A Fierce Discontent
From The Mason Historiographiki
Michael McGerr. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870–1920. New York: Free Press, 2003. xvi, 395 pp. $30.00, ISBN 0-684-85975-0.
In A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920, historian Michael McGerr has crafted a compelling analysis of the rapid social and cultural changes occurring in America at the turn of the century. Focusing on the Progressive views on the individual, society, gender, and pleasure, McGerr targets what he considers the “four quintessential progressive battles: to change other people; to end class conflict; to control big business; and to segregate society”(xv). These questions are addressed in order in the second section of the book, buttressed with useful context explaining the catalyzing factors of these progressive behaviors and their outcomes.
The primary theme that binds the sections together and forms the crux of McGerr’s analysis is the question of the changing importance of individualism. Progressives, in contrast to their Victorian parents and grandparents, saw individualism as a characteristic that needed to be altered in order for society to be stable and productive in the emerging industrial economy. Whereas “in the hands of the upper ten, individualism became an excuse for complete autonomy, a legitimization of indulgence and inequality; and a rationalization of the troubling national status quo”(56), individualism prompted farmers to skimp on education for their children and for the tension within working-class immigrant families.
Though McGerr seeks to examine individualism and Progressivism through the multiple lenses of class, race, ethnicity, and gender, his emphasis on class is the most prominent. In the analysis, class becomes a factor that influences all the others to the most notable degree. Specifically, McGerr states that “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 many signs of friction in late nineteenth-century America”(28). These frictions of course are products of the new industrialized economy such as urbanization, immigration, and ethnic and gender mixing that created the social problems the Progressives sought to rectify.
Mechanism of Progressive change can be broken down into two primary categories: the “Social Gospel” and government regulation which both attempted to change the lifestyle and working habits of Americans. The “Social Gospel,” very active at the grassroots level, gave rise to the settlement house movement which sought to improve quality of life for the working-class, primarily women and children. Through an emphasis on education and children’s well-being (kindergarten and day care, for example), the grassroots workers became active in state regulatory affairs related to labor laws, such as the eight-hour day, abolition of child labor, and later, prohibition. Their influence then prompted federal legislation, elevating the Progressive platform to the national level to reshape behavior on a larger scale.
Amy Lechner, Fall 2007
Michael McGerr’s A Fierce Discontent is an accessible, solidly-argued account of the Progressive Movement in America. Beyond this, the writing style is elegant and intelligent with narrative devices that are both engaging and highly useful. In particular, McGerr starts each chapter with a short story focused on the experience of a single individual—whether it is Theodore Roosevelt greeting the mixed masses (182) or Ann Bassett, a rancher, confronting big business (147)—that encapsulates a particular issue of Progressivism. While arguably these vignettes may be a bit too contrived and convenient, they are so clever and well-written that the reader is likely to forgive or overlook that aspect. Overall, the writing and organization of argument are the strongest features of A Fierce Discontent. McGerr manages to make complicated issues such as organized labor and big business and the multiple arguments and outcomes that accompanied them comprehensive and manageable for readers who would ordinarily be more interested in cultural or women’s history.
McGerr’s primary weakness is his uneven treatment of race as compared to gender and class. Race barely appears until page 130, whereas class and gender, most especially women, are addressed from the first chapters. Throughout, it becomes clear that McGerr believes that changes were based on class awareness and race was an incidental factor. Further, McGerr pays considerable attention to women’s activism and later, feminism. Nowhere, though, do we read about any black activists working for change during the Progressive period. Work has been done on the topic, especially as related to the black migration to northern cities (which is mentioned), but it is not reflected here.
Finally, a reader must consider the role of Theodore Roosevelt in the Progressive movement as portrayed in A Fierce Discontent. McGerr clearly places Roosevelt in the Progressive camp from the start—“A Fierce Content” is quoted from Roosevelt in the opening of the book. Further, McGerr inserts Roosevelt at various points in the narrative to suggest a Progressive stance, for example, facing down J.P. Morgan over the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (157). However to say that Roosevelt disdained the individualism of the upper ten like the Progressives and therefore clamped down on big business as a result is an overstatement and not a clear enough link to Progressivism. McGerr does not present Roosevelt’s views on the role of women, for example, as it would likely disrupt his succinct categorization of Roosevelt as a Progressive. At least McGerr is direct with this important question, but answers it unsatisfactorily by being imprudently selective in his examples and too obvious is his exclusions.
A Fierce Discontent culminates in an analysis of the challenges the new consumer, leisure lifestyles brought to Progressivism. Here, McGerr illustrates how the compression of time and space through the invention of the automobile and telephone and the rise of leisure that mixed classes and sexes led to the demise of the Progressive movement in America. McGerr argues that Progressivism was an “ideology of the center” that was a “blend of reworked domesticity, restrained pleasure, antiindividualism, association, and state power” (71) that found its limits in an unrestrained culture of movies and entertainment. The new leisure culture offered challenges so complex that they required the consensus Progressives could not find. As questions of race, class, and gender became increasingly multi-faceted as they were marketed, consumed, and subverted in uncontrollable environments, their meanings defied the Progressive “ideology of the center.” Further in the face of changing national imperatives in a world at war, both grassroots activists and federal legislators found more important causes and were forced to abandon the middle-class utopia central to the Progressive mindset.
--Alechne1 15:19, 21 Aug 2007 (EDT)
Rebecca Adams, Spring 2016
In A Fierce Discontent, Michael McGerr examines the Progressive movement in the United States that gained traction after the Civil War and declined as a result of World War I. In his work he examines four major progressive battles throughout this era: to change other people, to control big business, to end class conflict and to segregate society. Progressives hoped to transform Americans, to make them more like themselves, middle class, by regulating entertainment, work, and pleasure, and ensuring proper roles for men and women. They believed that if everyone acted more like the middle class then the country would become a paradise or utopia.
The most thought provoking of the progressive goals was their desire to segregate society. According to McGerr, segregating society was the dark side of the Progressive agenda. Progressives believed that segregation helped prevent chaos or unrest that would inevitably occur if the races were not separated. Despite the fact that progressives championed the idea of “association” they also believed in segregation as a way to keep the United States safe. Progressives believed that segregation was necessary in order for them to carry on their fundamental project of transforming people. Segregation was a better alternative to race riots and conflicts causing chaos and death- or so they thought.
Stephanie Seal Walters, Spring 2016
According to Michael McGerr, the Progressive Era caused some of the longest lasting political effects in American history--most of which are still grappled with in the twenty-first century. The initial goal of the progressives--to create a political, cultural, and social world as close to a Utopia as possible--brought more power to the middle classes. The different movements brought by suffragettes, coal miners, Jane Addams, Andrew Carnegie, and Cary Nation meant that the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a time of constant reform and middle class America became increasingly concerned on how to shape the world around them (xiv). McGerr argues that "progressivism was a radical movement, though not by the common measures of economic and political radicalism. More influenced by socialism than they liked to admit, progressives nevertheless shied away from a fundamental restructuring of the capitalist economy.(xv)"
In A Fierce Discontent McGerr divides his book into four battles that were constantly fought by Progressives. The first battle was the attempt "to change other people." These types of changes ranged from women's rights, to philanthropy, to prohibition--all of which sought to make Americans better citizens. According to progressive thought, good citizens were good people who did not partake of too much (especially alcohol), and in turn used their time to create a better society. The second and third battles "to end class conflict" and to "control big business" were fought on similar battlefields. Pennsylvania coal miners fought for better rights, better work conditions, and more recognition from their bosses. Similarly, people like Jane Addams helped to secure laws that better protected working immigrants from factory house horror stories.
However, the final battle of A Fierce Discontent is the most important section of the book--"to segregate society." In what appears to be paradoxical, progressives who fought to make the lives of citizens and new immigrants better also fought to keep laws such as Jim Crow. Progressives believed that society should be segregated for a variety of reasons, however the most pressing being an attempt to keep riots, fights, and chaos away from America's towns and cities. Progressives did not believe that blacks and whites could ever be able to reconcile cultural differences and it was better for everyone to remain separated.
McGerr concludes that World War I brought forth an official end to the Progressive Era. After the Russian Revolution, Americans became fearful of communism and began to reject what they previously viewed as "utopia." Americans viewed communism as a monster that could be created out of extreme progressivism. However, McGerr reveals that the political theater created by the Progressive movement is still important to modern politics.