The Age of Reform

by Richard Hofstadter

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author and preeminent historian comes a landmark in American political thought that examines the passion for progress and reform during 1890 to 1940. 

The Age of Reform searches out the moral and emotional motives of the reformers the myths and dreams in which they believed, and the realities with which they had to compromise.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Philosophy, Classics, United States

352 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 1955

About the author

Richard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual, historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. In the course of his career, Hofstadter became the “iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus” whom twenty-first century scholars continue consulting, because his intellectually engaging books and essays continue to illuminate contemporary history.

His most important works are Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (1944); The American Political Tradition (1948); The Age of Reform (1955); Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963), and the essays collected in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964). He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: in 1956 for The Age of Reform, an unsentimental analysis of the populism movement in the 1890s and the progressive movement of the early 20th century; and in 1964 for the cultural history, Anti-intellectualism in American Life.

Richard Hofstadter was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916 to a German American Lutheran mother and a Polish Jewish father, who died when he was ten. He attended the City Honors School, then studied philosophy and history at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1933, under the diplomatic historian Julius Pratt. As he matured, he culturally identified himself primarily as a Jew, rather than as a Protestant Christian, a stance that eventually may have cost him professorships at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley, because of the institutional antisemitism of the 1940s.

As a man of his time, Richard Hofstadter was a Communist, and a member of the Young Communist League at university, and later progressed to Communist Party membership. In 1936, he entered the doctoral program in history at Columbia University, where Merle Curti was demonstrating how to synthesize intellectual, social, and political history based upon secondary sources rather than primary-source archival research. In 1938, he joined the Communist Party of the USA, yet realistically qualified his action: “I join without enthusiasm, but with a sense of obligation.... My fundamental reason for joining is that I don’t like capitalism and want to get rid of it. I am tired of talking.... The party is making a very profound contribution to the radicalization of the American people.... I prefer to go along with it now.” In late 1939, he ended the Communist stage of his life, because of the Soviet–Nazi alliance. He remained anti-capitalist: “I hate capitalism and everything that goes with it.”

In 1942, he earned his doctorate in history and in 1944 published his dissertation Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, a pithy and commercially successful (200,000 copies) critique of late 19th century American capitalism and those who espoused its ruthless “dog-eat-dog” economic competition and justified themselves by invoking the doctrine of as Social Darwinism, identified with William Graham Sumner. Conservative critics, such as Irwin G. Wylie and Robert C. Bannister, however, disagree with this interpretation.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read Richard Hofstadter as a graduate student in classes where we mostly did what we could to poke holes in his colorful, sweeping histories. But I return to Hofstadter because while his scholarship has never gone away, he is undoubtedly deserving of a moment of reconsideration in the current political climate. Hofstadter differed from his mid-century contemporaries in that he emphasized an anti-intellectual strain in the frontier mentality of America, and in this volume, of the anti-urban, anti-immigrant, nativist, Protestant ethos in populist movements a century ago. In short, Hofstadter may not have raised an eyebrow at the Tea Party movement or the rise of Trump. At the very least, he would have recognized it.

The Age of Reform focuses on two periods in American history, the Populist era (1890s) and the Progressive era (1900-1914). Historians have a positive view of many of the reforms of that period, since it ushered in substantial democratic reforms, including direct election of Senators, the initiative and referendum, secret ballots. While Hofstadter acknowledges the positive side of those and other reforms, his nuanced spin attaches the mentality of those developments to a nostalgia for the past, an effort to restore a type of economic individualism and political democracy that was believed to have existed in earlier America, destroyed by industrialization and political machines. There was a need to bring back "a kind of morality and civic purity that was also believed to have been lost". Hofstadter's intellectual contribution, it seems, was the emphasis on this myth of the self-made rural man. "The American mind was raised upon a sentimental attachment to rural living and upon a series of notions about rural people and rural life that I have chosen to designate as the agrarian myth. … Its hero was the yeoman farmer, its central conception the notion that he is the ideal man and the ideal citizen."

"Much is said in our political discussions about the big-city machines and their role in politics. It is testimony to the grip of our agrarian traditions that relatively little attention is paid by the public to the exorbitant power of rural blocs."

In short, Hofstadter's focus here is on that rural bloc, and what makes this book an interesting contemporary read is that the fault lines in American politics a century later are similarly pronounced.

Hofstadter is not terribly flattering of Americans' views on race:

"The conspiratorial theory and the associated Anglophobic and Judophobic feelings were part of a larger complex of fear and suspicion of the stranger that haunted, and still tragically haunts, the nativist American mind. … Everyone remote and alien was distrusted and hated – even Americans if they happened to be city people."

Similarly, Hofstadter on culture:

"To the rural migrant, raised in respectable quietude and the high-toned moral imperatives of evangelical Protestantism, the city seemed not merely a new social form or way of life but a strange threat to civilization itself."

"The city was symbolized as the home of loan sharks, dandies, fops, and aristocrats with European ideas who despised farmers as hayseeds."

"Whereas a century ago the American farmer was inclined to concentrate his suspicion of the city upon the wealthy and aristocratic, he now tends more and more to look upon the idleness of the unemployed and the tactics of industrial unions as the most prominent symbols of urban corruption."

Hofstadter on the media:

"What was new in muckraking in the Progressive era was neither its ideas nor its existence, but its reach – its nationwide character and its capacity to draw nationwide attention, the presence of mass muckraking media with national circulations."

"It was on jingoist issues that the Populist and Bryanite sections of the country, with the aid of the yellow press and many political leaders, achieved that rapport with the masses."

"When conspiracies do not exist it is necessary for those who think in this fashion to invent them."

Hofstadter also writes extensively about opposition to political machines and those that tangibly benefited in such a way that jibes with today's opposition to welfare programs.

I hate to draw too strong of a parallel, but I really picked this book expecting to find similarities between his depiction of turn-of-the-century populist attitudes and contemporary analyses of Republican voters. And they were not too hard to find.

Hofstadter is taken to task by contemporary scholars for being overblown, but the depth of this volume is impressive. The book was popular enough to earn him a Pulitzer. Hofstadter himself came from a household of immigrants, and he was a member of that east coast class of intellectual elites. He was both Jewish and urban as well, and he was writing this book in response to a society and a profession that would have been biased against this particular spin.

[David Monroe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning book introduced his idea of "status politics" -- the idea that people don't act from economic self-interest but from a desire to preserve their social standing. He portrayed the late-nineteenth-century Populists as moved by fears of modernity, nostalgia for an agrarian past, and bigotry. Over the years, historians have poked holes in it. Hofstadter overstated the Populists' nativism and glossed over their critiques of Gilded Age capitalism. The book is still a good point of departure for anyone interested in the Populist Period of 1890 to 1940.

[alex angelosanto · Rating 4 out of 5]

america's yomean farmer found dead in a ditch.

This is a great, bold theory of the New Deal as a synthesis of rural Populism and urban Progressivism. It's been noted and well taken that there are several blind spots in Hofstadter's analysis here, but even at its worst, this almost Quixotic approach shakes off cliche and helps you look at these well-worn movements with fresh eyes. Some things, like his analysis of third parties (“a third party is like a bee, it dies when it stings”) feel incredibly trenchant and as true today as it was then.

The first section of the book on 19th-century farmers is the strongest part. For Hofstadter, the farmers never got the chance to be the self-sufficient people of their dreams. the call towards boosterism and land speculation was too great and lead to misunderstanding on who they were and what they needed to succeed. They were small businessmen in a speculative venture and needed market protection from monopolistic players. For this reason, Populism was DOA but through negation, their ideas were able to float over to the urban struggle in Progressivism and succeed in the New Deal.

This is a type of book that is hard to find now and was seemingly in spades in the mid-20th century. It’s a polemic, it's analysis, and maybe most alien to today- it’s about movements on the ground. It’s not about personalities or leaders. Its focus is on the currents of a time, who those currents elevate, and who they drown. There’s plenty in this book to pick apart, but even the dissent this book inspires is a more elevated discussion than what comes from writers like Chernow and Meacham

[Mehrsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read the many debunkings of this cherry-picked history before engaging with the work itself. Hofstadter doesn't do much in here to recover from what other scholars have pointed out as major flaws in his history, but there is still so much in here to learn. He is an excellent writer and I think his teasing out of the agrarian myth is still useful and very valid. I think it still shapes our policies in weird ways. This book made me wonder what Hofstadter's view of Trumpian politics would be--seems like he would denounce it like he did the sham nativist populists of earlier eras and would feel vindicated.

[Graeme · Rating 5 out of 5]

This mighty work covers American political history from Populism in the 1890s, to Progressivism in the early twentieth century, and the New Deal in the 30s. I loved that Richard Hofstadter concluded that making change and trying things out was always vastly more effective than developing principles and ideologies. The principles of Populism and Progressivism just wormed their way into popular consciousness and became law, often at the hands of the very politicians who had earlier opposed them. And Franklin Delano Roosevelt focused on fixing the country and helping people with the New Deal while ideologues foamed at the mouth in ways that make Trump opponents seem mild. In politics as in life, evolution is the messy business of experimenting and seeing what works.

Here are a couple of excerpts to make your brain boil and your heart sing:

In the post-Civil War period all this was changed. The rapid development of the big cities, the building of a great industrial plant, the construction of the railroads, the emergence of the corporation as the dominant form of enterprise, transformed the old society and revolutionized the distribution of power and prestige. . . .

The newly rich, the grandiosely or corruptly rich, the masters of great corporations, were bypassing the men of the Mugwump type—the old gentry, the merchants of long standing, the small manufacturers, the established professional men, the civic leaders of an earlier era. In a score of cities and hundreds of towns, particularly in the East but also in the nation at large, the old-family, college-educated class that had deep ancestral roots in local communities and often owned family businesses, that had traditions of political leadership, belonged to the patriotic societies and the best clubs, staffed the governing boards of philanthropic and cultural institutions, and led the movements for civic betterment, were being overshadowed and edged aside in the making of basic political and economic decisions. In their personal careers, as in their community activities, they found themselves checked, hampered, and overridden by the agents of the new corporations, the corrupters of legislatures, the buyers of franchises, the allies of the political bosses. In this uneven struggle they found themselves limited by their own scruples, their regard for reputation, their social standing itself. To be sure, the America they knew did not lack opportunities, but it did seem to lack opportunities of the highest sort for men of the highest standards. In a strictly economic sense these men were not growing poorer as a class, but their wealth and power were being dwarfed by comparison with the new eminences of wealth and power. They were less important, and they knew it.

Grab this book if you can find it. It has far too many footnotes that consume far too much space, but you must suck that up and exult in your new knowledge.

[Katie Hanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm too exhausted to explain why I don't entirely endorse this book right at the moment. Suffice it to say that I've long argued that Hofstadter has a pretty strong anti-immigrant bias, and Age of Reform did nothing to change my opinion.

[Kiki023 · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is very easy, in times of anxiety and unrest, to fall back upon shibboleths and tenets that purport to simplify and clarify the world for us, to provide us with a narrative with which we can make sense of it all, to retreat back into clearly demarcated worlds of facts and interpretations that we can rely on and deploy to shield us from things that we would prefer to ignore. History, by virtue of its status as the substratum by which all such facts and interpretation spring, is ripe for the picking in the political and cultural conflicts that wrack the world today. Always has been, always will, but perhaps now so more than ever.

This is a five-star work of history, written at a time before the culture wars reached the boiling-hot intensity with which they are fought today. It is still, nearly seventy years after its publication, an enormously influential work in its depiction of a time in which America transitioned kicking and screaming into the industrial powerhouse it was destined(?) to become and the attendant movements to reform its worst excesses that still wield such nostalgic power over us today in our abiding admiration for them, and which themselves wielded the power of nostalgia to great effect. This is a five-star work of history, despite some of my disagreements in the matter of interpretation and reluctant embrace of the facts that it presents. It is a five-star work, despite my ostensible opposition to the political orientation of its author.

The fundamental insight of this work, I think, is in showing just how profoundly different American society is from every other society in the world. How different its psychological makeup is, how different its pathologies are, and the responses they engender when faced with exogenous shocks and disruption on an epochal scale. Whereas European society in the age of revolution, nationalism, and industrialism bifurcated rather neatly into opposing economic camps, between rich and poor, between the bourgeoisie and prole, American society pursued a different course and instead produced movements emerging out of the unique circumstances of its history and socioeconomic composition. Movements and demands for change that sprung, in short, from its perennially insecure middle class.

Populism and progressivism are the twin inheritances of History-as-such, of the longing to turn back time, it produced in its adherents a zeal to raise the pitchfork, storm the barricade and wrench the wheel of change from History's driver seat. They are also uniquely American responses to uniquely American problems. See, for example, the overriding populist concern for the cause of free silver, or the progressive's demand for the abolition of the city machine and its reliance on immigrant patronage. Both movements were in thrall to mythologies inherited from earlier times, and to a sense of relative loss in the great race towards acquisition and consolidation. There is a sense in Hofstadter's readings of the movements' spokesmen and followers that they are something more like impotent spectators lamenting changes that have already passed them by, scratching their heads in befuddled bewilderment, wondering when and how things had been so drastically altered.

Hofstadter has sympathy for the subjects of his history, moreso than he has been given credit for in recent years, as a reinvigorated populism clashes with a reinvigorated (if not truly historically indebted) progressivism. His work has naturally increased in influence and yet one cannot help but suspect that people read into it what they'd like to. Books such as these and his Anti-Intellectualism in American Life regularly appear on reading lists that proclaim to explain the paranoias and prejudices of the Trump voter, but the interesting thing about Hoftsadter is his ability to remove himself from the debates he so fastidiously reports on. He has his preferences, to be sure, the last paragraph of the book would disabuse anyone of the notion that he does not, but often this is mediated by an attempt to level with the Ignatius Donnelly's, "Coin" Harvey's, Mary Lease's, Louis Brandeis's, and other characters of a changing America. He recognizes that their demands were not entirely illegitimate, that whatever prejudices changing circumstances might have conjured up, they were rooted in a real sense of relative (or absolute) loss, that their myths had not always been myths and were not entirely fictional, however exaggerated they became as they receded ever further into the annals of history.

And this is where Hofstadter uncovers something very curious about the character of the movements he studies. The progressive reformer of the early twentieth century, quite alien to the progressive of the twenty-first, was more than anything else dedicated to the notion that the old civic-minded ideal of the disinterested, altruistic voter had once inculcated in its followers: individualism. This fealty to the promise of a democratic admixture between business and character, a relationship that promised to elevate both, pushed it to fight the business consolidation and economic power that the individualist of today (I think to movement conservatives) would have little trouble defending. The innovations of the New Deal, and its emphasis not on high-minded idealism but practical experimentation and bigness for its own sake, effectively turned the progressive reformer into a conservative who, in their desire to undo the new regime, produced via half-hearted successes the rampant inequalities they were once moved to fight - a cause which has been taken up by their enemies. History has an interesting flair for the ironic.

Something similar can be seen in the history of agrarian populism. As Hofstadter sees it, western populism was an outburst of entrepreneurial radicalism, committed in theory to an ideal they were loathe to practice and which had disappeared rather quickly in American history. Still, depressed crop prices, the squeeze on silver and international distortions in the market led the producer to pin his hopes on the promise of mass action, ideology, and third-party politics in a bid to restore the promise of agrarian life. When the populist takeover of the Democratic Party failed, agriculture promptly became more successful than it ever had been, adopting the practices that successful business lobbies had long utilized, and attained a role in setting public policy they had hitherto not dreamt of. In surrendering their ideals, they became incorporated and bureaucratized. They became their enemy. Funny.

Perhaps the lesson here is that the march of time has a weathering effect, and that oppositional tendencies are doomed to, in fact, mutually reinforce. There are a lot of details I'm glossing over, and there is some question as to whether American farmers truly gave up on the agrarian ideal in practice as quickly as Hofstadter claims, especially given the amount of legislation passed in an effort to restore the picturesque vision of the yeoman and in the discontent that continued (and continues!) to flair up. But the results speak for themselves, and I imagine it would go a long way to perturb the contemporary progressive and populist, those characteristic outgrowths of the American political style, to learn that they had once belonged to their enemies. So it goes.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, Richard Hofstadter proves himself to be one of the best illuminators of American political history I've ever read. This book covers mainly populism and progressivism, but it isn't about the movements' actions so much as the ideas, mythologies, and social conflicts that motivated them to push for reform. Overall, he sees both movements emerging from the profound anxiety of the rapid transition from an agrarian society to an industrial, urban one. There are dozens of eye-opening points in here, so I'll just note a few that stood out to me.

Both movements emerged from a deep trend of moralism in American politics. The industrial, capitalist, urban world seemed so impersonal, and its competitive ethos did not always reward the most scrupulous, public-minded, honest men. The New Deal, in contrast, tended to be pragmatic, results-oriented, and far less Manichean in its worldview. For example, the Progressive loathed machine politics, but the New Dealer were willing to co-opt them to ameliorate the Depression's effects. He emphasizes that this moralism could often conflict with liberalism, as the anti-immigrant sentiment of many Progressives and the racism of the Populists often attested. He finds that the Populists were motivated by the "agrarian myth," or the long-standing American love affair with the independent yeoman-farmer citizen. Part of the crisis of Populism was that this model of agriculture was simple unsuitable for large-scale, mechanized farming and was therefore dying out. Progressivism also longed for the agrarian myth, but it was based even more in the anxieties of the old "Mugwump" elite in the rise of what they viewed as a crass, selfish, not service-minded set of new money industrialists. These people had clearly become more powerful by the turn of the century, but the teachers, professors, lawyers, doctors, mid-level businessmen, and other respectable bourgeois tradesmen were not ready to accept this nor to tolerate the downsides of industrialism and urbanism. These old gentry folk believed more in the republican virtues of the Founders: men should serve their communities/nation, act with humility and propriety rather than ostentation, and focus on self-improvement and virtuous living rather than the pursuit of riches. The resulting Progressive movement was highly moralistic, set both on helping and reforming the common worker (temperance, education, charity, Hull House, assimilating immigrants) and assaulting the power of the industrialists (trust-busting, some labor reform, direct election of senators). Progressivism was far more moderate than Populism. It did not seek to transform, but the reform the system and partially allocate its wealth more fairly. One of the great successes of Progressivism was to curb some of America's worst tendencies without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. They also intended, and probably succeeded, in pre-empting more radical solutions to America's ills. In sum, a major takeaway from this book is that moral views almost always underpin people's political leanings, their sense of what is wrong with society, and their plans for reform. Figuring out those underlying views is crucial to understanding these kinds of movements.

One interesting note about Populism is that it did succeed in improving the lot of farmers, just not for the majority of farmers. During the economic downturn for agriculture in the late 1900s, the number of farmers shrank even as the trade expanded. These farmers remaining farmers were now far more industrialized, cohesive, vocal, and capitalistic. They also had way more sway in state and federal government, especially in the upper houses where representation is not proportional to population. A cabal of senators from agrarian states and districts created a powerful voting bloc that fed benefits back to the remaining farmers (still kinda works this way). The long-term effect was for farmers to essentially leave the labor movement and become conservative businessmen. The new agrarian labor struggle became the fight between capitalistic farmers and wage/seasonal laborers.

These movements also brought about historic shifts in people's relationship to the government. Both movements, and the New Deal especially, featured ordinary citizens calling on the federal and state governments to attack the problems created by industrialism and take on some responsibility for the common good.

Hofstadter's brief comments on WWI are awesome. He argues that WWI was sold largely on Progressive terms. The US may have had good business and strategic reasons for staying out (or going in, depending upon one's views), but the debate and major appeals centered around ethical, Progressive language. For example, Wilson ultimately sold the was on international law, freedom of the seas, the rights of small nations and minorities, the fight against autocracy and militarism, and the quest to extend democracy. Like the Progressive to the poor and wayward rich, the US had a responsibility to reform the world. This notion of responsibility still lies heavy upon the American conscience vis a vis the rest of the planet.

In sum, this is a brilliant work of political history and social psychology. Progressives, for example, were seeking not just to change their society but, less consciously, to restore their own importance in society and have some catharsis about its greatest excesses. Broadly, there is an anxiety in both movements about the broad trend away from personal societies to impersonal systems, a challenge we still face today. Hofstadter teaches us about the movements themselves, their achievements and failings, but even more so about their animating myths and ideologies. It is an illuminating way to being studying 20th Century American politics, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic.

[Allie Morris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Richard Hofstadter acknowledges in multiple places his bias in reviewing 19th-century American Reform Movements. He states that it is important to reexamine with a critical eye the populist and progressive reforms so that we do not continue to mistake reform with solely liberal ideology. In fact, Hofstadter admits that his authority in critiquing these movements is because he himself is a progressive (15). Instead, these two reform movements, in contrast to the age of FDR, reveal that reform can be infused with reactionary, conservative ideology. That is what Hofstadter tries to untangle. How can these movements ask for reform and be illiberal (in that they are hoping to hold onto traditional systems and beliefs?) They can because reform is largely psychological.

He begins to untangle our ideas of reform, liberalism, and conservatism by centering the beliefs of those that were involved, or the common discourse, rather than what the historiography has tended to focus on, the intellectuals or leaders of these movements (William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt (6). (Yet, he tends to rely on his contemporary leaders, such as Adlai Stevenson to illustrate the connections of the 19th century reform movements "common discourse...") By relying on sources that reveal the the criticisms and their proposed solutions of the "ordinary politically conscious citizen" (7), Hofstadter argues that these reform movements were imbued with conservative ideology, but because the United States is quite a conservative country, reform movements have simply been categorized as liberal. Hofstadter's evidence shows that the populists and progressives held onto the past to cement "pull up your bootstraps" mentality, homogenous culture of yankee-protestant power, and individual opportunities, revealing that these reform movements were "retrograde, delusive, a little viscious, and a good deal comic" (13). At his nicest, Hofstadter characterizes these movement as ambiguous (18).

Certainly, the liberal tradition allowed for such reform movements to take root. The country's history of protest, opposition, and occasional representation allows for such movements to begin in the first place. Thus, in Hofstadter's view, the liberal tradition can take some heat (19). But while the liberal tradition may have caused citizens to feel comfortable in taking action, their actions were not necessarily for dismantling the system. Instead, the populists and progressives aimed to grasp with their dying breath this country's past, or rather, as Hofstadter puts it, this country's myths.

The populists emerged because of the decline of the agrarian economy. Fed to them by the leaders of early America (Thanks Thomas Jefferson!), farmers believed that they were the backbone of American Democracy. After all, the phrase "grass-roots" is still used today. Yet, as Hofstadter points out, this a myth. As the country became more industrial, rather than farmers supporting the country, the country was forced to care for the farmers. Therefore, the movement emerged because "self-centered" farmers held onto the "folklore" of America (8). Thus, Hofstadter harshly, sometimes correctly, characterizes the populists as suspicious nativists that serve as the inspiration for the "cranky pseudo-conservatives" of his time.

The Progressives emerged because industrialization, urbanization, and immigration supplanted the power of the Yankee Protestant Middle-Class. Like the populists holding onto their mythical power as farmers, the progressives pushed for reform to hold onto their individuality as Yankee-Protestants in a time in which homogeneity decreased and beauracracy, corporations, and political bosses increased, erasing the seemingly cemented reality of personal character's responsibility in achieving success. Thus, Progressives urged for moral reform, setting impossible standards based on moral absolutism.

Hofstadter does credit the 19th-century reformers as criticizing real issues, such as monopolies, corrupt and unfair working conditions, and the safety of women and children, but their solutions "toggle between reality and impossibility," ending up with "periodical psychic sprees" (17). (EX: we have a domestic abuse problem... so get rid of all the alcohol in the nation).

He does make sense of their behavior. On page 71, he does list the factors for making such irrational, magical, "and a little vicious" thinking: when susceptibility is high, low education is low, people feel completely deprived, and antagonisms are sharp. But Hofstadter's condescension is apparent. This is what makes populists and progressives discontinuous or dissimilar to the age of reform in 1939.

Hofstadter diverges from the historiography in two ways. First, he centers the account of the common citizen (though, not very well...) Second, he argues that the age of FDR is not the "third wave" of reform. Instead, Hofstadter suggests that the reform of the 1940s is its "pragmatic spirit and relentless emphasis on results," a major distinction from populists and progressive's relentless pursuit of individual character (12). Dedicating only a chapter, Hofstadter hopes his reader does not take his account of these reform movements as truth, but to inspire historians to take on the challenge of studying something so complex and ambiguous.

The arguments Hofstadter does and have successfully spur historians to rethink the movements. However, Hofstadter's interpretation of the evidence (or lack thereof) is much too skewed towards his purpose of writing this- to critique "new conservatism," which (hopefully) makes the reader skeptical of the extent to which Hofstadter was truly devoted to understanding the beliefs, motivations, and solutions of the common citizen.... (you would actually need a control group that did not become reformers to compare... and studying the psyche of the common man is actually quite difficult) Dozens of historians have refuted Hofstadter's characteristic of the populists (that nativism, racism, and antisemites are common traits among many groups AND that they were fighting real issues...) But, Hofstadter's devotion to irony and paradoxes (that these reformers were becoming businessmen themselves, TR, "the trustbuster" moderately helped... Taft actually busted more than TR) makes this book stand the test of time.

[Robert Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Pulitzer Prize winning “The Age of Reform”, Richard Hofstadter chronicles the flow of social and political currents that propelled the Populist, Progressive and New Deal reform movements that swept America from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th. Hofstadter’s goal is to articulate the motivations, ideologies and tactics that fueled each of these movements, and so account for their achievements, failures and relative impact (or lack of impact) on subsequent trends in American history.

Leaving the who-did-what-when chronology of events to other writers, Hofstadter seeks to understand these reform movements from the perspective of the people who embraced them. Although each movement fits broadly into the overarching category of “reform”, the actors who rose to propel their movements were, in each case, very different types of people who were motivated by very different sorts of concerns and approached their efforts at change from correspondingly different perspectives. Hofstadter examines each of these in turn, producing a tightly bound work that is as thought provoking as it is insightful.

Hofstadter’s core insight regarding status interests and the degree to which they impact political movements runs in the background of his explorations of the three reform movements of the era. Populism, with its demands for land reform and agricultural supports, was an agrarian movement whose driving forces Hofstadter attributes to the sense the nation’s farming class had that they and their interests were being eclipsed by the forces of the industrial revolution and, in particular, the dirty, noisy, immoral, immigrant-ridden urban centers industrialization produced. Progressivism, seeking to end the stranglehold of trusts and the reform of anti-democratic machine-driven political hierarchies, arose out of a sense by the middle-class and professions that opportunities that should have been made available to them as the just deserts of their industry and hard work were instead being horded by entitled, undeserving “money men” and corrupt, patronage dispensing political bosses. Whereas Populism and Progressivism produced far more moralizing philosophy than they did actual results, New Dealers were responding to the panicked terror of the Great Depression and made reform actually happen with little regard for or interest in the philosophical basis for their actions. This emphasis on status interests not only makes the history of these eras comprehensible, but also provides thought-provoking frameworks by which contemporary political movements such as the Tea Party can be understood and evaluated.

On a stylistic note, the more I read the more I find myself drawn to the writings of 50’s era thinkers like Hofstadter. Separate and apart from the ideas he presents, it’s the way he presents them that appeals to me. Sparse, yet rich in content, witty, yet never buffoonish, the ideas are nested in compact frameworks of reason that one is compelled to unpack in order to understand what the writer is on about.

The book was remarkable, and makes me regret the previous five starts that I’ve awarded to other efforts in that they now compel me to offer six stars to Hofstadter.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love him or hate him, you just can't get around him. Hofstadter takes up a strong (and contested) position on the Populists, as already addressed in Week 2. He argues more extensively in this chapter that the irony of Populism is that, though they may have gone down to political defeat, they achieved most of their goals by the very fact that most of their causes became law. In the classic role of the third party, they were like bees, "once they have stung, they die" (pp. 97 and 108- 8 9).

Many would contest the idea that Populism was so very successful. Particularly Lawrence Goodwyn, but that will have to wait. Many too would contest Hofstadter's emphasis on the "success-hungriness" of the Populist leadership. As he did with Abraham Lincoln in The American Political Tradition, so he does with the Populist leaders such as General Weaver (p. 105). Ambition, not ideals, drive Hofstadter's Populists. Turning to free silver as the definitive issue, these ambitious leaders essentially sold out the movement for their own moment.

In sections entitled "The Golden Age and After" and "The Vanishing Hayseed" he traces what happened to the farmers' movement after the end of Populism. Despite the sentimental lament for a lost agrarian past, the farmers have done quite well in 20th century America. The farmers who had once been populists became the agribusiness bloc, and at the time of writing ( 1956) "industrial America goes on producing the social, surpluses out of which the commercial farmers are subsidized" (p. 120).1 One more irony of populism too. As the "hayseed" vanished, so too did the farmer's association with the laboring man. Taking up an increasingly conservative position, "the tone of the farmer's movement was completely transformed" and agribusiness was far more likely to support management than strikers 1( p. 123 ). In the end, the farmers' rebellion was turned into its opposite.

[Nils · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic re-read. Hofstadter’s take on both the populists and progressives is wildly out of fashion, but the power and clarity of his liberal vision of a proper democratic politics remains undimmed.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 2 out of 5]

“The Age of Reform” is for the contemporary reader a very unsatisfactory book on the Progressive (1890 to 1929) and the New Deal (1930 to 1939) eras in American history. Hofstadter’s goal is to show how the actions in the arena were linked to American myths and cultural values. He ignores many important movements within this era (e.g., prohibition and women’s emancipation) to focus on agrarian populism, trust-busting, and the response of FDR to the economic recession of the 1930s.
Hofstadter argues that the Populist movement was result of a period of speculative investment in agricultural properties after the American Civil War that was followed by a collapse in prices that bankrupted or threatened to bankrupt many of those who began farming during the boom times. An agrarian Populist party was founded that promised to make America a good nation for the Yeoman farmer. It campaigned on monetizing silver which was believed would be inflationary and thus boost agricultural revenues. The Populists never won political power in Washington. However, the Populist founded lobbying groups that succeeded in persuading FDR to set up an elaborate system of agricultural price supports that made farming a very lucrative business in the U.S.
The Anti-Trust movement emerged because America’s class of small businessmen believed that the predatory big businesses (trusts) would destroy their firms. A particular concern was the role of the railways that gave very large discounts to the trusts. The Federal government began to regulate railway tariffs, but the advance of the big business continued unabated. The sons of the small businessmen who opposed trusts before WWI decided to work as managers of for the big firms in the 1920s.
In Hofstadter’s view both he agrarian populists and trustbusters had naïve views about what America had been in the past. They wanted to turn the clock back. The great virtue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was that he followed a policy of experimentation to resolve the problems that existed in the here and now. He never expressed any nostalgia for a better world that had existed in the past. He believed in managing the most pressing problems.
The great virtue of Hofstadter’s book at the time of its publication was to show that vary few Americans were interested in class struggle. The agrarian populists wanted laws that would allow independent farmers to prosper. The trust-busters wanted a level playing field for the small business owner. American factories wanted wages that would allow them to lead middle-class existences. When Marxism was still a major force in the historical profession, this was arguably a significant achievement.
Hofstadter also explains how accommodating special interest groups (in this case the farmer’s lobby) became a fixture in American political life. Finally, he notes how a skilled politician like Woodrow Wilson was able to make America’s entry into WWI appear progressive.
The problem with Hofstadter’s book is what it either does not cover or treats dismissively. He ignores the suffragette and Temperance movements both of which had female leadership. He does not cover either the anti-corruption movement or the direct primary movement. It might be impossible to cover all these topics in addition to those covered by Hofstadter. Nonetheless their absence makes “The Age of Reform” seem very incomplete.
What Hofstadter succeeds in doing is to explain why American politics for the last sixty years has been dominated by two centrist while the socialist vote has been a fraction of 1%. What he fails to do is explain why the environment, women's rights and the rights have visible minorities have nonetheless been the subject of great debate during all elections. While Americans have interest in the struggle of economic classes, they still possess a very idealistic streak that Hofstadter fails to shed any light on.

[Mark Bowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A. Synopsis: From 1890 to WWII is the “Age of Reform.” The intent is to show the differences between the Populist-Progressive reforms (which forms the core of the book) and the New Deal reforms. This book does not focus on the politics, or the legislation of these movements. Instead, the main theme is an examination of the ideas of the participants, the conception of their own work and the place it would occupy in history. Hofstadter finds these ideas in popular culture--journalists, publicists, popular magazines, muckracking articles.
B. Three main reform movements: Populism, Progressivism, and New Deal
1. The agrarian uprising that found its expression through Populism in the 1890s and the Bryan campaign in 1896. Populism includes the Populist party of the 1890s, Greenback, Granger, and anti-monopoly movements.
2. The Progressive movement from 1900 to 1914. Progressivism includes the Republican insurgents who supported T. Roosevelt in 1912, but also a broader impulse toward criticism and change through social and economic reform. Its general theme was to restore economic individualism and political democracy which was believed to be destroyed by the corruption of the political machine.
3. The New Deal of the 1930s
C. Circumstances surrounding the rise of Populism and Progressivism
1. For Populism, the function of the farmer was considered preeminent because he fed all the others.
2. A breakdown in the homogeneity of Yankee, Protestant America. The rise of industry brought an immigrant invasion. Two political ethics arose from the clash between immigrants and natives: moral leaders of Protestant social reform and the personal emphasis on family by the immigrant masses. The struggles of the Progressive era were influenced by the conflict between these two codes.
D. The agrarian myth and commercial realities
1. The myth includes the yeoman farmer (the simple, honest, independent man) as the hero. Idealized rural life. There was a real contrast between the verbal deference everyone paid to the farmer and the farmers actual economic and social position. The growth of an urban market increased an antagonism between the farmer and the urban middle and upper classes. The farmer wanted the goods that were available in the city.
2. The agrarian myth was actually false. Between 1815 and 1860 the character of American agriculture was transformed. The independent yeoman began to disappear due to the rise of commercial agriculture. Commercial agriculture displaced any truth that the agrarian myth might have had. The true product of American rural society was a “harassed little country businessman” who worked very hard.
3. The American farmer had a dual nature which allows us one way to view the agrarian movements. The Populist rhetoric and the indulgent view of the farmers revolt was due to the “soft” side of the farmers existence--agrarian ideology or life on the Frontier. The other side was the “hard” side which included the business practices and commercial opportunities. Hofstadter rejects that Populism grew out of this Frontier mentality. Instead, he claims that Populism can be understood, not as a “product of frontier inheritance, but as another episode in the well-established tradition of American entrepreneurial radicalism.” (58)
E. The folklore of Populism
1. Populism was the first modern political movement of practical importance in the United States to insist that the federal government has some responsibility for the common well-being of its people. The dominant themes of the Populist ideology (the “soft” side of agrarianism) were: the idea of a golden age; the concept of natural harmony of interests among the productive classes; the dualistic version of social struggles; the conspiracy theory of history (all history since the Civil War was a conspiracy of the international money power); and the doctrine of the primacy of money.
2. The industrial world prevented these agrarian ideas from existing
F. From pathos to parity
1. Paradox: The failure of the agrarian revolt of the 1890s has been described as the final defeat of the American farmer. But, there is evidence of the long-range power of Populism and its influence on the Progressive era.
2. Hofstadter claims that the “soft” side of the agrarian revolt failed, yet the “hard” side (based upon the commercial realities of agriculture) developed more prosperously than ever.
3. The attempt to make agrarianism into a mass movement (a 3rd party) had to replaced by modern methods of pressure politics and lobbying.
G. The status revolution and Progressive leaders
1. Populism was rural and provincial. Progressivism was urban and nationwide, led by the middle classes who took over the protest and leadership.
2. After 1900 Populism and Progressivism merge. Progressivism was influenced by its Populist inheritance of reform and a deep concern about urban life.
3. Hofstadter’s thesis is that men became Progressives “not because of economic deprivations but primarily because they were victims of an upheaval in status that took place in the US during the closing decades of the 19th and the early years of the 20th. (135)” Prior to 1870 the middle classes could still command power. But, the rise in wealth of the industrialists dwarfed them in comparison. The Progressive middle class felt over-shadowed and fought back.
H. The Progressive impulse
1. To an extraordinary degree, the work of the Progressive movement rested upon it journalism, its muckraking (the “revolution in journalism”). It exposed the corrupt nature of government
I. From Progressivism to the New Deal
1. The New Deal was essentially different and discontinuous from the Progressive era. It was different because its central problem was unlike the problems of Progressivism. When T. Roosevelt took office in 1901 the country was 3 years past an economic depression and was in a period of healthy economic development. When FDR took office the entire American economic system was failing.
J. Image
1. Two farmers: A “soft” one in the fields represents Populism (golden age, harmony, conspiracy); A “hard” one in the middle of a big city represents Progressivism (a middle class person concerned with urban life). A giant Rockefeller steps on him which represents the status revolution.

[Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hofstadter does the sort of cultural analysis for which all sorts of pseudo-intellectuals clamor. His prose is neat and often incisively funny. He dissects populism and progressivism as movements and assesses their areas of continuity and discontinuity. I found his most insightful point to be his assessment of the high idealism of populism-progressive which was ultimately discontinuous with the New Deal’s sheer pragmatism. The book was clarifying and engaged in substantial and helpful cultural analyses.

My only issue with Hofstadter was with his sort of contempt or over-looking of the real presence of the ‘soft’ side of agrarianism—in people like Wendell Berry. I think his general progressivism precluded him from seeing it as a viable philosophy, not merely an antiquity espoused from W.J. Bryan.

[David C Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic. An essay in interpretation on the temper of American politics at (roughly ) the turn of the 20th century. Places special emphasis on the ideological consequences of the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society, capturing the Populists as holding on to the promise of 19th century individualism. The Progressives are conceived as moralists reacting to their slipping status in a society dominated by corporations and money. Extremely well written.

[Hobart Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a pretty good understanding of how the national mood was shaped and influenced politics. Richard begins just before the start of the 4th party system. He introduces the populist movement by expanding the agitgian tradition of America and how it became a central myth. He explains the make up of the failed populist in the 90s and how that movement different and would go on to inspire the progressive movement. It's a work that compares and contrasts the 3 big reforms (populist to progressive to new deal) while explaining all throughout how each movements coalitions and ideals changed and evolved. For instance the mugwumps, a group best classified as petit bourgeois feeling left behind by the growth of capital was central in the battles the progressive fought. There's a lot of good material in here if you're unfamiliar with the 4th P.S I'd recommend as a pretty decent starting point..

[Kadienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️

Not for me. The bar for entry is too high for someone with limited knowledge of populism, progressivism, and the New Deal. The content and theories are foundational in the field, but the presentation leaves something to be desired.

[Kevin Hanley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written but an utterly unfair criticism of how progressivism impacted the New Deal which doesn’t hold up well

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little dated but still a classic full of insights. Anyone interested in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era needs to read this book as so much historiography still refers to it.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is why we can't have anything nice

[Simon Purdue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Hofstadter, in his seminal work entitled The Age of reform, laid the groundwork for any future historian of the populist and progressive eras. Hofstadter defines his ‘Age of Reform’ as the period between 1890 and the end of the Second World War which, following on from a period of industrial and continental expansion and laissez-faire capitalism, was marked by reform, regulation and radical change. He notes that this period can roughly be divided into three smaller sections, each of which were defined by different impulses for reform. The first, he notes, was the populist movement that ran through the 1890s, followed by the progressive movement which ran from 1900 until- Hofstadter argues- the outbreak of the Great War in Europe, and thirdly the period of the New Deal which was concentrated in the early 1930s but the impact of which was felt decades later. Hofstadter admits that his own interests were focused on the period of 1890-1914, and that the final chapter that deals with the New Deal was by no means an adequate exploration of the third impulse and served primarily as a comparative tool by which the other two movements- to which he dedicates much more attention- can be measured.
In defining first the populist movement Hofstadter is careful to distinguish his understanding of populism from the purely political populist party that caught so much attention in the 1896 election, instead extending the idea of a populist movement back to Jackson and suggesting that it was a much broader social movement than the flash-in-the-pan political successes of the party would suggest. It was defined by anti-monopolism and was felt equally by the business-owning middle classes and the working-class agrarians who are so closely associated with the movement. He suggests, in fact, that the two had become one by the end of the 19th century, and that the populist moment saw a shift in the perception of the American farmer from the traditional yeoman to the agrarian-capitalist. Populism was, he argues, built upon the national myth of the centrality of the farming class and a fear of urbanization, but led ultimately to the tying of much closer ties between the urban and the rural. The 1890s marked a heightened and apparent swell of a sentiment that had been felt for years prior and would continue long into the 20th century.
Similarly, Hofstadter separates progressivism from the purely political Progressive Party, suggesting that it was again a much broader social impulse for reform and change that could be felt throughout society. Driven more by the newly powerful middle class, he argues that progressivism could be felt across all aspects of American society and marked a significant shift in the political and social landscape of the country. Hofstadter argues that it was marked by a longing to return to the imagined past of economic individualism and political democracy- the ever-elusive ‘American Dream’ that was seen to have been shattered by corporatism and corruption. Interestingly, Hofstadter notes the deeply nativist nature of the Progressive movement- suggesting not only that progressive reformers were often anti-immigrant and effectively racist, but that immigrant populations were often resistant to the reforms espoused by the progressives. Immigrants, Hofstadter argues, did not have the same qualms about the ‘vices’ of city life and laissez-faire capitalism that drove progressivism, often being content with the status quo as a means of protecting their position in societ- which many viewed as tenuous at best. Progressive reform and rationalization was often seen to threaten that, and so the middle-class, bureaucratic reformers were often at odds with the immigrant working classes. The primary alliance of the progressive era therefore was between the boss and the reformer, cementing it as something of a bourgeois revolution.
Hofstadter notes that while The Age of Reform is undeniably a political history, it is not a history of high culture and ‘great men’, rather it is an exploration of the political nature of everyday life, and an examination of the wider political mood rather than the goings-on in the corridors of power.
Although Hofstadter is self-admittedly a progressive and a proponent of the push for reform that marked the era, he is not uncritical. Rather he notes that the movements were at best ambiguous and multi-faceted, shirking away from the earlier hagiographical accounts that saw no room for criticism. He notes the nativism and racism associated with populism and progressivism, and criticizes the paradoxical negative social ideas which were often found both opposing and promoting reform agendas simultaneously.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this book for my seminar on the progressive and populist movement in America. I already do not like having to read for class and to make it even worse the book is non-fiction which is one of my least favorite things to read because they tend to be so dry. This book proved my bete noir about non-fiction to be true. I sort of get what the author was trying to do by splitting up the movements into two different things and then discussing how each group of people were affected by these movements and how most of them felt about it. But to be honest it took supplementary readings for me to really wrap my head around this book. Probably also did not help that when it comes to the populist and progressive movements I am basically a blank slate. I have not a clue as to what it was about or when it started or who it involved. I learned some of the basics from this book but I did not really get a good look into the hearts of these two movements. This is one of those books that after about five pages your brain is numb and you cannot comprehend and thing you have just read. I read the entire thing and can honestly say that I do not have an entire picture of what happened. I now must go write a one page discovery page about this book. Here is hoping that turns out okay.

[J. Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A critical and contextual look at the Populist and Progressive movements in American politics; where they succeeded and failed, what forces shaped them and what their legacy was. Good background into a movement that I view as a big part of my political legacy. It has definitely removed any rose-colored view of them I might have had, but I’m still left with the lasting and important message that they accomplished a lot of worthwhile social and political change with minimal chaos and violence, whatever their faults may have been. This basically re-affirms why I identify as a Progressive to begin with.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Hofstadter was a fine, well respected historian. This book is an excellentr analysis nof what he terms "the age of reform." The book traces efforts at reform from 1890 to the second world war. Sometimes efforts at reform were held back, but there was an arc, according to the author, over time. Among subjects explored: populism, progressivism, to the New Deal. All in all, a good exploration of the era.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was required reading for Mr. Ellenberger's required U.S. Government course at Maine Township High School South.

I was the class commie, having discovered that the application of a Marxist, dialectical analysis to history was productive not only of meaningful retellings of events but also of good grades for essays and research papers.

[Ellen Huls · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deeply altered the way academia thought about and wrote history. Aside from the topical content, Hofstadter incisively examined the language of there-to-fore American politics. Particularly, the inherent and inescapable discursive ambiguity. It's a masterpiece.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Populism, Progressivism and the New Deal. Hofstadter draws out the differences between them as well as between the cultures and mindsets that generated them. It was a little dry at times (hence the "3") but I learned a lot--since I took tons of notes, I'm sure of that!

[Karan Pol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure if the yeoman myth ever died out. The development of modern day progressivism may be following much of the same evolution it did a century prior.

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever wondered why free silver was such a big deal? What caused the agrarian revolt in the 1890's? What was going on in American politics between the Civil War and the first World War? Here are all the answers to questions you didn't have, alongside heaps of new questions.

I went into this asking for a good book about the New Deal. I was told that anything by Hofstadter would do so I chose his Pulitzer winning classic The Age of Reform. While the book purports to deal with the period between the 1890's and 1930's it principally focuses on the populist and progressive movements that dominated turn of the century America. Only the final chapter really examines the New Deal and then only in brief. The first portion of the book dealing with the populist agrarian revolt is fantastic. It provides a good examination of a movement I knew next to nothing about and dives into the role of the American farmer in shaping our democracy. I often complain about how much of the history I read devolves into grain prices, nevertheless here it made up one of the best parts of the book.

Hofstadter provides a very interesting analysis of third party movements in American history, their role in a two party democracy, and how to judge success or failure. When judged by the standard of gaining actual power, third parties are typically abysmal failures. However, American third parties have been remarkably successful in getting portions of their platform adopted by more mainstream parties. They are most effective when the two parties are relatively balanced and stand to loose voters in close elections. When judged many years after its demise, the Populist Party seems to have achieved most of its goals through the two larger parties.

The portion of the book dealing with the concurrent progressive movement was good, but didn't quite measure up to the beginning in my mind. Hofsteader reads the progressive movement primarily as a product of disgruntled elites. While they may have profited economically, most lost the social status and prestige that they had enjoyed in a preindustrial and localized America. I did enjoy the time spent discussing the counterintuative high-low alliance between Agrarian Populists and disgruntled East Coast elites. This type of partnership is still a major feature of American politics today within both parties.

I do have one bone to pick with The Age of Reform: the omission of the urban labor movement and the various socialist factions that existed at the turn of the century. Hofstadter readily acknowledges the significance of the labor movement throughout the book, and it appears to be lurking just out of sight in many of his chapters. However, since the author never directly discusses this third power in the politics of the age, the book feels somewhat incomplete.

Hofstadter openly writes from a liberal perspective. However he spends much of the book tempering contemporary liberal enthusiasm for the crusades which prefaced the New Deal ideology. I would love to read a modern critique of his theses from historians to his right and left. In addition, The Age of Reform is largely an intellectual and cultural history. I enjoyed that perspective, but I would appreciate an economic history next.

This book feels extremely relevant today. Without delving into specifics, the political and social climate of the 1890's feels remarkably familiar. The motivating causes behind these movements, their internal dynamics, and even their names are still present in American society.

This book falls somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, but I am bumping due to the excellent first section. Finally, no matter how unfashionable he may become I will always have a special place in my heart for William Jennings Bryan.