On a Fierce Discontent

This is a really interesting book on the progressive movement of the early 20th century. McGerr’s argument is ultimately that the progressive movement, at its core, was the attempt to spread Anglo-middle class values and, in the process, transform American society. While their political and economic policies are interesting, McGerr argues that these facets were hardly “radical” (although they were influenced by late-nineteenth century socialism). What made progressives so radical was their attempt to reform all “other” social classes. Of course, there were working-class and elite progressives, but the bulk of their power lay in the middle class.

McGerr also argues that the progressive movement was the result of crises that collapsed “Victorian” American life (can we even call them “Victorian” if Victoria wasn’t Queen of the United States?). The “Victorians” of the late nineteenth-century United States perpetually asked themselves difficult questions about the role of the state, as well as about the role of individual and society. They overcame this crisis with an answer: It was their responsibility as reasonably well-off citizens to create a system that benefited (white) Americans. As a result, they developed a crusade based around an enormous political agenda. They sought to

• Take control of big business
• Ameliorate poverty
• “Purify” politics
• Transform gender relations
• Regenerate the home
• Discipline leisure and pleasure (especially with regard to alcohol consumption)
• Establish racial segregation

All of these seem laudable today, except the latter two, the last of which must be seen as a moral crime.

Moreover, the progressive movement was a generational battle. Younger Americans broke away from the pre-industrial values of their parents and sought to produce something equitable for all (white) Americans based around the middle class standards that they so deeply savored. Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio comes to mind as a great book for seeing some of these battles in the case of a small town, while John Dos Passos’s The 42nd Parallel permits us to see some of the larger debates of radicalism at play.

What’s perhaps most interesting about the progressive movement is that they were effectively successful on all of these fronts by the First World War. The wartime administration of Woodrow Wilson allowed them to produce the last of their reforms. Women were granted the right to vote in 1919, and alcohol was prohibited in 1920. Although some of these are less tangible, the level of squalor and misery faced by Americans at least appeared less prominent by 1920. However, the “climax of Progressivism” was also its end—it did not survive the Wilson administration. A series of crises including labor strikes, race riots, runaway inflation, and the First Red Scare forced Americans to question whether the progressive movement was worth the effort after all.

McGerr makes the case that Americans are far more skeptical of large reform thanks to the excesses of the progressive movement, liberal Americans attempted to rectify the Progressives’ racial failures (or in their view, successes) with Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, while many movement conservatives sought to wholly roll back the progressive movement’s reforms under the Reagan Revolution which, in my view, was much long-lasting than McGerr is willing to give credit for (I’d argue that the general politics of Reagan remained hegemonic on the right, and even the center, until the GOP jettisoned the whole program in 2016).

The ultimately weakness here is that, in my view, McGerr overstates his case. Yes, it’s true that progressives sought to reshape the very face of American society but, should he be taken at face value, I would assume that almost nothing remained of earlier American culture and society. This is far from the case, and the very debates the progressives participated in were parts of much longer historical processes. As a result, McGerr’s boldness—even audacity—must be taken with a grain of salt, but it is good historical analysis.