53 pages • 1 hour read
Michael McGerrA Fierce Discontent
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapter 9-ConclusionChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: The Price of Victory
McGerr continues Part 3 by describing the ultimate decline of the progressive movement in early 20th century America. Woodrow Wilson became president of the United States in 1912 and 1917 saw the beginning of World War I. The progressives viewed the war as the perfect opportunity to advance their agenda again—to put the brakes on the new pursuit of pleasure that had come to characterize American life and to reinvigorate a sense of collective responsibility and need.
In order to catalyze a successful war effort, the federal government desperately needed the support of the people; President Wilson’s administration effectively garnered that support with the help of experienced progressive reformers, agreements with businessmen, and the creation of new federal agencies. With the help of progressive reformers, the Wilson administration manipulated and cajoled the people into supporting the war effort, thinking that such an approach might result in loyal, amiable support. To the progressive reformers’ delight, the loyal populace the government wanted to create “was just the one the progressives had long envisioned: an essentially middle-class people who banished individualism, disciplined pleasure, eliminated class differences, and elevated women” (777).
Hiding behind the guise of patriotism, progressives successfully used the war as an opportunity to enforce prohibition, tax the elite, improve labor conditions for the working class, generally improve women’s rights, and to focus their efforts on reforming the character and behavior of a group they had previously ignored: soldiers. During WWI, progressives were more successful than they had ever been in achieving the highest level of government intervention into and control over individual and private life.
The progressives felt that their contributions to the war effort meant the success of their cause—they believed that the war effort had permanently changed society. They had not, however, remade the American population in the way that they thought they had. The wider American citizenry returned to its previous pursuit of pleasure after the war, and many resented the sacrifices they were compelled to make during the war. The war also caused uncomfortable economic changes for many Americans; the cost of living dramatically increased, even the lowest wages saw taxation, and a new upsurge of workers’ strikes and race riots occurred after the war. Additionally, after the war, new fears of communism and radicalism swept the nation.
Democrats lost the presidency in 1920 to Republican candidate Warren G. Harding, and progressives lost all of their advocates within the government. Knowing that much of America desired a return to individualism, but that progressive reformers would not simply go away, President Harding and his cabinet declared themselves “progressive individualists,” publicly seeking a stance of compromise to bring the country forward into a new period of harmony. Regardless of the terminology the Harding Administration used, one thing was abundantly clear: The Progressive Era was finished.
Conclusion Summary
In the 1920s, progressive reformers had to sit back and watch while the Harding Administration gutted the economic accomplishments of the previous era. Old progressives also felt alienated by the new middle class culture, which was far more preoccupied with pleasure and the freedom of the individual than with the old values of chastity and control of children and adolescents.
The Great Depression of the 1930s saw a reprieve for progressives, as government intervention and a sense of collectivism again became necessary for the survival of the country. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president, he saw an opportunity to revive the progressive agenda without stepping on the toes of individualism. His policies, like the New Deal, merely sought to use the government to make it possible for all Americans to enjoy the culture of pleasure, and to intervene no more than that. Roosevelt’s New Deal proved far less radical than the campaign of President Wilson years before.
In fact, the efforts of all presidents following Wilson—even if they involved increased government intervention—lacked a key feature of the progressive movement: the desire or intention to remake individual Americans, to recreate their identity, and achieve a middle class utopia. Acknowledging the decline of the progressive movement of the early 20th century as a cautionary tale, politicians and presidents since the Progressive Era have demonstrated a greater sense of respect for the rights of individual Americans and the personal nature of private life.
At the book’s conclusion, McGerr makes one thing clear: No effort to reform society has surpassed that of the middle-class progressives of turn-of-the-century America. He suggests that the radicalism of their movement and the American people’s strong reactions to it could be a key reason why Americans’ political involvement has paled in comparison ever since.
Part 3, Chapter 9-Conclusion Analysis
The final chapters of McGerr’s book explore the factors that led to the defeat of the progressive movement in early 20th century America. World War I provided a brief victory for progressives; the aftermath of the war brought their ultimate defeat. In the conclusion, McGerr suggests that the defeat of the progressive movement has had resounding implications for social and economic life in America up to the publication of his book in 2003.
The progressives found their “heart’s desire” in the war effort: “The federal government intervened in American life more boldly than ever before with sweeping measures to control all aspects of the economy, halt class conflict, and reshape personal identity” (757). During the war, the progressives finally achieved their goals. After the war, they found just how much the American people resented the dramatic interventions into their lives when a new Republican administration entered the White House and, with the hearty support of much of the American populace, dismantled all of the hard-won progressive reforms of the previous era.
Early in the progressive movement, some observers were concerned that “banishing individualism” in American culture would have consequences for both the progressive movement and for society as a whole (777). Though progressives did not understand what was happening, the American people repeatedly signaled that the banishment of individualism was having immediate consequences throughout the Progressive Era: The more the government intervened into people’s private lives, the more people resisted and rebelled against this intervention.
McGerr suggests that the progressive movement lacked balance—frequently referring to the movement as “radical,”—and that this lack of balance was polarizing for Americans of all classes (781). Even those who needed help or assistance through government regulation sought a sense of individualism in the midst of their collective participations. Even those who were eager to volunteer for the war effort wanted the right and the freedom to make such choices of their own accord.
McGerr’s presentation of the progressive movement seems to question the extent to which the pursuit of private interests can coexist with pursuit of public cooperation and combination, and what role the government should play in regulating individual people’s lives. The reversion to America’s individualist, conservative roots suggests that radicalism has motivated drastic backlash throughout American history. Most of all, McGerr suggests that rather than simply discarding certain old doctrines, it can be important to consider how those doctrines might change or evolve to suit the changing and evolving needs of a nation. The Republicans who took office after the war recognized the need for a more moderate stance—one that entertained the possibility of progressivism and individualism coexisting in a single creed—but they struggled to articulate what a “progressive individualism” would look like in practice.
Though the success of the progressive movement ended after World War I, McGerr points out that these questions and issues raised by progressives have since endured in American life. Even as politicians and presidents continue to grapple with those questions, no one has attempted to transform individual people, limit individualism and leisure, or make a middle-class paradise to the extent that the turn-of-the-century progressives did.
