to change the large-scale systems—mainly the government and business—that drove working class people toward these vices. They grew to believe that improving people’s economic situations would lead them away from the vices that progressives sought to eradicate.

“In different ways, through different activities, they had begun to push other classes toward ‘the middle-class paradise,’ toward the imaginary Boston of the future and the real Chautauqua of the present, with more safety for the home, more justice and power for women, more uniform opportunities and experiences for different classes, more external control and regulation. This was a considerable achievement in a so short a time.” 

This quotation highlights the ultimate goal of middle-class reformers’ attempts to change others and end class conflict: moving the other classes toward a middle-class paradise. McGerr’s reference to progressive reformers’ desire to turn American society into a middle-class paradise reminds readers that the progressive movement was intensely idealistic and guided by near-impossible expectations. Readers can consider the notion of a “middle-class paradise” and speculate as to why the progressive movement ultimately failed to achieve its goals.

“Washington Gladden and E. A. Ross feared a Bellamyite society in which external regulation replaced inner restraint. ‘The entire stress of the demand for reform has been laid upon changing the environment, rather than upon strengthening the character,’ Gladden observed.” 

McGerr’s description of the progressive movement often includes the other classes’ perspectives on reform efforts. Both the working and upper classes were sometimes suspicious of middle-class reformers’ efforts to change them. At times, their reform efforts seemed invasive or even controlling. Knowing that there was some hesitance from the other classes, progressive reformers began making a stronger effort to get politicians and the government to align themselves with the progressive movement so that, when necessary, they could compel people to change through new or changed laws and policies.

“The coal strike was a victory, too, for progressives. Their middle-class interests had been successfully subsumed and depoliticized in a broader ‘public’ interest, and linked effectively to the power of the state to stop class conflict. The strike was a victory as well for Theodore Roosevelt, the agent who forged and symbolized the linkage between the ‘public’ interest and state power.” 

Workers’ strikes ran rampant at the turn-of-the-century, as workers grew increasingly disillusioned with owners who cared far more about making money than they did about the wellbeing of their workers. When there was a long and hostile strike among coalmine workers in 1900, President Roosevelt intervened to mandate changes in working conditions for the workers, which aligned with middle-class progressive values. Through this period of strikes, progressive reformers came to realize that if they could recast their reforms as a matter of widespread public interest, they could mobilize state power to facilitate their changes. Ultimately, in its response to the coal miners’ strike, the “state,” or the government, showed that it supported organized labor, collective bargaining, and trade agreements in the name of maintaining stability and serving public interest. All of these practices reflected progressive values at the turn-of-the-century.

“Bigness, interdependence, limits—these realities compelled Americans to reconsider the right of businesses, large and small, to do as they pleased. Like labor relations, this was a critical issue for the middle class, a battle it had to fight.” 

In keeping with their opposition to the doctrine of individualism, progressive reformers sought to regulate the individual economic interests of American businesses. American businesses had a significant amount of control over the conditions in which individual people lived and worked. If progressives were going to successfully reform individuals and end class conflict, they had to have compliance from businesses to align with their vision for society. The battle to regulate and control businesses was one in which progressives successfully received the support of the federal government. It was also a battle that the progressives ultimately lost, because they refused to entertain the possibility of an approach that balanced individual interests and the public good.

“Shall the People Rule?” 

Presented as the Democratic platform in 1908, this question—“Shall the people rule?”—intended to imply that the American people should rule their own interests and decide how the government represents those interests. As McGerr points out, there were, however, other issues that needed resolution in order to properly answer the questions: Who are ‘the people’? Which people?

“The Robert Charles Riot reminded people of what they knew deep down: of all the social differences at the start of the twentieth century, those between black and white were the most volatile, the most difficult to control.” 

This quotation points out that though there were many conflicts in society at the turn-of-the-century—between the rich and the poor, between big businesses and the government, between wage workers and their bosses—none were as violent as the conflict between black and white people at the start of the 20th century.

“In the short run, at least, the choice for most African-Americans was to accommodate segregation, much as earlier generations had accommodated slavery. Like the slaves, twentieth-century blacks had to learn to live a double life. Inwardly, they did not have to believe in white supremacy and black inferiority, but outwardly, they had to offer deference and submissiveness. For safety’s sake, this feat of self-control had to be mastered early in life.” 

This quotation partially explains the difficulty of life in progressive society for African-Americans at the turn-of-the-century. Ever concerned about conflict between different groups, the progressive reformers wanted to put an end to the conflicts between white and black people. They believed that segregation—was the best way to keep the groups out of constant conflict. Most of the progressive reformers, though, were white, and whiteness ruled society at the time. This meant that segregation served white people, and disfranchised black people by keeping them from accessing many basic needs, civil rights, and entertainment and pleasure in society. Many white people were violent toward black people during this time; if they saw black people “out of place” in society, they might attack or even kill them. As a result, accommodation was a widespread response to segregation. Most African-Americans knew that protesting or defying segregation laws could be lethal. Accommodation was a feature of life during the progressive movement unique to African-Americans.

“The white assimilationists intended to dismantle Native American culture, dissolve the tribes, and educate Native American children in schools—all to turn the Indians into individualistic, hard-working citizens of the United States.” 

This quotation represents one of the pitfalls of the progressive movement. Progressives wanted to remake all of America into a middle-class paradise, but many did not benefit from attempts to draw all people into the middle class paradise. Native Americans already had their own long-standing cultures, traditions, languages, and homes. Attempts to dissolve the tribes and educate Native Americans in white schools were disastrous. Some progressives eventually saw that assimilation of Native Americans into progressive culture was deeply problematic, but the federal government was on the side of those in favor of assimilation. The experience of Native Americans at the hands of those reformers who wanted to turn them into individualistic, hard-working U.S. citizens is one of the best examples of why creating a “middle-class paradise” in America would never people possible; there would always be people in society who would be harmed, rather than helped.  

“‘We are on the way—towards what?’ Sherwood Anderson wondered. ‘How many Americans want to go—but where do they want to go?’” 

Sherwood Anderson, an American ad man-turned-writer, saw a problem in the progressive movement that many other writers, artists, and intellectuals in the early 1900s also saw: Americans were certainly making progress, but it was unclear where this progress was leading them. Americans had more technology, opportunities for instant communication, commercial amusements, mobility, and wealth than ever before, but Anderson saw that the systems put in place by progressives in order to achieve these affordances was stifling people—making them feel confined and trapped.

“[…] Matty had become a symbol for millions. By his example, he showed Americans that they could reconcile old values with new enjoyments.” 

The baseball player Christy Mathewson’s lifestyle debunked a myth of the progressive movement for many Americans in the early 20th century. Progressives wanted Americans to believe that the pursuit of pleasure was a danger to the order of society, but Mathewson—an educated, upstanding Victorian—showed that it was possible to hold fast to progressive values alongside pursuing certain pleasures in life. 

“Nevertheless, commercial amusements raised a disturbing possibility for progressive America: perhaps social segregation was unnecessary and undesirable.” 

The availability of new commercial amusements in the early 1900s—amusement parks, movie theatres, vaudeville shows, and professional athletic events—allowed Americans of different classes and races to congregate in the same places at the same times, and around the same relaxing, exciting, and pleasurable activities. Many of the new commercial amusements allowed people from minority groups—African-American men and Eastern European immigrants, for example—to find fame and fortune in American society for the first time. The leveling of boundaries accomplished through this greater access to commercial amusements threatened the order that progressive reformers felt they had given to society by implementing segregation. They feared that if society as a whole came to realize that social segregation was no longer necessary, disruption of the order was forthcoming. 

“Instead of interruption, World War I brought the extraordinary culmination of the progressive movement. U.S. participation in the Great War gave progressives their ‘heart’s desire’—the best opportunity they ever had to remake the nation along progressive lines.” 

This quotation highlights the role of World War I in advancing, but ultimately dooming, the progressive movement in 1910s American society. The government could not win the war without the support of all of the country’s citizens; winning the war depended on the American people setting aside their conflicts and uniting across race and class boundaries. Though many citizens willingly engaged in this work, the war was also a good excuse for the federal government to heavily intervene into many aspects of individual Americans’ lives in order to gain the support and resources the country needed to fight the war. Progressives felt that greater governmental control over society meant the enforcement of progressive values. Though the country seemed progressive when the war ended, many citizens resented that they were compelled to unite with people who were different, give up their resources and pleasures to support the war effort, and were vexed with high taxes and financial troubles. At this time, the country wholeheartedly rebelled against the progressive movement; as it was no longer popular, it stopped receiving support from politicians and the federal government. The progressive movement’s ending was in the making during World War I. 

“‘[W]e must dissipate the erroneous notion that the war has radically changed the average person’s ideals and mode of life,’ one observer cautioned. ‘He merely lives the life he has lived. In spite of much shouting and of many programs there are no signs of the creation of a new social order or of an effective quickened sense of humanity.’” 

At the end of World War I, progressives believed that progressivism had won in American government and society. Because the federal government compelled all Americans to comply with progressive values and behaviors in the interest of sustaining a successful war effort, progressives believed that Americans had genuinely adopted the progressive mindset. After the war, as this observer notes, it became clear that progressive efforts during the war had not “radically changed” individual Americans. In fact, many Americans were eager to dispense with progressive values and behaviors as soon as they were no longer compelled to abide by them. 

“The reformers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were prepared to use a host of coercive and manipulative practices in order to transform diverse Americans into middle-class people.” 

At the conclusion of his book, McGerr highlights a covert aspect of progressive reform: Progressive reformers were not above coercing and manipulating Americans into abiding by middle-class values and behaviors. The public face of the progressive movement preached a virtuous commitment to creating a better society for everyone. McGerr’s description of some of progressive reformers’ more coercive and manipulative tactics reminds readers that, at the end of the day, the main goal of progressive reform was to remake America in the image of the middle class.