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 2, Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Controlling Big Business”
Here, McGerr recounts the progressive reformers’ efforts to get big business owners to act in the interest of the rest of society at the turn-of-the-century—one of their toughest battles. McGerr claims that business activity posed three great problems in the 20th century. First, large-scale enterprises became increasingly common, and bigger businesses often monopolized resources and shut out competition from smaller businesses. Second, economic interdependence grew. Many businesses—under the control of the upper ten’s wealthiest members—began combining smaller businesses within a particular industry to form a giant corporation to dominate their market. Finally, natural resources and land became limited as business expanded and grew throughout the country. The emergence of these issues prompted Americans—especially, the middle-class progressives—to “reconsider the right of businesses, large and small, to do as they pleased” (411).
Given the clear concerns for the future and longevity of American society inherent in the three big issues, reformers had great success in eliciting support for their agenda from the federal government. However, fighting for the cause of regulating big business proved progressives’ biggest challenge yet. Different classes and social groups held different interests in the battle to regulate big business. Some supported greater government intervention into business practices; others were concerned that increasing government regulation of business practices would eventually result in greater regulation of individuals’ rights as well. Many feared the consequences of unrestrained corporate growth and, as a result, wanted more control over corporations; however, there was no agreement on what changes would aid in exerting this control. Moreover, progressives personally experienced internal disagreement on how to fight this battle.
McGerr claims that by the early 1900s, Americans had developed at least five approaches to the threat of big business, but that all five approaches were problematic. When, around 1906, progressive journalists exposed corrupt behavior involving the Senate and corporations, there was a new feeling that the federal government should bear at least some of the blame for the menacing role of big business in society. With the revelation of this scandal, it became clear that “the task of reconciling opposing forces and keeping the battle contained was impossible” (487-88). By World War I, the antitrust campaign had succeeded in boosting the authority of the federal government, but legislation and lawsuits did not undermine the business leaders of the upper ten (439).
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Shield of Segregation”
Divisions of all kinds were ubiquitous in both northern and southern American life at the turn-of-the-century, and in Chapter 6, McGerr discusses the most visible and insidious form of division. In the late 1880s, lynching and mob killing without trial reached a fever pitch in America. A new rhetoric had emerged among southern whites that characterized black men as “beasts” who would “steal” white women and their chastity. This escalated white fear of black men, which escalated extreme violence against black men around the turn-of-the-century.
The out-of-control lynch mobs and race riots happening in both the South and the North disgusted more moderate progressives. The violence and unrest between whites and blacks threatened the social order and economic development. A solution came in the form of laws and regulations that increased and reinforced segregation. According to progressives, these measures were enacted for the overall good of society, but they also served as a means for whites to physically, psychologically, and behaviorally “put blacks in their place” (515). Known as Jim Crow laws, these new measures aimed to reproduce the subjugation that black people experienced when slavery was legal in America. As progressives saw it, however, the resulting dynamic of Jim Crow was far better for both blacks and whites than any alternative they could think of at the time.
In general, at the turn-of-the-century, America was becoming a more segregated nation in all respects: on the basis of race, class, citizenship status, and urban and rural lifestyles. The federal government struggled with how to restrict immigration, as they desired only—those with economic potential and a strong work ethic and character—permitted entrance into the country.
The dominant progressive belief for everyone to become like the middle class catalyzed the—efforts toward segregation. Though most progressives also believed that whites are the superior race, their support for segregation was primarily class-based. They believed that minority groups stood a better chance of joining the ranks of the middle class—and adopting and exhibiting middle-class culture, values, and behaviors—with strict segregation laws.
Through their relationships to segregation at the turn-of-the-century, the weaknesses of progressives became apparent. In short, progressives were afraid to deal with the issue of race in appropriate ways, and contradicted their own belief in the power of association by vigorously supporting segregation (586). They also undermined their own agenda to, through political action, dismantle the privilege of the upper ten by keeping many who might support this cause away from the ballot box through Jim Crow laws.
Part 2, Chapters 5-6 Analysis
In these chapters, McGerr continues to focus on progressive battles. With their efforts to change individual Americans through their crusades against various vices and the environmental deficits that spawned them well underway, progressives were ready to turn their attention to bigger entities and more dangerous problems: the out-of-control practices of big businesses and racial strife.
There is a contemporary misconception that racism and racist social practices had been confined to the southern region of the country—that the north was a place of freedom, harmony, and respect for black people in the era following the abolition of slavery. In Chapter 6, McGerr highlights how this was not at all the case. The south is often scapegoated as the source and cause of racism in American history, but this is a deflection of responsibility and blame. The truth, as McGerr demonstrates, is that states, courts, politicians, and even reformers who were interested in “improving society” still upheld racist practices. In fact, the majority of progressives believed that whites—primarily those of Anglo-Saxon descent—were superior to all other races. This was perhaps the most damaging misconception of the progressive agenda: that to improve society as a whole—to remake society in the image of the middle class—segregation was necessary. As progressives saw it, black people needed improving under the control of their agenda; the way to make this happen was through segregation.
The participation of the federal government in making their reform dreams a reality was a new—and defining—dynamic in progressives’ approach to their battles. The progressives seemed to realize that on certain measures, they had a potentially strong ally in President Theodore Roosevelt, and they increasingly called upon and expected the support of the federal government in pursuit of their causes. Some of these causes were ultimately for the greater good, like conservation of federal land and resources; other causes were clearly for the greater good of some and not others, like the Jim Crow segregation laws that oppressed black people.
In fighting the battles of controlling big business and quelling racial strife, both the progressives and the federal government—including President Roosevelt and later, President Woodrow Wilson—recognized that playing on Americans’ shared fears could result in their uniting and mobilizing around a shared identity. This was yet another way that, at times, progressive reform efforts could coercively function. It was also the most obvious example of the ways that progressive reform did not work for the good of everyone in society.
At the end of Chapter 5, McGerr raises the questions of whose interests the American government should pursue and represent, and how to make such a decision. Readers might also ask: If progressives claimed they were working in the interest of the good of all of society, but some groups of people were evidently oppressed by their reform efforts, exactly who was included in—or excluded from—the progressives’ definition of “all of society,” and why?
