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A FIERCE DISCONTENT
With America's current and ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor and the constant threat of the disappearance of the middle class, the Progressive Era stands out as a time when the middle class had enough influence on the country to start its own revolution. Before the Progressive Era most Americans lived on farms, working from before sunrise to after sundown every day except Sunday with tools that had changed very little for centuries. Just three decades later, America was utterly transformed into a diverse, urban, affluent, leisure-obsessed, teeming multitude. This explosive change was accompanied by extraordinary public-spiritedness as reformers--frightened by class conflict and the breakdown of gender relations--abandoned their traditional faith in individualism and embarked on a crusade to remake other Americans in their own image.
The progressives redefined the role of women, rewrote the rules of politics, banned the sale of alcohol, revolutionized marriage, and eventually whipped the nation into a frenzy for joining World War I. These colorful, ambitious battles changed the face of American culture and politics and established the modern liberal pledge to use government power in the name of broad social good. But the progressives, unable to deliver on all of their promises, soon discovered that Americans retained a powerful commitment to individual freedom. Ironically, the progressive movement helped reestablish the power of conservatism and ensured that America would never be wholly liberal or conservative for generations to come.
Michael McGerr's A Fierce Discontent recreates a time of unprecedented turbulence and unending fascination, showing the first American middle-class revolution. Far bolder than the New Deal of FDR or the New Frontier of JFK, the Progressive Era was a time when everything was up for grabs and perfection beckoned.
The progressives redefined the role of women, rewrote the rules of politics, banned the sale of alcohol, revolutionized marriage, and eventually whipped the nation into a frenzy for joining World War I. These colorful, ambitious battles changed the face of American culture and politics and established the modern liberal pledge to use government power in the name of broad social good. But the progressives, unable to deliver on all of their promises, soon discovered that Americans retained a powerful commitment to individual freedom. Ironically, the progressive movement helped reestablish the power of conservatism and ensured that America would never be wholly liberal or conservative for generations to come.
Michael McGerr's A Fierce Discontent recreates a time of unprecedented turbulence and unending fascination, showing the first American middle-class revolution. Far bolder than the New Deal of FDR or the New Frontier of JFK, the Progressive Era was a time when everything was up for grabs and perfection beckoned.
395 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2003
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About the author
Michael E. McGerr
11 books5 followersMichael McGerr is an American historian working at Indiana University in the History Department, a unit of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 2005 he was appointed the Paul V. McNutt Professor of American History, an endowed professorship at Indiana University. In his career, Michael McGerr has worked at MIT, Yale and Indiana University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
May 6, 2021
We live in a politically disappointing time. No matter what our politics, the start of the twenty-first century is not what we hoped it would be. … For the handful of American radicals, the promise of the “Movement” of the 1960s is long gone: corporate America still stands powerful and the American “empire” looms larger than ever around the world. Despite sex scandals, financial scandals, and the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history, politics and government fail to engage the sustained interest of most Americans.
Michael McGerr in A Fierce Discontent. (page xiii)
This is an account of the Progressive Era in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the quote above states, the author tries to connect this era with our current failed political environment.
The author structures this book by dividing the population into three distinct groups. The first group are the wealthy. He labels these as the top ten percent, although he acknowledges that they numbered less than ten percent of the population. These were the “Gilded” of the Gilded Age. They were identified as those worshipping the laissez-faire economics that had dominated the economic policy of the country to this time. They had a set of values very different from the rest of Americans. The author describes their political philosophy as “individualism”.
The second group are the working poor and farmers. These people were the most populated group. They were identified as having a political philosophy of “mutualism”. This took the form of mutually supporting each other, for example, through unions. “Mutualism” had grown out of the sense of shared backgrounds (in the case of immigrants) and circumstances (in the case of workers).
The third group is the middle class — those people who did not identify with either of the other two groups. Much of the middle class, from which the progressives of this era had lived, were dissatisfied with their future. Brought up in a society that revere individualism, they saw the economic, political and cultural differences between the classes generated by industrial capitalism. As they began to recognize and condemn this individualism, a powerful, new force of progressivism was unleashed.
“In some ways, the Progressive Era emerged from a middle class that could not cope with its own affluence.” (Page 42)
The idea of “association” rose as progressives recognized that our "disorganized competitive life” needed to become one of cooperation and inter-dependencies. Here it differed also from the “mutualism” of the working class and farmers. “Association” recognized the differences between classes and it meant crossing the class lines to “bring together people of diverse identities and conditions.”
This book is not a chronological history of the period. It is more of a continuous essay on the issues, conflicts and policies of the time. The progressives battled each other as to the best approach. There were those who thought it best to just leave the laissez-faire policy in place. It had produced a very productive economy that resulted in many benefits for many people. At the other extreme were those favoring a socialist approach by taking over ownership of the railroads and other public utilities. There was much talk of a life described in Edward Bellamy’s best-selling novel Looking Backward, a utopian novel loved by many socialists. Among many progressives neither one of these approaches took much root.
Most Americans were unwilling to leave these evils undisturbed. In their attack on the economic conditions, big business, corporations and monopolies bore the blame. Progressives rejected the laissez-faire and socialism options. They turned instead to anti-trust and regulation. The difference was that unlike anti-trust, regulation accepted the existence of large businesses, but tried to control their behavior. An additional option was to tax these businesses and return some of their profits to the communities. All these approaches encountered resistance and difficulties, but the fear of unrestrained corporate growth created a mandate for change.
It is pointed out that progressives sought more than just the reform of business practices. There were also efforts to reform individuals. The prohibition movement was the prime example of this, but they also took on the fight against brothels and divorce. There was a thought that by changing the environment that it would end drunkenness. This took the form of better sanitation, ventilation, and nutrition. They saw the character flaws of the urban poor as the result of “unwholesome food, bad air, debilitating climate, and other preventable conditions.”
Given that much of my recent reading in history has been about racism I was anxious to see what this book about the Progressive Era had to say on the subject. It took the author 200 pages to get to it but he devotes a chapter to segregation. Mostly, as expected, this involved the segregation of blacks. Progressives had displayed some willingness to address segregation, but mainly regarding women and workers. They were interested in class differences, not race differences. They saw segregation as an answer to the lynching and other terrorist acts inflicted on Black Americans during this time. They saw segregation given legal grounds especially with the 1896 Supreme Count decision in Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that separate but equal was the law of the land. It would take another 60 years before the courts ruled that separate was not equal.
Although they were most willing to attack problems dealing with gender, class and the economy, they showed little concern over race. The author states this showed a failure of imagination and nerve. Regarding this era of segregation their acceptance of segregation contradicted their belief in the idea of “association”.
“Progressives did much to ameliorate class conflict over the course of the twentieth century: in exchange for the short-term stabilization of racial conflict in the 1900s and 1910s, they may have made race relations worse over the long term.” (Page 215)
Following World War I which did see some progressive ideas implemented —women’s right to vote, an income tax, direct election of Senators, and a more participatory political process — the Republican administrations of Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover were allowed to pursue a policy of individualism and laissez-faire, gut the hated income tax, ignore organized labor and the poor, and allowed big business to dominate government policy. This was the result, at least in part, by the public’s emphasis on individual freedom and the pursuit of pleasure. This was most apparent in the young.
In the preface the author states:
It is the argument of this book that progressivism created much of our contemporary political predicament. (Page xiv)
In the final chapter, “Conclusion”, the author tries to make his case. He points out that the personal transformation attempted by the Progressives of this era created a political dispensation toward the rights for personal, individual freedom. For instance, FDR, thought of as a progressive, repealed prohibition as one of his first acts. His goals of government were to make the country prosperous so that most Americans were free to pursue pleasure and indulge in the individual gratification of consumerism.
“The task of government was to make sure Americans could afford pleasure, and then get out of the way.” (Page 317)
LBJ’s “Great Society” made dramatic efforts to end segregation, but there were no efforts to dismantle corporations. He sought to end the culture and practice of segregation and to relieve poverty, but the antiwar demonstrations and subsequent social chaos helped rehabilitate conservatism.
The New Right with its celebration of individual freedom and the condemnation of Big Government gave rise to the eventual Reagan Revolution that is so worshipped by conservatives these days. How much of that is the fault of the Progressives at the turn of the twentieth century, the result of the New Deal, and the faults of LBJ’s “Great Society” is still an open question for me.
I still would recommend this book for its deep discussion of the issues that created and drove the early progressives of this country. Hopefully there are lessons here for the new generation of proponents for a better America.
December 30, 2011
A good basic introduction to the era. I found interesting his discussion of the way WWI aided progressivism by giving the federal government unprecedented powers to regulate society and business. I thought McGerr had some unusual (to me anyway) perspectives that I don't recall reading about elsewhere. He believes that progressives promoted segregation.
“True to their mission to create a safe society for themselves and their children, the progressives turned to segregation as a way to halt dangerous social conflict that could not otherwise be stopped.” 183
“True to their mission to create a safe society for themselves and their children, the progressives turned to segregation as a way to halt dangerous social conflict that could not otherwise be stopped.” 183
December 31, 2024
A 2003 work from Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent sets out to explain the rise of fall of American Progressivism and the “Progressive Era,” spanning roughly from 1900 to 1920. McGerr makes the now familiar argument that Progressivism was the product of a “crusading middle class,” one which “offered the promise of utopianism” and its inevitable letdown (xiv). Progressivism was an attempt by the American white Protestant middle-class to transform the human nature of all other social classes in the American landscape, rich and poor alike (xv). While true, McGerr carries this even farther: the death of Progressivism as a utopian movement in the fires of WWI led to a general sense of constraint on post-Progressive Era movements, “boundaries around their aspirations” set by the Progressive failure (xvi).
At the century’s end, McGerr makes the argument that the social habits of the elite and the working class alike in American society repelled the “respectable Victorians” of the American middle-class, leading to a sense of urgency in the Progressive mission. It was the hubris, greed, and open plutocracy of American elites that “would repel the middle class enough to turn respectable Victorians into radicals and set off the progressive explosion” (13). By contrast to both the elites and the middle-class, the American working class by held together by a “public culture…[of] mutualism taught at home,” which included hints of radicalism and class struggle in organizations like labour unions which made the Progressive middle-class uncomfortable (21). Between these two classes, the Progressive middle-class constituted a “radical center.” Tellingly, McGerr cleaves the Populist movement of the People’s Party from the Progressive Era, directly challenging the conclusions of the work of Charles Postel, who would later conclude the opposite.
The middle-class, coming to embrace Progressivism, saw this in itself. Unable “to cope with its own affluence,” the Progressive middle-class concluded a “sexual peace treaty” between the genders, abandoned Victorian “ascetic discipline,” and focused more on physical fitness. Ideologically, they turned to the Social Gospel and ideas of “association” to combat elitist individualism and more radical philosophies of class struggle. These ideas found their zenith in the Progressive turn towards and willing to embrace state-power and regulation in a way not yet seen in American political history, ignoring the Populists. McGerr emphasizes that Progressivism was an inherently ambiguous and contradictory ideology which often had different meanings or focuses depending upon the activist or organization (42-71). The ideological strength of the Progressive middle-class was held in an environmental philosophy which admitted the capacity of human nature to change in a malleable way (80-81). Fueled by an emotional, evangelical (yet still mainstream) Protestantism, the Progressives sought to regulate pleasure and alter masculine behavior through moral campaigns targeting alcohol, prostitution, and divorce (83-85). Although reluctant to engage with farmers due to a romanticized view of rural life (and likely remembering the Populist movement, again ignored by McGerr), the Progressives targeted the upper class for taxation as a method of moral regulation and workers for education and improvement of their material environments (97-113).
The Progressive particularly targeted class conflict as a vice of modern society to be stamped out. Rather than overthrowing it (and here McGerr is actively excluding Progressives like Henry Demarest Lloyd), the Progressive sought to change the nature of wage-labour. Political moderates, pushed by Progressives, began to embrace business unionism and the “state-sanctioned acceptance of organized labor, collective bargaining, and trade agreements” (125). Some Progressive-influenced businessmen began to embrace welfare capitalism and managerial Taylorism as an antidote to powerful unions (126-129). Progressive attempts to transform labor, inspired by notions of pre-industrial societal organization, did not stop labor radicalism and challenges to Progressivism in the form of the IWW and radical wing of the Socialist Party (138-145).
Ideas of economic regulation during the Progressive Era took five main forms: traditional laissez-faire relations, socialism, antitrust legislation, general regulation, and compensation. Laissez-faire losing its lustre and socialism generally off the table, antitrust legislation and general regulation became the dominant forms of economic approach. Well-known are the popular antitrust efforts against Northern Securities and Standard Oil (149-160). Regulation succeeded largely in the food and drugs sphere, while the perceived success of conservation efforts ignored the interests of bis business on both sides (160-169).
According to McGerr, Progressives embraced segregation as a “shield,” an example of “a sense of realism and an underlying pessimism in the middle-class” (183). They recognized the instability of the New South, with the cultural advances of the “New Negroes” stifled by an even more racist and less tolerant white population unrestrained by planter paternalism (186). Jane Addams was relatively unique as a Progressive Era activist for her anti-racialism, which would prove similar in her stand against war (196). Progressive attitudes towards American Indians was somewhat genuinely progressive for its time, with a romanticized respect for indigenous culture leading to anti-assimilationism and a general attitude towards “improvement, not transformation,” but this was undermined by general government policy under Theodore Roosevelt and his successors (202-209). Segregation was a contradiction in the Progressive belief in association, but McGerr still provides too much leeway. He writes as if Progressive complicity in racism was reluctant, and for some it was, but for many it was a conscious hatred and belief in white supremacy as virulent (if more muted) as the South.
The 1910s, with technological advancements in mobility and rising racial activism, “epitomized the promise of liberation” (221). The decade was the greatest challenge to Progressivism, challenging segregation and confinement, embracing new understandings of pleasure, in a way that Progressivism would ultimately find itself unable to counter (224-250).
WWI “brought the extraordinary culmination of the progressive movement,” with unprecedented expansion in state-power and regulation, as well as repressive legislation against radicalism and anti-war efforts (280-289). Through Americanization and women’s rights, Progressive economic and political causes continued to advance during the war (291-296). However, “the war effort had not achieved a dramatic remaking of the population” as the Progressives had hoped and predicted (300). Instead, the postwar period found the middle-class drawn away from Progressivism over new concerns about “high cost of living,” a new discourse on the American political landscape (303-304). Additionally, the silence of Progressives during the First Red Scare lead to the movement’s utter demise, with brief attempts at revival in a more class-based, left-wing form with the La Follette family ultimately failing to bring anything to the table (308). The Republican administrations of the 1920s gutted economic regulation won by the Progressive, while remaining Progressives actually opposed the New Deal of the 1930s for its focus on government expansion and state-power without any moral or personal transformation of American society. The New Deal was too far in state-power, but far too little in its pragmatism, for the remaining Progressives (316-317).
At the century’s end, McGerr makes the argument that the social habits of the elite and the working class alike in American society repelled the “respectable Victorians” of the American middle-class, leading to a sense of urgency in the Progressive mission. It was the hubris, greed, and open plutocracy of American elites that “would repel the middle class enough to turn respectable Victorians into radicals and set off the progressive explosion” (13). By contrast to both the elites and the middle-class, the American working class by held together by a “public culture…[of] mutualism taught at home,” which included hints of radicalism and class struggle in organizations like labour unions which made the Progressive middle-class uncomfortable (21). Between these two classes, the Progressive middle-class constituted a “radical center.” Tellingly, McGerr cleaves the Populist movement of the People’s Party from the Progressive Era, directly challenging the conclusions of the work of Charles Postel, who would later conclude the opposite.
The middle-class, coming to embrace Progressivism, saw this in itself. Unable “to cope with its own affluence,” the Progressive middle-class concluded a “sexual peace treaty” between the genders, abandoned Victorian “ascetic discipline,” and focused more on physical fitness. Ideologically, they turned to the Social Gospel and ideas of “association” to combat elitist individualism and more radical philosophies of class struggle. These ideas found their zenith in the Progressive turn towards and willing to embrace state-power and regulation in a way not yet seen in American political history, ignoring the Populists. McGerr emphasizes that Progressivism was an inherently ambiguous and contradictory ideology which often had different meanings or focuses depending upon the activist or organization (42-71). The ideological strength of the Progressive middle-class was held in an environmental philosophy which admitted the capacity of human nature to change in a malleable way (80-81). Fueled by an emotional, evangelical (yet still mainstream) Protestantism, the Progressives sought to regulate pleasure and alter masculine behavior through moral campaigns targeting alcohol, prostitution, and divorce (83-85). Although reluctant to engage with farmers due to a romanticized view of rural life (and likely remembering the Populist movement, again ignored by McGerr), the Progressives targeted the upper class for taxation as a method of moral regulation and workers for education and improvement of their material environments (97-113).
The Progressive particularly targeted class conflict as a vice of modern society to be stamped out. Rather than overthrowing it (and here McGerr is actively excluding Progressives like Henry Demarest Lloyd), the Progressive sought to change the nature of wage-labour. Political moderates, pushed by Progressives, began to embrace business unionism and the “state-sanctioned acceptance of organized labor, collective bargaining, and trade agreements” (125). Some Progressive-influenced businessmen began to embrace welfare capitalism and managerial Taylorism as an antidote to powerful unions (126-129). Progressive attempts to transform labor, inspired by notions of pre-industrial societal organization, did not stop labor radicalism and challenges to Progressivism in the form of the IWW and radical wing of the Socialist Party (138-145).
Ideas of economic regulation during the Progressive Era took five main forms: traditional laissez-faire relations, socialism, antitrust legislation, general regulation, and compensation. Laissez-faire losing its lustre and socialism generally off the table, antitrust legislation and general regulation became the dominant forms of economic approach. Well-known are the popular antitrust efforts against Northern Securities and Standard Oil (149-160). Regulation succeeded largely in the food and drugs sphere, while the perceived success of conservation efforts ignored the interests of bis business on both sides (160-169).
According to McGerr, Progressives embraced segregation as a “shield,” an example of “a sense of realism and an underlying pessimism in the middle-class” (183). They recognized the instability of the New South, with the cultural advances of the “New Negroes” stifled by an even more racist and less tolerant white population unrestrained by planter paternalism (186). Jane Addams was relatively unique as a Progressive Era activist for her anti-racialism, which would prove similar in her stand against war (196). Progressive attitudes towards American Indians was somewhat genuinely progressive for its time, with a romanticized respect for indigenous culture leading to anti-assimilationism and a general attitude towards “improvement, not transformation,” but this was undermined by general government policy under Theodore Roosevelt and his successors (202-209). Segregation was a contradiction in the Progressive belief in association, but McGerr still provides too much leeway. He writes as if Progressive complicity in racism was reluctant, and for some it was, but for many it was a conscious hatred and belief in white supremacy as virulent (if more muted) as the South.
The 1910s, with technological advancements in mobility and rising racial activism, “epitomized the promise of liberation” (221). The decade was the greatest challenge to Progressivism, challenging segregation and confinement, embracing new understandings of pleasure, in a way that Progressivism would ultimately find itself unable to counter (224-250).
WWI “brought the extraordinary culmination of the progressive movement,” with unprecedented expansion in state-power and regulation, as well as repressive legislation against radicalism and anti-war efforts (280-289). Through Americanization and women’s rights, Progressive economic and political causes continued to advance during the war (291-296). However, “the war effort had not achieved a dramatic remaking of the population” as the Progressives had hoped and predicted (300). Instead, the postwar period found the middle-class drawn away from Progressivism over new concerns about “high cost of living,” a new discourse on the American political landscape (303-304). Additionally, the silence of Progressives during the First Red Scare lead to the movement’s utter demise, with brief attempts at revival in a more class-based, left-wing form with the La Follette family ultimately failing to bring anything to the table (308). The Republican administrations of the 1920s gutted economic regulation won by the Progressive, while remaining Progressives actually opposed the New Deal of the 1930s for its focus on government expansion and state-power without any moral or personal transformation of American society. The New Deal was too far in state-power, but far too little in its pragmatism, for the remaining Progressives (316-317).
July 21, 2021
McGerr writes a sweeping history of the progressive movement 1870 - 1920. It was all very interesting, but it was hard to understand how he could avoid William Jennings Bryan and the multiple religious movements of the time. (I picked up the McGerr's book in order to get a different perspective on Bryan, which I did, but only tangentially.) Generally he builds a case for a generations long mood among the American middle class that wanted to make things right, to shape their world against the individualist ideologies of the wealthiest classes, and have everyone enjoy the decency of (white/Anglo) civilization. Other than a reaction to inordinate wealth, McGerr doesn't cover how progressivism came to be a non-individualist, but power of the state to re-ignite competition lost to big trusts, impulse as the mode to solve national problems. He does do a fine job of showing how the progressives overreached during the Wilson administration, especially with the crisis of the war giving cover for their schemes. He connects segregation directly to the progressive movement, which was a surprise to me; yet, as a begrudging solution to a supposedly intractable, distant problem, it does seem to fit. The idea that eugenics was specifically progressive is under convincing. Unsurprisingly, prohibition was a progressive effort. On the other hand more direct democracy, the federal reserve system, women's right to vote, and a few other truly progressive things have remained and are basically taken for granted now.
December 12, 2012
This is a fantastic survey of an important historical era, as well as a remarkable synthesis - interesting, informative, and easy to read. The resonance of this time in American history with our contemporary political, economic, and social situations is both striking and useful. I would highly recommend this book.
December 2, 2020
A masterfully written work covering one of the most important, vital, and divisive periods in United States history.
What I most admired about Professor McGerr’s approach was how extensively he used first-person information about specific people to flesh out how they experienced the many problems, as well as opportunities, of the Progressive Era.
The period from the late 19th century through 1920 was, in many respects, similar to our own time. Extreme individualism permeated American culture, and it was one of the reasons why the majority of citizens had such a difficult time addressing such pressing issues as extreme income and wealth inequality, significant poverty in both rural and urban America, and successive recessions and depressions which, in a society without any safety nets, had devastating consequences for many.
This era takes its name from those who responded to the critical issues of the day by first exposing the truth about industrial concentrations, extensive economic and political corruption at the state and local levels, and the appalling living conditions of workers and tenement dwellers, and then, second, by responding to these problems with a wide variety of proposals and programs.
Journalists played a key role in all of this, and they together earned the label of being “muckrakers,” those who dared to rake up and expose the rancidness that flourished in business and in politics. Through their efforts, many citizens became outraged and several politicians took notice, principal among them Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. These reformers, who became known as Progressives, worked together to clean up corruption in politics, regulate business operations that worked to the disadvantage of the people — such as the railroad and steel magnates that set prices that harmed farmers trying to get their goods to distant markets — set standards for safe working conditions and limiting the hours of labor permitted for women and children, introducing such political reforms as the recall, referendum and the initiative, changing the election of the Senate from the decision of the separate states to a popular vote, and championing the right of the suffrage for women.
Their accomplishments were many, but not all lasted.
The great bane of this era was the aftermath of the Wilson administration decision to enter the great European War that had begun in 1914. Wilson, who had successfully kept the US out of that war for three years, succumbed to public pressure after the Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, including the sinking of passenger liners. (What we now know, by the way, and which the British absolutely denied at the time, is that Britain was sending arms and munitions in the holds of passenger ships in the hopes of evading the German submarine blockade, all the while imposing a naval blockade against the importation of needed goods — including vital foodstuffs — by the Germans.)
After the war ended, the following year — 1919 — was marked by over 2,000 strikes, many of them degenerating into violence, as well as widely-induced terror as the result of anarchist bombs that were sent through the post to prominent targets. The strikes were occasioned by how big business rapidly backed away from the many gains won during the war by the workers — including union consultation in decisions, full employment efforts, higher wages and shorter working hours.
Because of these strikes and the two waves of attempted bombings, the average citizen became terrified that the same radicalism that had prompted the Russian Revolution of 1917 had spread into the United States. The fact that this was also one of the high points of immigration to the US meant that the number of foreign-born — and foreign-speaking — citizens gave supposed credence to the charge that it was they who had imported these dangerous foreign ideologies.
The severe right-wing response to this — rounding up, imprisoning, and even deporting many hundreds of recent immigrants who were accused of leftist sentiments — caused American culture to pivot rather abruptly from the widespread cooperative and associative spirit of the Progressive years to a return to both excessive individualism and isolationism towards the rest of the world.
Professor McGerr also, and it is a contribution that I found most interesting, does a beautiful job of exploring some of the contradictions and tensions within the Progressive community in their thinking and efforts.
For one thing, at the same time as the Progressives were fostering cooperative movements to initiate change, they also supported some efforts that, for example, set race relations back — they believed that segregation of the races was the best for both Black and white peoples — and also gave energy to others, like Prohibition, that while aimed at ending some of the clear abuses of the working class that drew vital dollars away from supporting their families also caused millions of citizens to view this as an offensive step too far.
Also, as in all times of turmoil and change, people began to embrace new ideas that did not always help contribute to the larger society. Just as the Progressives emphasized the importance of unity in order to address societal problems, new discoveries and theories in science and psychology raised new questions about the solidness of long-accepted beliefs and, moreover, tacitly encouraged experimentation on individually arrived at convictions and on discovering just “who am I.” These tugged in the opposite direction of the Progressive impulse.
I highly recommend this very readable, and relatively brief (320 pages) history of this important and fascinating time. It will not only definitely allow you to better understand this period of our past, but will also likely give you some insight and ideas about how to better understand — and perhaps contribute to reforming — our own time.
What I most admired about Professor McGerr’s approach was how extensively he used first-person information about specific people to flesh out how they experienced the many problems, as well as opportunities, of the Progressive Era.
The period from the late 19th century through 1920 was, in many respects, similar to our own time. Extreme individualism permeated American culture, and it was one of the reasons why the majority of citizens had such a difficult time addressing such pressing issues as extreme income and wealth inequality, significant poverty in both rural and urban America, and successive recessions and depressions which, in a society without any safety nets, had devastating consequences for many.
This era takes its name from those who responded to the critical issues of the day by first exposing the truth about industrial concentrations, extensive economic and political corruption at the state and local levels, and the appalling living conditions of workers and tenement dwellers, and then, second, by responding to these problems with a wide variety of proposals and programs.
Journalists played a key role in all of this, and they together earned the label of being “muckrakers,” those who dared to rake up and expose the rancidness that flourished in business and in politics. Through their efforts, many citizens became outraged and several politicians took notice, principal among them Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. These reformers, who became known as Progressives, worked together to clean up corruption in politics, regulate business operations that worked to the disadvantage of the people — such as the railroad and steel magnates that set prices that harmed farmers trying to get their goods to distant markets — set standards for safe working conditions and limiting the hours of labor permitted for women and children, introducing such political reforms as the recall, referendum and the initiative, changing the election of the Senate from the decision of the separate states to a popular vote, and championing the right of the suffrage for women.
Their accomplishments were many, but not all lasted.
The great bane of this era was the aftermath of the Wilson administration decision to enter the great European War that had begun in 1914. Wilson, who had successfully kept the US out of that war for three years, succumbed to public pressure after the Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, including the sinking of passenger liners. (What we now know, by the way, and which the British absolutely denied at the time, is that Britain was sending arms and munitions in the holds of passenger ships in the hopes of evading the German submarine blockade, all the while imposing a naval blockade against the importation of needed goods — including vital foodstuffs — by the Germans.)
After the war ended, the following year — 1919 — was marked by over 2,000 strikes, many of them degenerating into violence, as well as widely-induced terror as the result of anarchist bombs that were sent through the post to prominent targets. The strikes were occasioned by how big business rapidly backed away from the many gains won during the war by the workers — including union consultation in decisions, full employment efforts, higher wages and shorter working hours.
Because of these strikes and the two waves of attempted bombings, the average citizen became terrified that the same radicalism that had prompted the Russian Revolution of 1917 had spread into the United States. The fact that this was also one of the high points of immigration to the US meant that the number of foreign-born — and foreign-speaking — citizens gave supposed credence to the charge that it was they who had imported these dangerous foreign ideologies.
The severe right-wing response to this — rounding up, imprisoning, and even deporting many hundreds of recent immigrants who were accused of leftist sentiments — caused American culture to pivot rather abruptly from the widespread cooperative and associative spirit of the Progressive years to a return to both excessive individualism and isolationism towards the rest of the world.
Professor McGerr also, and it is a contribution that I found most interesting, does a beautiful job of exploring some of the contradictions and tensions within the Progressive community in their thinking and efforts.
For one thing, at the same time as the Progressives were fostering cooperative movements to initiate change, they also supported some efforts that, for example, set race relations back — they believed that segregation of the races was the best for both Black and white peoples — and also gave energy to others, like Prohibition, that while aimed at ending some of the clear abuses of the working class that drew vital dollars away from supporting their families also caused millions of citizens to view this as an offensive step too far.
Also, as in all times of turmoil and change, people began to embrace new ideas that did not always help contribute to the larger society. Just as the Progressives emphasized the importance of unity in order to address societal problems, new discoveries and theories in science and psychology raised new questions about the solidness of long-accepted beliefs and, moreover, tacitly encouraged experimentation on individually arrived at convictions and on discovering just “who am I.” These tugged in the opposite direction of the Progressive impulse.
I highly recommend this very readable, and relatively brief (320 pages) history of this important and fascinating time. It will not only definitely allow you to better understand this period of our past, but will also likely give you some insight and ideas about how to better understand — and perhaps contribute to reforming — our own time.
February 11, 2019
This is a great book which really fills in the cracks and crevices of the history of the time period- at least for me. McGerr does an excellent job of examining the bits that aren't generally taught. He focuses on cultural and social history giving a much more complete understanding of the era. I recommend this book.
April 8, 2013
This book read like a college student's thesis in my mind. It started out fairly well but increasingly felt like simply a one-sided presentation of the Progressive Movement. Great overview of the movement and its ideals, but not an in-depth look at the era.
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September 29, 2015Classic/textbook account of the Progressive Era and Movement.
November 24, 2017
There is a lot of great information in here, but the narrative style is a little dry and verbose for me.
September 8, 2025
A very wide-ranging history of progressive action in the period before and shortly after the First World War. With an interesting thesis considering the middle-class nature of the Progressive movement.
December 2, 2018
While largely a synthesis of existing research, McGerr's "Fierce Discontent" is a marvelously readable account of Progressivism in American history. McGerr does make an argument in the book, so the book is not a total rehash of earlier histories: Progressive leaders wanted to reform society, but also to transform the morality of individuals, so that the whole country would reflect middle-class values. To McGerr's credit, he shows the coziness of many white Progressives with racism and eugenics; the Progressives aren't praised for their reform ideas at the expense of their prejudices. Very useful as a general introduction to the Progressive Era, although for a deeper dive one should consult James Kloppenberg and Daniel T. Rodgers.
March 28, 2015
Good read if you want to more about the subject material...
August 10, 2018
A very good introduction to the Progressive Era and its reformers’ utopist ideal of creating a sustainable and disciplined middle class paradise in the US.
April 11, 2022
Michael McGerr’s A Fierce Discontent argues that Progressives, as Victorian themselves, were trying to make the Victorian identity fit it into the middle-class. These well-meaning Progressives, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Addams, Lillian Ward and many more had three Victorian ideals on the mind for the masses: the social good, prosperity and progress.
To accommodate their visions of society, these progressives waged war “at four quintessential… battles: to change other people; to end class conflict to control big business; and to segregate society” (xv). They did all in their power to bring their vision into fruition. They attempted to do this through political activism. Their political ideology was centered on limiting the power of big businesses, fighting for the sanctity of marriage, modernizing rural America, and protecting women and children from harsh labor. While the Progressives wanted to control the middle-class, this class resisted in their own way. With new advancements in transportation, an increase in leisure time, amplified by individualism and indulgence, modernity soon became the enemy of Progressives. Although the Progressives achieved from political reforms, by the end of World War 1 their power and influence declined dramatically. The Progressive Era, according to McGerr, was over.
McGerr uses Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a Victorian Era Progressive. Roosevelt fights for labor reform, the reduction of big business, to promote conservation and most of all the the reduction of big business. However, there is a painstaking irony when reviewing Roosevelt as a “Progressive”. For example, his speech on “New Nationalism” illustrates his shortsightedness when discussing Progressivism and race. As I read Roosevelt’s speech, I couldn’t help but think of the contradictions it contains. He loves comparing the present (1910) to the Civil War and praises Lincoln by claiming that he is “the man to whom we owe most” (3); but five years earlier during his tour he showed “his admiration for the South, the Confederacy, and Robert E. Lee” (195). He claims “We are all Americans” (11) in one breathe, but states in another that “as a race and in the mass [African Americans] are altogether inferior to whites” (194). “We are all Americans” but he referred to Black soldiers who refused to talk about the racism they experienced “‘bloody butchers’ who should have been hanged” (195) before he dishonorably discharged them from the Army. “We are all Americans” but “Some Indians can hardly be moved forward at all” (206). Despite Roosevelt’s political reforms, his racist views illustrates that he, like several other “Progressives” of the time, focused more on extending political power to white middle-class Americans, but not to the other races of the middle-class.
McGerr points out that there was a strategic approach to Progressive policies. Unsurprisingly, many of these reformers advocated for racial, ethnic and class segregation. I must say, I am strongly disappointed and disgusted at McGerr’s suggestion that “[t]he boundaries of Jim Crow seemed to bring a measure of stability to the South” (189). That statement doesn’t sound right. How could McGerr type out that sentence, knowing that his book’s timeframe is aligned with the existence of the First (1865-1872) and Second Klans (1915-1944)? How is it that he can say that sentence on one page, and then on another admit that “the lynching of Blacks actually increased from fifty-seven in 1905 to eighty-nine in 1908” (202)? How is it that the South seems stable, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of African Americans participating in the First Great Migration and white landowners are upset about it because their fields are suffering? As an Adjunct Professor of Indiana University’s Africana Studies, McGerr should’ve been cognizant of these inconsistencies.
To accommodate their visions of society, these progressives waged war “at four quintessential… battles: to change other people; to end class conflict to control big business; and to segregate society” (xv). They did all in their power to bring their vision into fruition. They attempted to do this through political activism. Their political ideology was centered on limiting the power of big businesses, fighting for the sanctity of marriage, modernizing rural America, and protecting women and children from harsh labor. While the Progressives wanted to control the middle-class, this class resisted in their own way. With new advancements in transportation, an increase in leisure time, amplified by individualism and indulgence, modernity soon became the enemy of Progressives. Although the Progressives achieved from political reforms, by the end of World War 1 their power and influence declined dramatically. The Progressive Era, according to McGerr, was over.
McGerr uses Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a Victorian Era Progressive. Roosevelt fights for labor reform, the reduction of big business, to promote conservation and most of all the the reduction of big business. However, there is a painstaking irony when reviewing Roosevelt as a “Progressive”. For example, his speech on “New Nationalism” illustrates his shortsightedness when discussing Progressivism and race. As I read Roosevelt’s speech, I couldn’t help but think of the contradictions it contains. He loves comparing the present (1910) to the Civil War and praises Lincoln by claiming that he is “the man to whom we owe most” (3); but five years earlier during his tour he showed “his admiration for the South, the Confederacy, and Robert E. Lee” (195). He claims “We are all Americans” (11) in one breathe, but states in another that “as a race and in the mass [African Americans] are altogether inferior to whites” (194). “We are all Americans” but he referred to Black soldiers who refused to talk about the racism they experienced “‘bloody butchers’ who should have been hanged” (195) before he dishonorably discharged them from the Army. “We are all Americans” but “Some Indians can hardly be moved forward at all” (206). Despite Roosevelt’s political reforms, his racist views illustrates that he, like several other “Progressives” of the time, focused more on extending political power to white middle-class Americans, but not to the other races of the middle-class.
McGerr points out that there was a strategic approach to Progressive policies. Unsurprisingly, many of these reformers advocated for racial, ethnic and class segregation. I must say, I am strongly disappointed and disgusted at McGerr’s suggestion that “[t]he boundaries of Jim Crow seemed to bring a measure of stability to the South” (189). That statement doesn’t sound right. How could McGerr type out that sentence, knowing that his book’s timeframe is aligned with the existence of the First (1865-1872) and Second Klans (1915-1944)? How is it that he can say that sentence on one page, and then on another admit that “the lynching of Blacks actually increased from fifty-seven in 1905 to eighty-nine in 1908” (202)? How is it that the South seems stable, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of African Americans participating in the First Great Migration and white landowners are upset about it because their fields are suffering? As an Adjunct Professor of Indiana University’s Africana Studies, McGerr should’ve been cognizant of these inconsistencies.
January 31, 2021
It’s always the right time to learn from the past. But in today’s time of extreme political polarization, income inequality, and social instability, we have much to learn from our country’s path out of the previous Gilded Age from 1870 to 1920. While I tend to think of “progressivism” as a leftist concept, turn-of-the-century progressivism portrayed here was led by an activist “radical center” striving to mediate a fever-pitched tension between the extreme haves vs. have nots, a political competition promoting public good to the extent that the once-mighty Socialist Party fell obsolete when socialist concepts such as public schools found early champions even on the Republican side of the aisle, Jane Addams working to weave a shared social fabric through “association” across class and race, Teddy Roosevelt leading in response to the public pressures (and racism) of the time as much his personal respect for hard workers of all classes and deep disdain for those who accumulated wealth without hard work, Roosevelt listening to the “muckrakers" before chiding them to shut up and make themselves useful. Once believing no lessons from the past could help guide us through today’s “new” threats of too-rapid technological advance/the dark web/tribalism-reinforcing social media algorithms, I’m now convinced that the phonograph, the radio, the moving picture, and the automobile each shook up society in similarly profound ways- sometimes destructive and destabilizing in their time. There are no easy answers here; the non-inclusivity of turn-of-the-century progressive movements, limitations on moral transformation imposed on individual freedom, and our nation's championing of "individualism" (as opposed to solidarity) all planted seeds for the movement’s downfall.
All insightful stuff to me, but the true joy of reading this book (which IMO is a great candidate for a cross-generational or cross-ideological book club for historians and non-historians alike) derives from a strong and colorful narrative thread, featuring firsthand accounts from Addams, Roosevelt, a first generation immigrant, and many others.
All insightful stuff to me, but the true joy of reading this book (which IMO is a great candidate for a cross-generational or cross-ideological book club for historians and non-historians alike) derives from a strong and colorful narrative thread, featuring firsthand accounts from Addams, Roosevelt, a first generation immigrant, and many others.
January 1, 2026
A pretty interesting overview into some of the anchor points of the Progressive Era. Here, the United States sensed the dissatisfaction with liberalism and the individualism inherent to it that would come to Europe after World War I in the form of fascism and communism. They created their own premature ideology--progressivism, which came from middle-class reformers disgusted with the exploitation of the wealthy and the self-indulgent desires of the poor. Similarly to the more extremist movements that came later, progressives preferred to view the nation as a human body, with each of the classes working as organs that must work together for survival.
McGerr's work here is less of a chronological retelling and more of nuanced look that bounces around all the themes, accomplishments, and setbacks of the Progressive Era. The need for vibrant community led to the Progressives championing many good things--settlement houses that offered education and entertainment to poor immigrants, playgrounds for children, conservation of national parks, an attempt to end child labor, and women's suffrage. Still, he looks into some of the deep contradictions within the movement, as seen in how Progressives supported eugenics and segregation as a way to end racial strife and create harmony.
From the book's point of view, progressivism failed from its own aspirations, with its desire for national harmony leading to involvement in World War I and the disillusionment that came from it. On a deeper level, he looks at how progressivism couldn't satiate the individual wants and desires of the American people--a fundamentally American ideal--and how their attempts at prohibition or censorship only backfired, with a population more eager to care after themselves. It's a well-rounded read that explains the disappointment Americans of all political stripes feel at the end of any movement since.
McGerr's work here is less of a chronological retelling and more of nuanced look that bounces around all the themes, accomplishments, and setbacks of the Progressive Era. The need for vibrant community led to the Progressives championing many good things--settlement houses that offered education and entertainment to poor immigrants, playgrounds for children, conservation of national parks, an attempt to end child labor, and women's suffrage. Still, he looks into some of the deep contradictions within the movement, as seen in how Progressives supported eugenics and segregation as a way to end racial strife and create harmony.
From the book's point of view, progressivism failed from its own aspirations, with its desire for national harmony leading to involvement in World War I and the disillusionment that came from it. On a deeper level, he looks at how progressivism couldn't satiate the individual wants and desires of the American people--a fundamentally American ideal--and how their attempts at prohibition or censorship only backfired, with a population more eager to care after themselves. It's a well-rounded read that explains the disappointment Americans of all political stripes feel at the end of any movement since.
October 24, 2023
Why not five? Because I wanted something about non legislative means of dealing with workers, like Pinkerton agency. But besides that, it's a book how progressives made American dream no more and are direct cause of current problems. It's a story how middle class trying to establish it's political power by moralizing destroyed USA. Workers, this mindless mass of scoundrels voting for socialism doing necessary work had their power in work. They were the Aristotlean slaves, working themselves to death so other can create culture, science etc. Capitalists, being in minority by their biomass, had the money to offset it, because of their wits in business the worker had an opportunity to work and make more of dysgenic children. This left no practical power for bourgeois, besides moralizing and getting gov't to repeal the values constituting USA. Progressive made the deal with the devil to ride the train that has no breaks. They got the gov't that "cared" by regulating in exchange for growing gov't. Thing is, ontology of humanistic sciences didn't allowed for opposition against progressives who were environmentalists, as facts about IQ, genetics weren't known, in fact the work of Galton or Binet was developing back then and without internet, there was no way to create bio-epistemology of human behaviouristics. Capital, left to defence using axiology was defeated and at the mercy of progressives which were doing total restructuring of American life. The main opposition against them came from hedonism, people who wanted to have fun, enjoying alcohol or genitalia, not "capitalism". That's why author is wrong that progressives failed, failure was temporary as soon afterwards progressives and hedonistic reaction synthesized creating the contemporary left which values harm avoidance as highest value.
September 27, 2023
The Progressive movement at the turn of the century in America was driven by a sanctimonious vestige of the Victorian middle-class who abhorred class conflict, individualism, and the disparity in wealth spawned by industrial capitalism. Their collective righteous indignation at these social problems constitutes McGerr’s titular “fierce discontent.”
His argument was that the Progressive movement at the turn of the century created much of our current political predicament by proscribing a utopian program that inevitably failed because it was predicated on unrealistic expectations. To the author, the “current” political predicament presumably means the War on Terror that was being waged when the book was published and its correlation with World War I. The domestic policy debates were also similar: taxation, regulation of corporate interests, the wealth gap, and the role of government to ameliorate societal problems.
After providing the historical context, McGerr’s approach was to examine the four pillars of the progressive agenda: changing other people, ending class conflict, controlling big business, and segregating society. He closed the book with the inherent problems with its plans and its ultimate demise in the wake of WWI.
McGerr deploys archetypes as a literary method to represent his focus on four social cohorts: the wealthy, the working class, agrarians, and the middle-class. The book is accessible and well written. In my view, he effectively defended his thesis.
His argument was that the Progressive movement at the turn of the century created much of our current political predicament by proscribing a utopian program that inevitably failed because it was predicated on unrealistic expectations. To the author, the “current” political predicament presumably means the War on Terror that was being waged when the book was published and its correlation with World War I. The domestic policy debates were also similar: taxation, regulation of corporate interests, the wealth gap, and the role of government to ameliorate societal problems.
After providing the historical context, McGerr’s approach was to examine the four pillars of the progressive agenda: changing other people, ending class conflict, controlling big business, and segregating society. He closed the book with the inherent problems with its plans and its ultimate demise in the wake of WWI.
McGerr deploys archetypes as a literary method to represent his focus on four social cohorts: the wealthy, the working class, agrarians, and the middle-class. The book is accessible and well written. In my view, he effectively defended his thesis.
December 31, 2020
This book represents my initial efforts to gain a better appreciation of the Progressive Era in American history. What I found most helpful was the author's attempt to give a picture, in broad strokes, of various social and economic groups in America in that timeframe and to explore their vary different ways of viewing the world. These divisions included the "top ten" (the most wealthy Americans), the middle class (often an urban, educated group), farmers, and the urban manufacturing working class. African Americans and Native Americans made less of an appearance. McGerr argues that the middle class Progressives sought a much more radical change in American society and government than have subsequent Democrats and liberals, including FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society.
January 24, 2023
Good account of major topics related to the greater Progressive Movement. The books is partially dated as it makes references to the context of the war on terror (early 2000s) as tied to Progressive concepts. This doesn't make it wrong or bad history, just could perhaps use an updated Afterword section.
September 10, 2017
Interesting take on progressive era
I read this book as part of my year long reading of US history. Along side this book i am reading a 3 part biography of Theodore Roosevelt so this book helped add some context to Roosevelt's life and times.
I read this book as part of my year long reading of US history. Along side this book i am reading a 3 part biography of Theodore Roosevelt so this book helped add some context to Roosevelt's life and times.
January 30, 2020
Argues that the progressive movement was an effort by middle-class America to reshape American society in their own image. An interesting thought, and semi-convincing. But, the book lacks nuance and therefore leaves some holes in the logic and in the narrative.
April 15, 2020
This book has good historical material, particularly with regard to the evolution of attitudes in the mega-rich, and the connective tissues between Victorian morality and the early progressive movement. However, (looks at date published) could use an update about current applications.
October 4, 2022
Seems like a boilerplate history on the Progressive movement and focuses on their Morality. The first few pages were written exceptionally well but then settles into a mediocre discussion of the time period.
March 6, 2023
Very good history book, I needed something post-gilded age before I jump into the great depression. I kind of wish it went more into the 1920s though. Also, I wish it went more into the political landscape more.
February 23, 2019
I actually thought that this was really interesting for the most part!
December 10, 2024
Interesting book, but it was all over the place.
December 19, 2024
A very easy read. He did a good job laying out all of the facts in a way that made sense.
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