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Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era
"A consistently engrossing, occasionally irreverent, always smoothly written history of America's painful entry into the modern age."― Kirkus Reviews Standing at Armageddon is a comprehensive and lively historical account of America's shift from a rural and agrarian society to an urban and industrial society. Nell Irvin Painter will be featured in the PBS multipart series The Progressive Era with Bill Moyers, which coincides with the release of the updated edition of this acclaimed work.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
54 people are currently reading
786 people want to read
About the author
Nell Irvin Painter
34 books402 followersNell Irvin Painter is an American historian notable for her works on southern history of the nineteenth century. She is retired from Princeton University, and served as president of the Organization of American Historians. She also served as president of the Southern Historical Association.
She was born Nell Irvin to Dona and Frank E. Irvin, Sr. She had an older brother Frank who died young. Her family moved from Houston, Texas, to Oakland, California when she was ten weeks old. This was part of the second wave of the Great Migration of millions of African Americans from the Deep South to urban centers. Some of their relatives had been in California since the 1920s. The Irvins went to California in the 1940s with the pull of increasing jobs in the defense industry. Nell attended the Oakland Public Schools.
Her mother Dona Irvin held a degree from Houston College for Negroes (1937), and later taught in the public schools of Oakland. Her father had to drop out of college in 1937 during the Great Depression; he eventually trained for work as a laboratory technician. He worked for years at the University of California at Berkeley, where he trained many students in lab techniques.
Painter earned her B.A. - Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964. During her undergraduate years, she studied French medieval history at the University of Bordeaux, France, 1962–63. She also studied abroad at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, 1965–66. In 1967, she completed an M.A. at the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1974, she earned an M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University. She returned to study and earned a B.F.A. at Rutgers University in 2009. Painter has received honorary degrees from Dartmouth College, Wesleyan University, and Yale University, among other institutions.
In 1989, Painter married the mathematician Glenn Shafer, co-creator of the Dempster–Shafer theory.
(from Wikipedia)
She was born Nell Irvin to Dona and Frank E. Irvin, Sr. She had an older brother Frank who died young. Her family moved from Houston, Texas, to Oakland, California when she was ten weeks old. This was part of the second wave of the Great Migration of millions of African Americans from the Deep South to urban centers. Some of their relatives had been in California since the 1920s. The Irvins went to California in the 1940s with the pull of increasing jobs in the defense industry. Nell attended the Oakland Public Schools.
Her mother Dona Irvin held a degree from Houston College for Negroes (1937), and later taught in the public schools of Oakland. Her father had to drop out of college in 1937 during the Great Depression; he eventually trained for work as a laboratory technician. He worked for years at the University of California at Berkeley, where he trained many students in lab techniques.
Painter earned her B.A. - Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964. During her undergraduate years, she studied French medieval history at the University of Bordeaux, France, 1962–63. She also studied abroad at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, 1965–66. In 1967, she completed an M.A. at the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1974, she earned an M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University. She returned to study and earned a B.F.A. at Rutgers University in 2009. Painter has received honorary degrees from Dartmouth College, Wesleyan University, and Yale University, among other institutions.
In 1989, Painter married the mathematician Glenn Shafer, co-creator of the Dempster–Shafer theory.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
December 30, 2012
The period of American history between 1877 and 1919 is often misunderstood as a boring time when nothing really happened. This is not indirectly brought about through excessively complex and abstract economic theory about money supply, sometimes bland political theater, and the gravity of the Civil War/Reconstruction and World War One have upon our national consciousness. Plus, how much of this period weighs upon the lives of us today? This last point is often brought up by students, and my answer to that is both: "a helluva lot!" and "does that really matter?" A diverse nation of people struggling with massive political, technological, and economic changes is not unworthy of study, and the various purposes of history to both instruct us about what it means to be a human being and guide us in times when our innate thoughts do little in that regard hold true here.
I would highly recommend this work to anyone interested in this period of history and to anyone who is interested in history in general. A fascinating look at how politics, economic theory, racial theory, technological change, diversity, political and economic self-determination, empowerment, cultural definitions, definition of citizenship, and the effects and causes of major military conflicts affect people in their own time and place is hardly simple to compress into a readable book, but it reads fluidly and has a argumentative force to dispel any confusion that this this period could ever be "boring". For my students in high school, it may not be effective as a textbook, but could easily be more compelling than any simplification provided by their standard text.
I would highly recommend this work to anyone interested in this period of history and to anyone who is interested in history in general. A fascinating look at how politics, economic theory, racial theory, technological change, diversity, political and economic self-determination, empowerment, cultural definitions, definition of citizenship, and the effects and causes of major military conflicts affect people in their own time and place is hardly simple to compress into a readable book, but it reads fluidly and has a argumentative force to dispel any confusion that this this period could ever be "boring". For my students in high school, it may not be effective as a textbook, but could easily be more compelling than any simplification provided by their standard text.
December 18, 2011
Rating: 4.125* of five
The USA has a long history of upheaval and change. The Progressive Era, one that we 21st-century beneficiaries tend to forget existed, was the cradle of such social justice as FDR was able to jam down the gullets of the horrible, nasty conservatives that have always dominated American politics and continue to do even today, to our lasting shame.
The Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian democracy died about 1840. Industrialization, in those early years, went on in a brutal, hideously cruel way (much as the conservatives have enabled to go on in China, Indonesia, etc, with their "unfettered flow of capital to benefit the masses" bullhockey). The 1880s came as a crisis point: Would untrammelled capitalism be allowed to kill millions without so much as a peep from those suffering from its ravages, or would the laborers whose efforts *made* all that money finally demand some of it for themselves?
The Bloody 80s began. The highly minimal social democracy that the conservatives can be forced to endure had its genesis then, and survives...battered, diminished, mocked and reviled by the jeering apes in their never-enough-profit packs...thanks to the blood and sacrifice of those forgotten ancestors.
Painter's book is a careful, complete, and even-handed narrative of what happened and why during this important turning point in the formation of the country we all love. It made me long to live a long enough life to see the tide of history come back in, washing away the institutionalized greed and stupidity that exemplify Congress and the many state governments. The book is a history...but in the right hands, teachers, it could become a call to arms....
The USA has a long history of upheaval and change. The Progressive Era, one that we 21st-century beneficiaries tend to forget existed, was the cradle of such social justice as FDR was able to jam down the gullets of the horrible, nasty conservatives that have always dominated American politics and continue to do even today, to our lasting shame.
The Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian democracy died about 1840. Industrialization, in those early years, went on in a brutal, hideously cruel way (much as the conservatives have enabled to go on in China, Indonesia, etc, with their "unfettered flow of capital to benefit the masses" bullhockey). The 1880s came as a crisis point: Would untrammelled capitalism be allowed to kill millions without so much as a peep from those suffering from its ravages, or would the laborers whose efforts *made* all that money finally demand some of it for themselves?
The Bloody 80s began. The highly minimal social democracy that the conservatives can be forced to endure had its genesis then, and survives...battered, diminished, mocked and reviled by the jeering apes in their never-enough-profit packs...thanks to the blood and sacrifice of those forgotten ancestors.
Painter's book is a careful, complete, and even-handed narrative of what happened and why during this important turning point in the formation of the country we all love. It made me long to live a long enough life to see the tide of history come back in, washing away the institutionalized greed and stupidity that exemplify Congress and the many state governments. The book is a history...but in the right hands, teachers, it could become a call to arms....
September 2, 2014
Reading this for my America from 1877 to 1929 class. So far it is okay, though Mrs. Painter's bias prompted me to cross-read this with a Mark Summers survey. In the first two chapters, she has downplayed the role of technology (actually she is overly negative toward any project that 'exploited' the workers)and glorifies the Union and Worker strikes post-reconstruction. I have a nagging feeling that her worldview is being pushed onto her facts, and for that reason alone I've rated the book so low. If she took a route like Mark Summers (who presents a Gilded Age of great innovation and human achievement as well as a time of social upheaval with little preference of one over the other), then I would rate her work higher, alas her Marxist influences (god forbid she's gone way beyond the typical Annales-ist -- she is a social historian, like John Hope Franklin -- approach to history) convolute her argument (as of the end of chapter two).
In short, do not be scared to pick this book up and learn, but beware of the constant drag of political bias, and thus take her main argument with a grain of salt. She will present facts that are absolutely interesting and her narrative is absolutely engaging, but she will stretch the truth in a Freudian-like way.
In short, do not be scared to pick this book up and learn, but beware of the constant drag of political bias, and thus take her main argument with a grain of salt. She will present facts that are absolutely interesting and her narrative is absolutely engaging, but she will stretch the truth in a Freudian-like way.
December 29, 2020
Of the many lessons to be learned from Painter's book/this historical period, the most important one is that American's used to have class consciousness. Americans were keenly aware (and arguably continued to be up until the late 1970's/early 80's) of the role of class in their lives and every political and social battle took place within and was expressive of class conflict. America was an incredibly violent place during this period of time, and regular people killed and died in the name of what they believed in. Politicians and bosses made the concessions they made because regular working people were ready to back up their demands with force if necessary. Union organizing and direct action led people to take their lives into their own hands and they understood that waiting for the courts or the government to make their lives better was the path of the fool and the coward. Recalcitrant politicians and bosses were brought to heel with letter bombs, rifle fire, general strikes, and bloody chaos in the streets.
Considering Standing at Armageddon from our contemporary context, two things immediately jump out. First, I think we are returning to a pre-Cold War paradigm of politics (Aziz Rana makes a very compelling case for this thesis here: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/poli...). The Cold War consensus that, as Rana argues, ended with the election of Trump and the emergence of Sanders in the 2015-16 primary, papered over the deep fissures of class war in the US by focusing us on an external threat. The War on Terror was clearly intended to be a replacement for the Cold War but it grows clearer by the day that the threat of "Radical Islam" isn't enough to distract us from our catastrophe at home. While substantial disagreements existed between the Republican and Democratic parties for most of the Cold War, their near lockstep on our imperial foreign policy created the illusion of unity among the American people. The neoliberal turn in the Democratic party that saw Clinton (and Biden) running to the right of republicans on the racialized war on the underclass that we call the "War on Crime" and the "third way" approach to government deregulation nearly eliminated the functional difference between the parties. Three (at least) decades of bipartisan neoliberal austerity inevitably gave birth to a legitimation crisis that cleared the stage for Trump and Sanders to reintroduce the kinds of political conflicts that had been suppressed during the Cold War era. Trump's reignition of overt white supremacy and Sander's mainstreaming of class analysis (and their shared critique of imperial foreign policy) are highly reminiscent of Progressive Era politics. Given that the Progressive Era set the stage for the New Deal and one of the most civilizing periods of American history, we might be optimistic about this new political turn. But a close reading of this history should give us serious doubts.
The second thing that jumps out is how much better organized and prepared working class Americans were to extract the concessions necessary to build a social safety net and compress the great rift between the poor and the rich. If we compare where we are now to where they were then, we are woefully, perhaps impossibly, underprepared to capitalize on any of the political opportunities that may present themselves in the next few years or decades. Organized labor density, militant political solidarity, and awareness of class conflict are all at all time lows right now. From Carter to Clinton, both parties worked tirelessly to saw organized labor off at the legs and they've pretty much succeeded. A legal system hostile to the rights and demands of labor buttresses domestic and international labor policy that awards more than the lion's share of benefits to the ruling elite threatens to (or maybe already has) checkmate the labor movement. We are more atomized than ever, the gig economy is a plague spreading across the country, and we've never been more personally complacent or weak willed than we are right now. Not to mention, if this isn't depressing enough, the role of the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of the USSR in the staging of the New Deal. It's not at all clear that FDR could have convinced the ruling class to voluntarily surrender a big portion of their spoils in the class war if he couldn't convincingly make the case that the alternative was firing squad and the end of America as a liberal capitalist nation.
If the ongoing debate over whether we will get $600 or $2000 stimulus checks for the nine months that a pandemic ravaged the working poor of this country has anything important to tell us, it ought to be that this is what happens when politicians stop fearing their constituencies. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, etc. can treat us the way they do because they no longer believe there will be consequences for their cruelty. Landlords can evict families during an economic crisis and recession, killing nearly 11,000 people, because they're not afraid to check their mail or start their car in the morning. They believe that we don't have enough dignity and self-respect to do anything while they literally kill us, passively and actively, and honestly they're probably right. The uprisings against police violence this summer showed that some of us still respect ourselves enough to eventually fight back against the boot stomping on our faces, but the liberal impulse to immediately undermine violent direct action was predictable and disappointing. For professional class liberals who live one floor above the ground floor of shit that working people struggle on, violence is dogmatically forbidden. Most of them are happy as long as a rickety ladder exists that a few people are able to climb to success because most of them aren't actually politically opposed to the idea of a permanent underclass. Their fetish for means testing and micromanagement is just an expression of their Victorian era understanding of poverty (i.e. poverty is a moral failure, not a state of not having enough money), and any distinction between the deserving and the underserving poor or legitimate peaceful protest vs. the bad violent protest comes from a place of comfort. Hopefully the peaceful stuff will work, but if not, oh well. Things aren't bad enough (for me personally with my health insurance, secure housing, well-fed family, etc.) to do anything truly dangerous.
But, as this book demonstrates over and over again, without direct action and at least the threat of real violence, the material conditions for the working poor will never change. And the rot of the institutions that the working poor rely on will eventually catch up to at least the children or grandchildren of the professional class, because capitalist greed is as iron clad a law as the law of gravity, and unimpeded it will never stop immiserating all of us.
Despite all the pessimism, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who feels like the path to a better future is blocked. There are valuable lessons to be learned from our past, and the Progressive Era has a lot to teach us. Above all else, organize, organize, organize. Unionism is the only way to build popular power, and popular power is the only lever for bending the will of the ruling class.
Considering Standing at Armageddon from our contemporary context, two things immediately jump out. First, I think we are returning to a pre-Cold War paradigm of politics (Aziz Rana makes a very compelling case for this thesis here: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/poli...). The Cold War consensus that, as Rana argues, ended with the election of Trump and the emergence of Sanders in the 2015-16 primary, papered over the deep fissures of class war in the US by focusing us on an external threat. The War on Terror was clearly intended to be a replacement for the Cold War but it grows clearer by the day that the threat of "Radical Islam" isn't enough to distract us from our catastrophe at home. While substantial disagreements existed between the Republican and Democratic parties for most of the Cold War, their near lockstep on our imperial foreign policy created the illusion of unity among the American people. The neoliberal turn in the Democratic party that saw Clinton (and Biden) running to the right of republicans on the racialized war on the underclass that we call the "War on Crime" and the "third way" approach to government deregulation nearly eliminated the functional difference between the parties. Three (at least) decades of bipartisan neoliberal austerity inevitably gave birth to a legitimation crisis that cleared the stage for Trump and Sanders to reintroduce the kinds of political conflicts that had been suppressed during the Cold War era. Trump's reignition of overt white supremacy and Sander's mainstreaming of class analysis (and their shared critique of imperial foreign policy) are highly reminiscent of Progressive Era politics. Given that the Progressive Era set the stage for the New Deal and one of the most civilizing periods of American history, we might be optimistic about this new political turn. But a close reading of this history should give us serious doubts.
The second thing that jumps out is how much better organized and prepared working class Americans were to extract the concessions necessary to build a social safety net and compress the great rift between the poor and the rich. If we compare where we are now to where they were then, we are woefully, perhaps impossibly, underprepared to capitalize on any of the political opportunities that may present themselves in the next few years or decades. Organized labor density, militant political solidarity, and awareness of class conflict are all at all time lows right now. From Carter to Clinton, both parties worked tirelessly to saw organized labor off at the legs and they've pretty much succeeded. A legal system hostile to the rights and demands of labor buttresses domestic and international labor policy that awards more than the lion's share of benefits to the ruling elite threatens to (or maybe already has) checkmate the labor movement. We are more atomized than ever, the gig economy is a plague spreading across the country, and we've never been more personally complacent or weak willed than we are right now. Not to mention, if this isn't depressing enough, the role of the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of the USSR in the staging of the New Deal. It's not at all clear that FDR could have convinced the ruling class to voluntarily surrender a big portion of their spoils in the class war if he couldn't convincingly make the case that the alternative was firing squad and the end of America as a liberal capitalist nation.
If the ongoing debate over whether we will get $600 or $2000 stimulus checks for the nine months that a pandemic ravaged the working poor of this country has anything important to tell us, it ought to be that this is what happens when politicians stop fearing their constituencies. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, etc. can treat us the way they do because they no longer believe there will be consequences for their cruelty. Landlords can evict families during an economic crisis and recession, killing nearly 11,000 people, because they're not afraid to check their mail or start their car in the morning. They believe that we don't have enough dignity and self-respect to do anything while they literally kill us, passively and actively, and honestly they're probably right. The uprisings against police violence this summer showed that some of us still respect ourselves enough to eventually fight back against the boot stomping on our faces, but the liberal impulse to immediately undermine violent direct action was predictable and disappointing. For professional class liberals who live one floor above the ground floor of shit that working people struggle on, violence is dogmatically forbidden. Most of them are happy as long as a rickety ladder exists that a few people are able to climb to success because most of them aren't actually politically opposed to the idea of a permanent underclass. Their fetish for means testing and micromanagement is just an expression of their Victorian era understanding of poverty (i.e. poverty is a moral failure, not a state of not having enough money), and any distinction between the deserving and the underserving poor or legitimate peaceful protest vs. the bad violent protest comes from a place of comfort. Hopefully the peaceful stuff will work, but if not, oh well. Things aren't bad enough (for me personally with my health insurance, secure housing, well-fed family, etc.) to do anything truly dangerous.
But, as this book demonstrates over and over again, without direct action and at least the threat of real violence, the material conditions for the working poor will never change. And the rot of the institutions that the working poor rely on will eventually catch up to at least the children or grandchildren of the professional class, because capitalist greed is as iron clad a law as the law of gravity, and unimpeded it will never stop immiserating all of us.
Despite all the pessimism, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who feels like the path to a better future is blocked. There are valuable lessons to be learned from our past, and the Progressive Era has a lot to teach us. Above all else, organize, organize, organize. Unionism is the only way to build popular power, and popular power is the only lever for bending the will of the ruling class.
September 2, 2007
A solid introductory text to American history after Reconstruction and through the First World War. A broadly neglected field of American history, this does a nice job of contextualizing that period's social turmoil by linking postwar racial tensions to the burgeoning class and gender problems that exploded into the public sphere around the same time. As importantly, Painter writes with fire and just the right dose of venom. The chapters are a breeze to read and chock-full of tidbits (perhaps too many, but easily skimmable) and the message crystal clear. Serious scholars will lament that this is more a collection of (now older) secondary citations (including someone like Howard Zinn) rather than a rigid combing through of original sources, but it accomplishes its aim rather admirably.
September 16, 2019
The Progressive Era was a time of radical financial, political, industrial, and social revolution in the United States. As told by author Nell Irvin Painter, this time period (1877-1919) was a continuous battle between the workingman and big business, between Democrats and Republicans, and between races and gender. Standing at Armageddon ties these themes together to weave a narrative of the Progressive Era through the lens of the minorities and working class.
A leading historian of 19th century southern history, Nell Irvin Painter (born Nell Elizabeth Irvin), was born in Houston, Texas in 1942. Painter, known for her success in academia, began her undergraduate schooling at the University of California, Berkeley, studying Anthropology, eventually earning her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology in 1964. Pursuing her interests abroad along the way, Painter also studied French medieval history at the University of Bordeaux, France, and African Studies at the University of Ghana, Ghana. Returning home, she completed her Masters of Arts in African History at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1967. The apogee of her post-secondary education was at Harvard University where she earned her doctorate in American history. She continues to be a successful author and academic, serving as Director of Princeton’s African American studies program at Princeton from 1997-2000, and currently serving as councillor in the Society of American Historians. Her extensive background in historical academia certainly qualifies her to write about the Progressive Era.
Painter opens her historical account at the closing of the 19th century with one of the greatest central tenets of the Progressive Era. Tremendous immigration from foreign nations throughout the world, coupled with the expansion of industrialization and the proliferation of low skill jobs gave rise to the problem of economic inequity. Painter uses stunning statistics to introduce the issue of dramatically disproportionate wealth distribution by class. She states, “The wealthiest 1 percent of families in 1890 owned 51 percent of the real and personal property…” (Painter 16). These statistics show that as individuals, the laborers had no control over their own financial health as the elites of big business continued to make decisions for them through company mergers and Taylorism. Painter elaborates upon these struggles by shifting her theoretical discussion into its culmination in real historical events, one being the debate over metallic and fiat currency. She describes the historical background of this event beginning with Sherman’s Coinage Act and its service to “...a tiny group of plutocrats” (Painter 88), to the free silver and greenbacks that were more friendly to the working people. These events were clear indicators of a shift in public thought from an uneasy conservatism to clear progressivism. Painter stresses that the economic environment and especially the issue of money distribution played a large part in influencing the ultimately unstable and uncertain time period that is the Progressive Era. Inevitably, the economic issues of this time were intertwined with politics and society, notably with identity of interest conflicts between big business’s preferred economic policy versus that of the working class.
As portrayed by Painter, politics was one of the most convoluted and confusing parts of the Progressive Era. Even still, she maintains her approach that Progressive American politics was the continuation of the battle between large private organizations and laborers. The 1896 presidential election as one example, Painter establishes the strikingly explicit support of Republican candidate William McKinley by big business, and the straggling proletariat support of Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan. Painter makes it quite clear that even court cases and supposedly impartial government decisions were influenced by the hand of “money trusts” and the social elite. However in a greater sense, it can be said that politics of this time were driven by the societal and economic environment. As the times swung between the extremes of depression and prosperity for the general population, factors such as strikes, wars, and foreign affairs drove political decision making (though still skewed by the hand of big business). This being said, American politics were by no means linear, and did not follow concrete rules. Republican President Theodore Roosevelt as one of these examples, he stood with the workers and against union repression during the United Mine Workers strike of 1902 (Painter 186). Painter establishes that the common people [Unions], in a continuous struggle for representation and the acquisition of their demands, actually did get their way, albeit rarely. Painter represents the game of politics as one played by the few and powerful: government decisions frequently reflected the financial interests of private companies, and the beliefs of the actual working men rarely escaped the confines of closeted discussion.
Perhaps most importantly of this time period though, were the societal changes. Again, Painter’s central focus is upon the minorities like women, African Americans, Filipinos, and Jews. With these central characters, Painter develops the role of unions, muckraking, race, and politics in influencing the development of the United States. She builds the core of the most influential social issues of the Progressive Era like that of women’s suffrage, race and disfranchisement, the ideology of the white man’s burden, red scares, and anti-hyphenism, before explaining their influence in the development of real reform such as the Sedition Act, Prohibition, and the 19th Amendment. Her organizational style of establishing cause and effect is extremely efficient in terms of describing the impacts of reform movements. Painter describes the societal developments of this time period as fixated on generating change and on obtaining civil and labor rights.
Painter successfully gives a broad summary of the Progressive Era through her vivid account of the economic, political, and societal climate. Painter is light on charts, but uses photographs throughout her book to help readers visualize central characters and important settings. Her extensive, sweeping declarations regarding this time period are cogently backed by primary sources such as immigration statistics tables, and secondary sources such as passages from The New York Times. However, Painter’s strength in providing a far reaching historical account in Standing at Armageddon is also her weakness. In attempting to encompass such a vast time period with such radical change, Painter’s writing gets jumbled and bogged down in a sea of numbers and specific historic events. Along this line, her central narrative is fuzzy and pulled apart from too many angles. For the most part, Painter maintains an objective and substantiated tone when discussing the battle between the laborers and their multi-millionaire bosses, but the same cannot be said for her description of minorities in other settings. Perhaps as an unavoidable side effect of her education and background, Painter’s description of minority groups holds greater depth and pity in African Americans compared to other groups like the Italians, Native Americans, Chinese, and Irish. All in all, Painter’s literary style can still be defined as expository. She maintains a neutral stance focused mainly on defining the Progressive Era objectively. Standing at Armageddon is a book right for anyone trying to gain an in depth understanding of an underrepresented time period in American history.
A leading historian of 19th century southern history, Nell Irvin Painter (born Nell Elizabeth Irvin), was born in Houston, Texas in 1942. Painter, known for her success in academia, began her undergraduate schooling at the University of California, Berkeley, studying Anthropology, eventually earning her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology in 1964. Pursuing her interests abroad along the way, Painter also studied French medieval history at the University of Bordeaux, France, and African Studies at the University of Ghana, Ghana. Returning home, she completed her Masters of Arts in African History at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1967. The apogee of her post-secondary education was at Harvard University where she earned her doctorate in American history. She continues to be a successful author and academic, serving as Director of Princeton’s African American studies program at Princeton from 1997-2000, and currently serving as councillor in the Society of American Historians. Her extensive background in historical academia certainly qualifies her to write about the Progressive Era.
Painter opens her historical account at the closing of the 19th century with one of the greatest central tenets of the Progressive Era. Tremendous immigration from foreign nations throughout the world, coupled with the expansion of industrialization and the proliferation of low skill jobs gave rise to the problem of economic inequity. Painter uses stunning statistics to introduce the issue of dramatically disproportionate wealth distribution by class. She states, “The wealthiest 1 percent of families in 1890 owned 51 percent of the real and personal property…” (Painter 16). These statistics show that as individuals, the laborers had no control over their own financial health as the elites of big business continued to make decisions for them through company mergers and Taylorism. Painter elaborates upon these struggles by shifting her theoretical discussion into its culmination in real historical events, one being the debate over metallic and fiat currency. She describes the historical background of this event beginning with Sherman’s Coinage Act and its service to “...a tiny group of plutocrats” (Painter 88), to the free silver and greenbacks that were more friendly to the working people. These events were clear indicators of a shift in public thought from an uneasy conservatism to clear progressivism. Painter stresses that the economic environment and especially the issue of money distribution played a large part in influencing the ultimately unstable and uncertain time period that is the Progressive Era. Inevitably, the economic issues of this time were intertwined with politics and society, notably with identity of interest conflicts between big business’s preferred economic policy versus that of the working class.
As portrayed by Painter, politics was one of the most convoluted and confusing parts of the Progressive Era. Even still, she maintains her approach that Progressive American politics was the continuation of the battle between large private organizations and laborers. The 1896 presidential election as one example, Painter establishes the strikingly explicit support of Republican candidate William McKinley by big business, and the straggling proletariat support of Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan. Painter makes it quite clear that even court cases and supposedly impartial government decisions were influenced by the hand of “money trusts” and the social elite. However in a greater sense, it can be said that politics of this time were driven by the societal and economic environment. As the times swung between the extremes of depression and prosperity for the general population, factors such as strikes, wars, and foreign affairs drove political decision making (though still skewed by the hand of big business). This being said, American politics were by no means linear, and did not follow concrete rules. Republican President Theodore Roosevelt as one of these examples, he stood with the workers and against union repression during the United Mine Workers strike of 1902 (Painter 186). Painter establishes that the common people [Unions], in a continuous struggle for representation and the acquisition of their demands, actually did get their way, albeit rarely. Painter represents the game of politics as one played by the few and powerful: government decisions frequently reflected the financial interests of private companies, and the beliefs of the actual working men rarely escaped the confines of closeted discussion.
Perhaps most importantly of this time period though, were the societal changes. Again, Painter’s central focus is upon the minorities like women, African Americans, Filipinos, and Jews. With these central characters, Painter develops the role of unions, muckraking, race, and politics in influencing the development of the United States. She builds the core of the most influential social issues of the Progressive Era like that of women’s suffrage, race and disfranchisement, the ideology of the white man’s burden, red scares, and anti-hyphenism, before explaining their influence in the development of real reform such as the Sedition Act, Prohibition, and the 19th Amendment. Her organizational style of establishing cause and effect is extremely efficient in terms of describing the impacts of reform movements. Painter describes the societal developments of this time period as fixated on generating change and on obtaining civil and labor rights.
Painter successfully gives a broad summary of the Progressive Era through her vivid account of the economic, political, and societal climate. Painter is light on charts, but uses photographs throughout her book to help readers visualize central characters and important settings. Her extensive, sweeping declarations regarding this time period are cogently backed by primary sources such as immigration statistics tables, and secondary sources such as passages from The New York Times. However, Painter’s strength in providing a far reaching historical account in Standing at Armageddon is also her weakness. In attempting to encompass such a vast time period with such radical change, Painter’s writing gets jumbled and bogged down in a sea of numbers and specific historic events. Along this line, her central narrative is fuzzy and pulled apart from too many angles. For the most part, Painter maintains an objective and substantiated tone when discussing the battle between the laborers and their multi-millionaire bosses, but the same cannot be said for her description of minorities in other settings. Perhaps as an unavoidable side effect of her education and background, Painter’s description of minority groups holds greater depth and pity in African Americans compared to other groups like the Italians, Native Americans, Chinese, and Irish. All in all, Painter’s literary style can still be defined as expository. She maintains a neutral stance focused mainly on defining the Progressive Era objectively. Standing at Armageddon is a book right for anyone trying to gain an in depth understanding of an underrepresented time period in American history.
May 22, 2025
if you are looking for a book that lionizes robber barons and portrays the US as a monolith of interest, class, culture, and action defined by the elites of the time, this book is NOT for you.
This is a good broad overview of the gilded age with no specific main character or characters. Instead, it focuses mostly on common people of all stripes and their reactions to the rapid changes they faced. It does a particularly good job of recognizing the tremendous diversity and growth of our nation at this time and the ways people embrace, resisted, and/or navigated that diversity and growth. And, of course, the parallels to today's second gilded age are numerous and enlightening --- from industrialists who prioritize their own unfathomable wealth over society, to divisions in public opinion over the value of unions, to tariffs and currency debates, to immigration and racial divided and questions of enfranchisement.
I particularly appreciated that the book examines how normal people attempted to navigate the relatively desperate situations in which they found themselves. Those situations were frequently a result of elites' decisions. However, their efforts at collective action to respond to those situations was often hampered by their own unwillingness to work with others across class, culture, race, gender, and industry. It illuminates the limits of collective action when people lay responsibility for their hardships on others with less power than themselves. It also does a fair job of identifying how patriotism is used and weaponized to encourage normal citizens to engage in violence against their fellow citizens.
A very informative read
This is a good broad overview of the gilded age with no specific main character or characters. Instead, it focuses mostly on common people of all stripes and their reactions to the rapid changes they faced. It does a particularly good job of recognizing the tremendous diversity and growth of our nation at this time and the ways people embrace, resisted, and/or navigated that diversity and growth. And, of course, the parallels to today's second gilded age are numerous and enlightening --- from industrialists who prioritize their own unfathomable wealth over society, to divisions in public opinion over the value of unions, to tariffs and currency debates, to immigration and racial divided and questions of enfranchisement.
I particularly appreciated that the book examines how normal people attempted to navigate the relatively desperate situations in which they found themselves. Those situations were frequently a result of elites' decisions. However, their efforts at collective action to respond to those situations was often hampered by their own unwillingness to work with others across class, culture, race, gender, and industry. It illuminates the limits of collective action when people lay responsibility for their hardships on others with less power than themselves. It also does a fair job of identifying how patriotism is used and weaponized to encourage normal citizens to engage in violence against their fellow citizens.
A very informative read
July 13, 2009
The more history I read, the more I'm convinced we were robbed by our own consent.
May 5, 2020
Great overview of history of progressive era ! Learned a lot. Strong perspective from social movements. Helpful grounding in the political context before new deal.
September 26, 2020
Irvin Painter's Standing at Armageddon is a kind of hybrid history book with a large dose - as the author admits in the 2008 afterword - of political economy. Despite this, is is written for general audiences - with a flowing narrative style and minimal academic terminology. It is a highly readable book about a fascinating chapter in US and global history, and Irvin Painter draws together compelling research to produce an essential study that provides a competent picture of the era.
The period of US History covered, spanning roughly from the end of the Civil War to the end of the First World War, was one of radical social and political change. In her introduction, Irvin Painter sets the scene, telling of a period of economic prosperity, clouded by inequality and abject poverty: 'The wealthiest 1 percent of families in 1890 owned 51 percent of the real and personal property; the 44 percent of families at the bottom owned only 1.2 percent of all the property. Together, the wealthy and well-to-do (12 percent of families) owned 86 percent of the wealth. The poorer and middle classes who represented 88 percent of families, owned 14 percent of the wealth' (p.xvi) and 'For the same work, northern workers made more than southerners, whites made more than blacks, men made more than women' (p.xvii). The unemployed demonised as 'symbols of the "dangerous classes," as though they were evil men who had chosen not to work' (p.xvii). At the same time, corruption ran rife in the post-war administrations of Grant, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, etc. etc.
The parallels with our own twenty-first century are tempting, not least because of these social issues, but also the rising tide of populism in the face of these crises. Unlike the ascendant populism in our political environment today (the majority of which is right-wing), the populism of the late-nineteenth century was generally left-leaning (though, of course, there is a resurgent populist left emerging across the Western world), and were at the forefront of the fight for economic justice and government intervention to tackle rising inequality.
Casting its shadow across all of these things, however, was the issue of race in America. Even the oft-called reformers, the populists themselves, were not immune to the principal prejudices of the time - those aimed at African-Americans and (it is important to remember) the substantially working-class immigrant populations. Lest we be in any doubt, Irvin Painter introduces this theme early on, writing: 'The great reform movements were, however, more ambiguous than a straightforward story of altruism, for the nativism, racism, and sexism that characterized the period appeared among the well-meaning. Such shortcomings were to be found in the ranks of labor reformers purporting to uphold the claims of all working people at the same time that they denigrated the needs of important segments of the American working classes' (p.xxxiv). Indeed, this seeming inconsistency is aptly embodied in some of the biggest names associated with the period - Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Watson, Woodrow Wilson.
The book is chronological, taking the reader through Reconstruction and the rise of the Greenback movement, embodied in the Populist party, to the growth of the Temperance organisations who were - we too often neglect, given our own tendency to dismiss prohibition as an exemplar of Puritan backwardness - amongst some of the earliest feminist movements in the world.
One of the most interesting aspects was how it complicated the simplistic narrative of Democratic and Republican party ideologies - which often portrays them as polar-opposites to their ideologies today, until suddenly Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal took the Democrats leftward, and eventually the Republicans mopped up their old constituency by moving to the right. Standing at Armageddon severely complicates this story - showing how, by the late 1880s, the two main parties had largely overlapping programmes, differentiated mostly by their voter base: the Republicans favoured by big business, the Democrats by white working class southerners. It is with Williams Jennings Bryan that the Democratic party began to shift as early as 1890, with the Republicans following suit after 1901 (with a few exceptions). Teddy Roosevelt's progressive credentials are tempered by his imperialist rhetoric, which can hardly be construed even as a misguided altruism, however widespread his racist views were. Roosevelt is, however, central to the shift that eventually took place away from government for the few (the business class) and government for the many (the workers) when he intervened in the 1902 Coal strike and mediated a settlement largely favouring the strikers (pp.180-6). The Progressive Party's electoral success after 1912 are also given ample space.
After 300 pages, the story of endless strikes becomes a little tired and cyclical, and the narrative comes to a very abrupt end without any kind of conclusion. Another reviewer has commented that the book is rather Marxist, and I suppose that is true in the sense Irvin Painter looks at relations of power as a force of historical development. She also gives primary voice to grassroots figures in the struggle, complementing this with descriptions of the wider political context where relevant. One other problematic aspect is when describing the League of nations Mandate system, inaugurated by the Treaty of Versailles, which she portrays as a reform of colonial annexation (p.350). Whatever Wilson might have intended for them, this framing proves a little misleading given how the reality of the Mandates (epitomised best in those of Palestine and Syria, by Britain and France respectively) played out.
Looming large over the whole story, nonetheless, are racial issues that do not abate by the end. Be it the faux-concern for 'fair young girlhood of the South' (p.221) that was used to justify spates of lynchings, or elements of the patriotic fervor accompanying WW1 that 'confused culture with what they called race, assuming that culture was inherited as "racial traits" [...] [whereby] some immigrant groups [...] were thought to be permanently unsuited to American life' (p.390), racism persists throughout the entire period, and the echoes of this unsavoury rhetoric sustain even into today.
The period of US History covered, spanning roughly from the end of the Civil War to the end of the First World War, was one of radical social and political change. In her introduction, Irvin Painter sets the scene, telling of a period of economic prosperity, clouded by inequality and abject poverty: 'The wealthiest 1 percent of families in 1890 owned 51 percent of the real and personal property; the 44 percent of families at the bottom owned only 1.2 percent of all the property. Together, the wealthy and well-to-do (12 percent of families) owned 86 percent of the wealth. The poorer and middle classes who represented 88 percent of families, owned 14 percent of the wealth' (p.xvi) and 'For the same work, northern workers made more than southerners, whites made more than blacks, men made more than women' (p.xvii). The unemployed demonised as 'symbols of the "dangerous classes," as though they were evil men who had chosen not to work' (p.xvii). At the same time, corruption ran rife in the post-war administrations of Grant, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, etc. etc.
The parallels with our own twenty-first century are tempting, not least because of these social issues, but also the rising tide of populism in the face of these crises. Unlike the ascendant populism in our political environment today (the majority of which is right-wing), the populism of the late-nineteenth century was generally left-leaning (though, of course, there is a resurgent populist left emerging across the Western world), and were at the forefront of the fight for economic justice and government intervention to tackle rising inequality.
Casting its shadow across all of these things, however, was the issue of race in America. Even the oft-called reformers, the populists themselves, were not immune to the principal prejudices of the time - those aimed at African-Americans and (it is important to remember) the substantially working-class immigrant populations. Lest we be in any doubt, Irvin Painter introduces this theme early on, writing: 'The great reform movements were, however, more ambiguous than a straightforward story of altruism, for the nativism, racism, and sexism that characterized the period appeared among the well-meaning. Such shortcomings were to be found in the ranks of labor reformers purporting to uphold the claims of all working people at the same time that they denigrated the needs of important segments of the American working classes' (p.xxxiv). Indeed, this seeming inconsistency is aptly embodied in some of the biggest names associated with the period - Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Watson, Woodrow Wilson.
The book is chronological, taking the reader through Reconstruction and the rise of the Greenback movement, embodied in the Populist party, to the growth of the Temperance organisations who were - we too often neglect, given our own tendency to dismiss prohibition as an exemplar of Puritan backwardness - amongst some of the earliest feminist movements in the world.
One of the most interesting aspects was how it complicated the simplistic narrative of Democratic and Republican party ideologies - which often portrays them as polar-opposites to their ideologies today, until suddenly Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal took the Democrats leftward, and eventually the Republicans mopped up their old constituency by moving to the right. Standing at Armageddon severely complicates this story - showing how, by the late 1880s, the two main parties had largely overlapping programmes, differentiated mostly by their voter base: the Republicans favoured by big business, the Democrats by white working class southerners. It is with Williams Jennings Bryan that the Democratic party began to shift as early as 1890, with the Republicans following suit after 1901 (with a few exceptions). Teddy Roosevelt's progressive credentials are tempered by his imperialist rhetoric, which can hardly be construed even as a misguided altruism, however widespread his racist views were. Roosevelt is, however, central to the shift that eventually took place away from government for the few (the business class) and government for the many (the workers) when he intervened in the 1902 Coal strike and mediated a settlement largely favouring the strikers (pp.180-6). The Progressive Party's electoral success after 1912 are also given ample space.
After 300 pages, the story of endless strikes becomes a little tired and cyclical, and the narrative comes to a very abrupt end without any kind of conclusion. Another reviewer has commented that the book is rather Marxist, and I suppose that is true in the sense Irvin Painter looks at relations of power as a force of historical development. She also gives primary voice to grassroots figures in the struggle, complementing this with descriptions of the wider political context where relevant. One other problematic aspect is when describing the League of nations Mandate system, inaugurated by the Treaty of Versailles, which she portrays as a reform of colonial annexation (p.350). Whatever Wilson might have intended for them, this framing proves a little misleading given how the reality of the Mandates (epitomised best in those of Palestine and Syria, by Britain and France respectively) played out.
Looming large over the whole story, nonetheless, are racial issues that do not abate by the end. Be it the faux-concern for 'fair young girlhood of the South' (p.221) that was used to justify spates of lynchings, or elements of the patriotic fervor accompanying WW1 that 'confused culture with what they called race, assuming that culture was inherited as "racial traits" [...] [whereby] some immigrant groups [...] were thought to be permanently unsuited to American life' (p.390), racism persists throughout the entire period, and the echoes of this unsavoury rhetoric sustain even into today.
December 16, 2017
Reading Standing at Armageddon in 2017 is like reading a current events magazine using historical figures in place of their modern counterparts. The progressive movement of the latter part of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th is strikingly similar in many ways to the history from 1980 - 2017. The political economy, social setting, rise of "Americanism", i.e. jingoism and other forms of extreme patriotism, and political divides, coalitions of convenience, and policy fights over taxes, foreign affairs, 'race', sex, and class, are reminiscent of everything we've witnessed in the past 40 years. It is little wonder that people so often say, mistakenly of course, that "history repeats itself". It is not repetition by any stretch of one's imagination, but the parallels between the periods is enough to make that phrase almost believable.
Furthermore, Nell Irvin Painter's use of detail, to add context and clarity, is most impressive as it enjoins the reader to better understand the lived existence of the working wo/men upon whom this country, and all nations, are ultimately built. Her telling of the story from multiple perspectives achieves a balance rarely seen in the writing of history. We can understand why politics is so complicated, even if we don't understand the reason people believe/behave in the manner they do.
To understand the present, one needs to study the past. Painter has given us one piece in that puzzle, what we do with this knowledge is up to us.
Furthermore, Nell Irvin Painter's use of detail, to add context and clarity, is most impressive as it enjoins the reader to better understand the lived existence of the working wo/men upon whom this country, and all nations, are ultimately built. Her telling of the story from multiple perspectives achieves a balance rarely seen in the writing of history. We can understand why politics is so complicated, even if we don't understand the reason people believe/behave in the manner they do.
To understand the present, one needs to study the past. Painter has given us one piece in that puzzle, what we do with this knowledge is up to us.
April 9, 2016
Nell Painter’s award winning book Standing at Armageddon is a wide-ranging and ambitious attempt to synthesize the political, economic, cultural and social changes of the late 1800s to post World War I America. The book is a story of conflict. While her focus on everyday against is evident, it provides a valuable counterpoint to a tradition that concentrated on the great man of history. The same names are included but placed into more of a socioeconomic context. Throughout the text, Painter uses a brisk writing style, anecdotes and vignettes to highlight the injustices she sees towards the ordinary, the working class, and the disadvantaged caused by the dramatic changes during this pivotal time in the nation’s history. From industry to the labor, big bank financiers to family farmers, urban America to rural America, the heart of the conflict was between hierarchical social order and the disorder of true democracy.
The stakes in this conflict included the very heart of The United States, the ideal of equity, and in this telling it was very nearly lost. Fear coupled with the desire for prosperity affected all sides but only one side had any real power. The labor movement’s actions and reactions to sweeping changes in technology, migration from agrarian and rural areas to the cities, emigration, and a series of economic crisis’s became a threat to the establishment. More so, Painter states that in times of crisis organized labor had the potential of being an existential threat to the nation. The threat grew through the waves of labor strikes in 1877, 1886, and 1919 exploding into violence and terrorism.
Money was a powerful influencer on both sides of the labor conflict. Deflation, depression, and monetary policy following the Civil War caused lower prices and economic chaos, which led to lower wages for the average worker and a concern on. For the middle-class and wealthy, monetary policy exasperated their fears. Politicians fought over populist versus conservative policy. One example Painter is the populist leader Jeremiah “Sockless Joe” Simpson who began his career in politics as a greenback supporter.
Describing the national economy after the Civil War, Painter noted that the federal government had issued paper bonds, called greenbacks, to finance the war through millions of dollars of debt. They also chartered private national banks that issued paper fiat currency. This set up a conflict between those that wanted to keep metallic currency and those, like Sockless Joe, who argued to keep paper currency on behalf of the working, or producing, class struggling under significant deflation.
Wealthy bankers, on the other hand, who held the bulk of the government war bonds, did not want to lose the value of their investment.
Complicating the issue, there was a post-war increase in the production of domestic silver right at the time European countries moved to a gold standard. This reduced the demand and led to a fall in the value of silver. Since greenbacks were redeemable in silver, the depreciated value of the bonds led conservatives in Congress to press for and finally succeed in having the bonds repaid in gold. This was denounced as the rich taking care of themselves at the expense of the producing class. The issue remained at the forefront of populist rhetoric and national politics for decades.
That producing class, and here the author shows showing a Marxist influence but, in context, it is probably the best explanatory term, although there was a large diversity in race, religion, and background. The one unifying theme was their economic status. Industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, whose plants produced a quarter of the country’s steel. Painter describes the harsh and dangerous working conditions and the “bloody struggle” between union workers and the company that had to be resolved with military intervention. Carnegie had been sympathetic towards workers and supportive of unions until the contract between the union and the Homestead steel mill expired. With profit on the line, he allowed his partner a free hand to eliminate the union. An employee lock out, enforced by a 3-mile long 8-foot high fence, and a hired Pinkerton security force soon became a near war zone until the governor sent in 8,000 militia to restore peace. Strike leaders were arrested and languished in jail while non-union workers restored productivity at the mill. The government’s reaction to this and subsequent strikes was to back the companies against the workers while legislation restricted their ability to strike further restricting freedom to support business profitability and protect social hierarchy.
The conflict grew in intensity. Attorney General A. Michael Palmer survived a suicide bombing of his home in June 1919. In addition to terrorism, blamed on Bolshevik activists but easily and quickly expanded to include striking workers, social unrest was tearing the country apart. Whites and African-American’s were killing each other indiscriminately in Chicago. There were massive strikes by steelworkers, coal miners, and police. Race riots, mob violence, and lynching took place in cities across the country and on both coasts. Economic equality, expressed through labor strikes, became synonymous with anarchy and a desire to destroy the country. Palmer, who believed that increased democracy with its resulting industrial and social chaos was too high of a price for America to pay, led a brutal crackdown on labor and social dissidents. Conservatives from the middle-class and wealthy class were afraid of the chaos and wanted stability, even if it came at the price of less freedom and democracy.
Painter’s book is an excellent survey of the rough and chaotic history surrounding the turn of the 20th Century. Skipping from major themes in economics, politics, and social life, she narrates the complexity of change from the late 1800s to 1920 as the country balanced on the edge of the democratic ideals of equality and freedom and the stability of hierarchical social order. Although, by the end of the period, the pendulum had swung away from freedom the reader is left with hope for the future.
The stakes in this conflict included the very heart of The United States, the ideal of equity, and in this telling it was very nearly lost. Fear coupled with the desire for prosperity affected all sides but only one side had any real power. The labor movement’s actions and reactions to sweeping changes in technology, migration from agrarian and rural areas to the cities, emigration, and a series of economic crisis’s became a threat to the establishment. More so, Painter states that in times of crisis organized labor had the potential of being an existential threat to the nation. The threat grew through the waves of labor strikes in 1877, 1886, and 1919 exploding into violence and terrorism.
Money was a powerful influencer on both sides of the labor conflict. Deflation, depression, and monetary policy following the Civil War caused lower prices and economic chaos, which led to lower wages for the average worker and a concern on. For the middle-class and wealthy, monetary policy exasperated their fears. Politicians fought over populist versus conservative policy. One example Painter is the populist leader Jeremiah “Sockless Joe” Simpson who began his career in politics as a greenback supporter.
Describing the national economy after the Civil War, Painter noted that the federal government had issued paper bonds, called greenbacks, to finance the war through millions of dollars of debt. They also chartered private national banks that issued paper fiat currency. This set up a conflict between those that wanted to keep metallic currency and those, like Sockless Joe, who argued to keep paper currency on behalf of the working, or producing, class struggling under significant deflation.
Wealthy bankers, on the other hand, who held the bulk of the government war bonds, did not want to lose the value of their investment.
Complicating the issue, there was a post-war increase in the production of domestic silver right at the time European countries moved to a gold standard. This reduced the demand and led to a fall in the value of silver. Since greenbacks were redeemable in silver, the depreciated value of the bonds led conservatives in Congress to press for and finally succeed in having the bonds repaid in gold. This was denounced as the rich taking care of themselves at the expense of the producing class. The issue remained at the forefront of populist rhetoric and national politics for decades.
That producing class, and here the author shows showing a Marxist influence but, in context, it is probably the best explanatory term, although there was a large diversity in race, religion, and background. The one unifying theme was their economic status. Industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, whose plants produced a quarter of the country’s steel. Painter describes the harsh and dangerous working conditions and the “bloody struggle” between union workers and the company that had to be resolved with military intervention. Carnegie had been sympathetic towards workers and supportive of unions until the contract between the union and the Homestead steel mill expired. With profit on the line, he allowed his partner a free hand to eliminate the union. An employee lock out, enforced by a 3-mile long 8-foot high fence, and a hired Pinkerton security force soon became a near war zone until the governor sent in 8,000 militia to restore peace. Strike leaders were arrested and languished in jail while non-union workers restored productivity at the mill. The government’s reaction to this and subsequent strikes was to back the companies against the workers while legislation restricted their ability to strike further restricting freedom to support business profitability and protect social hierarchy.
The conflict grew in intensity. Attorney General A. Michael Palmer survived a suicide bombing of his home in June 1919. In addition to terrorism, blamed on Bolshevik activists but easily and quickly expanded to include striking workers, social unrest was tearing the country apart. Whites and African-American’s were killing each other indiscriminately in Chicago. There were massive strikes by steelworkers, coal miners, and police. Race riots, mob violence, and lynching took place in cities across the country and on both coasts. Economic equality, expressed through labor strikes, became synonymous with anarchy and a desire to destroy the country. Palmer, who believed that increased democracy with its resulting industrial and social chaos was too high of a price for America to pay, led a brutal crackdown on labor and social dissidents. Conservatives from the middle-class and wealthy class were afraid of the chaos and wanted stability, even if it came at the price of less freedom and democracy.
Painter’s book is an excellent survey of the rough and chaotic history surrounding the turn of the 20th Century. Skipping from major themes in economics, politics, and social life, she narrates the complexity of change from the late 1800s to 1920 as the country balanced on the edge of the democratic ideals of equality and freedom and the stability of hierarchical social order. Although, by the end of the period, the pendulum had swung away from freedom the reader is left with hope for the future.
November 25, 2022
This was good. This was sort of like Zinn’s People’s History but like a more serious book with a lot more concrete details. Painter makes a pretty good hot take comparison between 1876 Railroad Strike, 1886 Haymarket Affair, 1918-1920 Red Scare and the post WWII Red Scare, in sort of a grand comparison of all of America’s collective red baiting moments. I believe she claims that 1876 was more just in newspapers and the imprisoning of innocent people was not a thing yet. Subsequent red scare/red baiting moments subsequently got worse/more intense with wider impacts.
On politics of the Progressive Era it was also really good, tracing the sort of leftward trend of Roosevelt and the country from 1901 to 1912, before pointing out that if the post WWI red baiting hysterics were actually upset about the total number of socialists, the red scare should have commenced in 1912 not after WW1.
This book also is a handy reference for different relevant numbers to have as a reference living wages, actual wages for different groups as well as the social standing various wage points would put people at. For a history book on the time period, this one is my favorite.
On politics of the Progressive Era it was also really good, tracing the sort of leftward trend of Roosevelt and the country from 1901 to 1912, before pointing out that if the post WWI red baiting hysterics were actually upset about the total number of socialists, the red scare should have commenced in 1912 not after WW1.
This book also is a handy reference for different relevant numbers to have as a reference living wages, actual wages for different groups as well as the social standing various wage points would put people at. For a history book on the time period, this one is my favorite.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 12, 2024
Nell Irvin Painter's book looks at the America of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, with an emphasis on bottom-up history. It allows for a reframing of some familiar episodes, which is nice. However, I struggled with the organization of the book - it's roughly chronological, but I couldn't understand why a particular story was included in one chapter rather than another. It wasn't until the epilogue, though, that I became really disappointed with Painter's work. She identifies her goals in writing this book, which surprised me, since I hadn't discerned any of those goals in the preceding 350 pages. This book lacked the clarity of purpose and design that marks the best historical writing.
February 1, 2025
This is a very engaging survey of 1877-1920. Painter has been a historian I've wanted to read for a long time, and this early book had been on my shelf for a long time. I was so into it. It had an active, exciting voice in the sections of narration, and a systematic, political economy focused, organization that made the arguments harmonize to great affect. I had been drawn to this era back in undergrad, but ended up more focused on Post-WWII America, this book was a great reminder of how engaging and insightful for today this time period of American history is. With solid, but basic background knowledge, this really expands and electrifies the possibility of learning from the era. Highly Recommended.
March 29, 2021
An excellent history of a period I knew little about- always seemed to fall through the gaps in my American history education. My only criticism is that, since it's very politics-focused, there are what sometimes feels like entire chapters devoted to listing various organizations (unions, political parties, temperance groups, women's groups, etc); it can get dry. And some political issues of the time- tariffs for example- I just can't force myself to be interested in or care about. But the book overall is fascinating, especially for the view of labor relations, the intensity of strikes and turmoil, and the immense difficulties of making any progress on basic issues like an 8-hour workday.
May 26, 2023
I really wanted to like this work so I could assign it in a new class. But it’s too uneven and with often dry writing. Certain major events (example: women’s suffrage and the 19th Amendment), show up in odd places and with limited context — although sometimes the inordinate context makes one think anew about the subject. Painter does succeed in making clear the key differences between political factions (particularly their differing worldviews), which is fundamental to making sense of the period. You do have to sift through much text to get such insights, though. The Epilogue is a strong summary of her takes on the period—and almost resulted in a higher rating because of it.
September 8, 2020
The political economy of labor history seems like a weird thing for me to enjoy (and I couldn't quite manage it for the currency reform stuff) but overall I found this a super interesting overview of a super interesting time. I also really appreciated how straightforward Dr. Painter's writing is, and how she actually talked about workers and women and Black people and sometimes all three at the same time.
May 19, 2018
Standing at Armageddon is Nell Irvin Painter's history of the Progressive movement from 1877 through 1919. Dry prose dims a dynamic and violent period in which average Americans seek labor protections, suffrage, civil rights and consumer laws. Echoes of all too familiar struggles today. Frick and Carnegie would recognize the Koch bros out of any crowd
November 5, 2018
Dense with detail as expected of history writing. Mostly political history, occasionally details of wars. Important information about a period I was not familiar with at all other than to know it was the time of WWI. Important detail of labor history. And of developing wealth inequality.
May 18, 2019
A chaotic time, with the working class (who were largely immigrant) trying to get better working conditions. America changed from rural and agricultural to urban and manufacturing. A huge influx of southern and eastern European immigrants challenged America's self image as British and Protestant.
May 18, 2023
I liked this book - demonstrated the importance of unions in the building middle-class America, among other Progressive achievements. Also a good look at early immigration, women's rights, racial inequality.
December 13, 2019
Solid picture of a heartbreaking time.
May 18, 2025
Great book
December 9, 2025
A respectful record of events with some narrative elements. Somewhat difficult to engage with, but a surely important encyclopedia of facts.
March 12, 2016
Really interesting, particularly the rise of the labor movements, workers safety and health movements, William Jennings Bryan, McKinley. The book is fairly academic, it is concerned with movements of people rather than individual human conditions. Ms. Painter's discussion of racism and racial suppression was fascinating, particularly voters rights.
The constantly-shifting positions of republicans and democrats (and Teddy Roosevelt) from the end of reconstruction to the end of WW1 was interesting. You can see the roots of today's modern parties in that era. I really didn't know much about McKinley; however, based upon his policies, he really seems to be the first modern republican president. He was an important president. The same with Bryan; he seems to be the first modern democrat.
The debate between silver vs. gold standard was interesting, I really didn't know much about why free silver was an issue until this book explained it to me. The silver vs. gold discussion, the role of big banks and money trusts led to the creation of the Federal Reserve and our current monetary model right now.
The institutional disenfranchisement of African Americans was summarized to some detail detail such that I understand it better, especially denial of voting rights. Authors have wrote volumes on this subject. It is possibly the most important problem, then and now, considering the depth of the subject of institutional racism against the African American population and desire to return to antebellum.
I would like to have understood a few topics better, including reconstruction and its end, the roots of the panics of 1893 and 1907 and the supreme court decisions during the era. However, if the author would have gone into these topics in detail, the book might be very long, very academic and very dry. And it gives me opportunity for further reading. The author provides a list of suggested reading at the end.
The author seemed to lose interest in certain facets of the progressive movement, other than Mother Jones, she seemed to be less interested in women's movements and the early roots of the progressive movement. In these cases, she merely name drops and moves on. Very little discussion on child labor regulation. There was no discussion on the state of public education.
The author's bias shows through; however it did not impact my enjoyment of the book. William Jennings Bryan figures large, and the author's interest in the progressive movement shows as does her admiration for Bryan. Also the author spends time on Roosevelt and his transition to a progressive, then almost laments his return to the main-stream republican party.
A great history about the time of our history when we began defining (or attempting to define) what "America" means.
The constantly-shifting positions of republicans and democrats (and Teddy Roosevelt) from the end of reconstruction to the end of WW1 was interesting. You can see the roots of today's modern parties in that era. I really didn't know much about McKinley; however, based upon his policies, he really seems to be the first modern republican president. He was an important president. The same with Bryan; he seems to be the first modern democrat.
The debate between silver vs. gold standard was interesting, I really didn't know much about why free silver was an issue until this book explained it to me. The silver vs. gold discussion, the role of big banks and money trusts led to the creation of the Federal Reserve and our current monetary model right now.
The institutional disenfranchisement of African Americans was summarized to some detail detail such that I understand it better, especially denial of voting rights. Authors have wrote volumes on this subject. It is possibly the most important problem, then and now, considering the depth of the subject of institutional racism against the African American population and desire to return to antebellum.
I would like to have understood a few topics better, including reconstruction and its end, the roots of the panics of 1893 and 1907 and the supreme court decisions during the era. However, if the author would have gone into these topics in detail, the book might be very long, very academic and very dry. And it gives me opportunity for further reading. The author provides a list of suggested reading at the end.
The author seemed to lose interest in certain facets of the progressive movement, other than Mother Jones, she seemed to be less interested in women's movements and the early roots of the progressive movement. In these cases, she merely name drops and moves on. Very little discussion on child labor regulation. There was no discussion on the state of public education.
The author's bias shows through; however it did not impact my enjoyment of the book. William Jennings Bryan figures large, and the author's interest in the progressive movement shows as does her admiration for Bryan. Also the author spends time on Roosevelt and his transition to a progressive, then almost laments his return to the main-stream republican party.
A great history about the time of our history when we began defining (or attempting to define) what "America" means.
November 12, 2022
Nell Irvin Painter successfully provides a "Grassroots" history of the progressive era--emphasizing the efforts of labor and labor organizers to fight economic injustices in the Gilded Age that ultimately contributed to the rise of the Progressive movement. Along the way, she ably covers issues related to women's rights and African American rights, and to a lesser extent immigrants and Native Americans. This interpretation of the era of 1877-1920 focuses on economic, and especially class, history, and covers most of the important issues and events of the era, including national and international politics.
I used in for a history course covering the era of 1877-1920 and found it to be a useful companion to most of my lectures, because I tend to cover intellectual and cultural history more thoroughly. Students in the class seemed to like the book, but found its coverage of the history of the American west, gender and sexuality, and religion and culture a bit thin. I would use it to teach the course again, but feel I would need to assign supplemental readings on those topics not covered as thoroughly by Painter.
I used in for a history course covering the era of 1877-1920 and found it to be a useful companion to most of my lectures, because I tend to cover intellectual and cultural history more thoroughly. Students in the class seemed to like the book, but found its coverage of the history of the American west, gender and sexuality, and religion and culture a bit thin. I would use it to teach the course again, but feel I would need to assign supplemental readings on those topics not covered as thoroughly by Painter.
June 23, 2010
A great resource for learning progressive-era history. It provided me with a sense of just how powerful social and political unrest was in the post-reconstruction era. Painter points out that Americans in the 1890's dealt with the damaging effects of recessions, a widening gap between socioeconomic classes, and the challenges of establishing reform. The parallels between the period covered in the book and that of today is striking, and perhaps, somewhat ironic.
February 24, 2012
Great account of a tumultuous period in American history. It's amazing how so many of the same issues are alive today. Nell Irvin Painter does a commendable job keeping the pace quick while including very interesting character sketches, anecdotes, and down and dirty economic scholarship. Highly recommended for anyone looking to know more about this time period.
February 6, 2015
Conceives of a...long-so-called-progressive-era from 1877-1919 around three fulcrum points, the mass strike waves of: 1877, 1886, 1919. Americans were attempting to determine the correct vision for society, between those emphasizing shared prosperity (and with it hierarchy) and those emphasizing democracy (and accepting the reality of conflict, based on race, class, gender, etc.)
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