A Fierce Discontent

Individual humans and individualism as an ideology were both of great concern to progressive reformers at the turn-of-the-20th century, and McGerr explores progressives’ quest to define the nature of the individual within the parameters of middle-class progressive values, and to formulate a model for individuals’ relationship to society.

The upper class doctrine of individualism, which glorified the power of the individual to determine their situation in life, accumulate great wealth, and lift up the economy, was repugnant to Progressives. Many members of the upper class believed that the poor suffered from some kind of deficit in character or personality that explained their suffering. They refused to recognize that external conditions—like an unfair economic system, various prejudices, or low wages—dramatically affected an individual’s potential to rise up in society and change their situation in life.

This glorification of individualism—the love of freedom, free industry, and unfettered opportunity—was the foundation of American society. Progressives took issue with this glorification of individualism; they felt that many people selfishly pursued their own interests in a manner that was detrimental to society. If individual Americans pursued their own interests instead of the interests of society, then progressives’ logical conclusion was that society needed to assert more control over individual values and behaviors. Progressive reform efforts repeatedly focused on compelling individuals from all classes and races to act in the interest of a society that, conveniently, increasingly reflected middle-class progressive values.

McGerr makes it clear that progressive attempts to control individual values and behavior were controversial. As the American people responded to attempts to eradicate individualism, it became evident that trying to remake and regulate individuals was not an easy process. Moreover, the more progressives attempted to regulate individuals, the more questions about the nature of the individual arose. The crises and subsequent rebellion of Americans like Sherwood Anderson and Frank Lloyd Wright raised the questions of whether the government can or should control an individual’s internal, private life—what a person thinks about, feels, believe, and values. Reactions to Jim Crow law and segregation raised concerns about the extent to which the government should be able to dictate what public spaces a person could occupy and how they should behave in those spaces. The pursuit of commercial pleasures caused concern about the extent to which the government should be allowed to regulate how people spent their leisure time and on what they spent their money. Progressives’ efforts to fit all individuals into the middle-class mold they created did not simplify social life or change people from within; instead, it further complicated Americans’ understanding of their right to individual identity and their individual responsibility to society.

At the end of the Progressive Era, Americans ultimately rejected the progressive idea that individualism was evil. McGerr suggests that understandings of the nature of the individual and its relation to society evolved during the Progressive Era, despite progressives’ attempts to cast any form of individualism—and there were many—as harmful. After World War I, many Republicans argued that individual Americans felt a strong sense of personal responsibility. Individualism came to include the virtue of being a good American—an attribute of individualism that progressives could not see as being possible.

The progressive attempt to remake individuals and the American people’s response show how traditions and ideologies can change or evolve. When referring to individualism, it is important to consider questions neglected by progressives: Which individualism? Which individuals?