(This is Chapter 1 from the book, The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, by Robert D. Putnam)
Chapter 1
WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE
“... what’s past is prologue, what to come,
in yours and my discharge.”
—William Shakespeare, The Tempest
In the early 1830s a French aristocrat named Alexis de Toc-
queville traveled to America at the behest of his government,
with a mission to better understand the American prison sys-
tem. At the time the United States was a fledgling democracy,
barely half a century old, and many nations looked to it as a
bold experiment. It was an open question as to whether secur-
ing liberty and equality by means of a constitution and a par-
ticipatory government would, or could, succeed.
Tocqueville traveled widely in the newly formed nation,
taking detailed notes filled with observations and insights that
only an outsider’s perspective could yield. He reflected on al-
most every aspect of American public life, speaking to count-
less citizens, observing daily interactions, and examining the
various communities and institutions that made up the new
nation. Above all, he noted a fierce commitment to personal
liberty among the descendants of rugged pioneers who had
fought so hard for it. But he also observed the coming together
of people for mutual purposes, in both the public and private
spheres, and found that a multiplicity of associations formed
a kind of check on unbridled individualism. Keenly aware of
the dangers of individualism (a term he coined), Tocqueville
was inspired by what he saw in America: Its citizens were pro-
foundly protective of their independence, but through associ-
ating widely and deeply, they were able to overcome selfish de-
sires, engage in collective problem solving, and work together
to build a vibrant and—by comparison to Europe at that time
—surprisingly egalitarian society by pursuing what he called
“self-interest, rightly understood.”
Though far from perfect in its execution—indeed, this was
an America built upon the genocide of Native Americans, the
enslavement of African Americans, and the disenfranchise-
ment of women, and Tocqueville was well aware of the evils
of slavery—what Tocqueville saw in our nation’s democracy
was an attempt to achieve balance between the twin ideals of
freedom and equality; between respect for the individual and
concern for the community. He saw independent individuals
coming together in defense of mutual liberty, in pursuit of
shared prosperity, and in support of the public institutions and
cultural norms that protected them. Though there were blind
spots still to be addressed, and dangers lurking in some of its
flaws and features, democracy in America, Tocqueville felt, was
alive and well.
Were Alexis de Tocqueville to travel to America once again—
further on in our national story—what might he find? Would
America fulfill its promise of balancing individual liberty with
the common good? Would equality of opportunity be realized,
and indeed produce prosperity for all? And would shared cul-
tural values, respect for democratic institutions, and a vibrant
associational life be the promised antidotes to tyranny? Let’s
look at an end-of-century balance sheet.
On the broad question of prosperity, things could hardly be
better. Huge advances in communication, transportation, and
standards of living have brought to almost all Americans a
degree of material well-being unmatched in our history. In-
creasing educational opportunities have made strides toward
leveling the social and economic playing field. A wide variety
of goods priced for mass consumption as well as innovative
new forms of entertainment—all made available in increas-
ingly convenient ways—have improved the daily lives of nearly
everyone. On the whole, Americans enjoy a degree of educa-
tional opportunity, abundance, and personal freedom of which
previous generations only dreamed, a fact which might prompt
an observer to paint a rosy picture of this America: widespread
progress and prosperity driven by education, technological in-
novation, and sustained economic growth.
And yet this prosperity has come at a cost. While industries
spawned by technological advance have allowed huge corpora-
tions to produce unparalleled profits, very little of this wealth
has trickled down. The poor may be better off in real terms
than their predecessors, but the benefits of economic growth
have remained highly concentrated at the top. Extremes of
wealth and poverty are everywhere on display.
Class segregation in the form of an entrenched elite and a
marooned underclass is often a crippling physical, social, and
psychological reality for those striving to get ahead. Young
people and new immigrants enter the labor force filled with
the hope that the American Dream can be theirs through per-
sistence and hard work. But they often become disillusioned to
find how great their competitive disadvantage is, and how diffi-
cult it is to make the leap to where the other half lives. Ameri-
can idealism increasingly gives way to cynicism about a rigged
system.
But the departure from our past is visible not only in rising
inequality and resultant pessimism—it is also apparent in the
institutions that increasingly define our nation. Corporate con-
glomerates are replacing local and craft economies in almost
every sector, including agriculture. America’s rugged individu-
als struggle against the loss of identity, autonomy, and mastery
as they are subsumed into the anonymous labor of hyper-con-
solidated corporate machines and forced to pool meager wages
to make ends meet. Corporate monopolies have hoarded profits
and gained unrivaled economic influence through a wave of
mergers. Because of corporations’ outsized power, workers’
leverage has eroded, and capitalists cite their responsibility to
shareholders and market forces as justification for keeping pay
low. Corporations search at home and abroad for ever-more-
vulnerable populations to employ at ever-lower wages.
In important ways, life is much improved at the bottom
of American society, which makes some commentators opti-
mistic that things will only get better. But these gains have
come mostly at the price of long hours in insecure low-wage
work. Slavery has been abolished, of course, but the still ruth-
less reality of structural inequality condemns many people of
color to a life of intergenerational poverty, and in some ways
the situation of black Americans is actually worsening. And
women still struggle to participate equally in a society that
manifestly favors male wage earners. The economic well-being
of the middle class is eroding, and soaring private debt has be-
come a common buttress to lagging incomes.
The economic power of corporations has in turn become
political power. While profits mount, so, too, does corpora-
tions’ creativity in evading financial and ethical responsibility
to the public systems that allow them to flourish. Commercial
giants successfully fend off feeble efforts to regulate them by
buying off politicians and parties. Politicians collect exorbitant
amounts of money from wealthy donors which they use to win
elections, creating a dangerous mutuality between wealth and
power. Interest groups also relentlessly pressure elected offi-
cials both to prop up corporate agendas and, paradoxically, to
get out of the way of the free market. Thus, huge swaths of an
increasingly interdependent economy go largely unregulated,
and the system as a whole occasionally careens out of con-
trol. But the stratospherically wealthy remain insulated, even
though their reckless actions often contribute to the crashes.
Inadequate regulation further fuels an irresponsible use of
America’s vast natural resources. The nation’s GDP soars, but
wildlife is disappearing at a dismaying rate, fuel sources and
raw materials are exploited indiscriminately, and effluence
threatens lives. And while large portions of the country have
been set aside as public lands, their fate is vehemently debated,
as business interests pressure the government to open pro-
tected areas for mining, grazing, and fuel extraction—citing
the need for natural resources to feed a voracious economy. The
rights and cultures of the native peoples who inhabit and hold
those lands sacred are pushed aside in favor of business inter-
ests. Furthermore, contaminated products—including food—
are sold without regard to the health or safety of consumers.
The corporate mentality of the age seems to be focused solely
on gaining economic advantage no matter the consequences.
Books and newspapers of the day are filled with reports
of scandal in both the personal and professional lives of so-
ciety’s leaders, as journalists work to reveal the rotten core
of an America run amok. Politicians are regularly exposed
for corruption—trading in power and patronage and taking
advantage of their positions in increasingly creative ways. Sex
scandals are also common among the elite, and even promi-
nent religious leaders are not immune. Crime and moral decay
are the ubiquitous subjects of popular entertainment, con-
trasting indulgence at the top and indigence at the bottom.
As an after-the-fact attempt at carrying out their civic duty,
many of America’s wealthiest donate large sums of money to
various philanthropic causes. This largesse erects buildings,
founds institutions, and shores up cultural infrastructure, but
usually in exchange for the donor’s name being immortalized
upon a facade. Industry leaders are often idolized for rising
from humble backgrounds by employing the “true grit” of en-
trepreneurship and become social and cultural icons despite
morally questionable actions. The message to ordinary Ameri-
cans is that anyone can go from rags to riches if they are willing
to do whatever it takes.
Indeed, many of the corporate titans who dominate the
American imagination live by an ideology of individualism
that barely masks selfishness and an air of superiority. A phi-
losophy of supreme self-reliance is common, and the pursuit
of unfettered self-interest is considered a laudable ethic to live
by. The idea that one must do what is best for oneself at every
turn—and that only those willing to live by this code deserve to
prevail in the economy—has been translated into a subtle but
powerful cultural narrative about the unimpeachable fairness
of the market and the undeservingness of the poor. Redistribu-
tive programs are often criticized as wasteful and an irrespon-
sible use of resources. But lavish displays of luxury, flamboyant
parties, global travel, and opulent mansions are the social cur-
rency of the elite—all propped up by a growing underclass of
largely immigrant laborers.
A drift toward self-centeredness in private life is matched in
the public square. In politics, an overfocus on the promotion of
one’s own interests at the expense of others’ has created an en-
vironment of relentless zero-sum competition and a repeated
failure of compromise. Public debates are characterized not by
deliberation on differing ideas, but by demonization of those
on the opposing side. Party platforms move toward the ex-
tremes. And those in power seek to consolidate their influence
by disenfranchising voters unsupportive of their views. The
result is a nation more and more fragmented along economic,
ideological, racial, and ethnic lines, and more and more dom-
inated by leaders who prove shrewdest at the game of divide
and conquer. The inevitable result is political gridlock and
a hobbled public sector. Decaying infrastructure, inadequate
basic services, and outmoded public programs are a national
embarrassment. Citizens rightly despair of elected officials
ever being able to accomplish anything at all.
This climate has also created a pervasive disillusionment
with the nation’s political parties. Neither seems capable of
addressing America’s problems, and many voters are turning to
third parties for better options. Libertarian leanings are com-
mon while, at the other pole, socialism gains adherents. And a
rising tide of populism has captured the enthusiasm of many,
especially those in rural areas. America’s democratic institu-
tions strain under the burden of polarization.
In addition to this economic and political malaise, social and
cultural discontent are also rising. In an America transformed
by the rapid forward march of technology, new forms of
communication and transportation have disconnected and re-
connected people in countless ways, rearranging identities, be-
liefs, and value systems. Some optimistically tout the breaking
of barriers and narrowing of distances between people, while
many others experience loneliness, isolation, and atomization
as traditional social structures give way.
The increasingly global information age is inundating peo-
ple with news from every corner of the earth, and this explo-
sion of information threatens to overwhelm the individual try-
ing to make sense of it all. New ideas in science, philosophy, and
religion upend traditional touchstones at an astonishing pace.
And a culture dominated by commerce and consumption has
made advertising a ubiquitous—and often lamentable—part
of daily life in America. Even the reliability of the free press,
that critical component of any democratic system, has become
questionable, as a drive for profit overpowers a responsibility
to the truth.
A fevered pace of life is often blamed for widespread stress
and anxiety. Demand for stimulants of all kinds is on the
rise as Americans hurry to keep up and strive to get ahead.
The growing demand for productivity at all costs is claiming
the physical health and emotional well-being of many indi-
viduals and families. The combined effect of these powerful
technological, economic, political, and social forces is a sort
of dizzying vertigo—a pervasive sense that the average person
has less and less control over the forces shaping his or her in-
dividual life. Anxiety is mounting among the young, who face
unprecedented challenges, and appear likely to live shorter,
less rewarding lives than their parents did. This nation seems
no longer recognizable or intelligible to those brought up in an
earlier age, turning many older Americans toward nostalgia for
a bygone era.
Some Americans have reacted to these many forms of dis-
location by turning on their perceived adversaries in an in-
creasingly cutthroat social and economic contest. Racism and
gender discrimination persist and are even intensified. Indeed,
the progress toward racial equality achieved in an earlier era
has in many ways reversed. White supremacist violence is on
the rise—often encouraged, rather than prevented, by white
authorities. Tensions flare continually and conflict often turns
bloody, while trust in law enforcement deteriorates with each
successive clash. Massive new waves of immigrants—bringing
to America ideas and religious beliefs thought to be strange and
threatening—are met with hate and violence. Nativism is com-
mon and considered by many to be culturally acceptable and
even patriotic. Support for restricting, and even halting, immi-
gration from certain countries and from groups with alien po-
litical or religious views is growing. The number of immigrants
entering the country illegally soars. Meanwhile, ideologically
motivated terrorists ignite a backlash against all immigrants,
including crackdowns by law enforcement, nationwide raids
sponsored by the attorney general, and threats to civil liberties.
In greater numbers than ever before, Americans seem to have
stopped believing that we are all in this together.
Almost as often as we are turning on one another, Amer-
icans are responding to uncertainty and insecurity by turn-
ing to self-destructive behaviors and beliefs. Substance abuse
is rampant—taking a tragic toll on family formation and
claiming many lives. Materialism, too, holds out an empty
promise of relief. Also attractive is a descent into cynicism and
spectatorship or the adoption of an apocalyptic worldview: the
American experiment has failed, and the best we can hope for
is to start from scratch once it all comes apart. Whether the re-
sponse is lashing out, turning inward, tuning out, or giving up,
Americans are becoming increasingly paralyzed by disagree-
ment, disillusionment, and despair. Indeed, many Americans
seem to agree these days on only one thing: This is the worst of
times.
Worried observers—as Tocqueville certainly would be—use
words like “oligarchy,” “plutocracy,” and even “tyranny” to
warn of the subtle reemergence of overlapping economic and
political power structures that America’s founding was sup-
posed to have banished. Still others lament that the country is
on the wrong track morally and culturally. Does democracy in
America, they wonder, stand on the verge of ruin?
Though it would appear so in every way, the nation of which
we have just written is not today’s America. The foregoing bal-
ance sheet is actually a historically accurate portrait of this
country in another era, at the opening of the twentieth century,
just fifty years after Tocqueville wrote his stirring depiction of
a thriving democracy.
The United States in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s was
startlingly similar to today. Inequality, political polarization,
social dislocation, and cultural narcissism prevailed—all ac-
companied, as they are now, by unprecedented technological
advances, prosperity, and material well-being. The parallels are
indeed so striking that the foregoing description could have
been written virtually word-for-word about our nation today.
Looking back to a time Mark Twain disparagingly called the
Gilded Age turns out to feel eerily like looking in the mirror.
Of course, other commentators have already spotted this
troubling similarity. They have rightly warned that without
a change in course, Americans today will have been guilty of
allowing an ugly chapter in our history to repeat itself. But
this comparison—remarkably apt as it is—inevitably begs the
question of what actually came to pass the last time our na-
tion found itself in such a troubling state of affairs. Clearly,
the doomsday prophecies and despairing anxieties of the late
1800s were never fulfilled—the fear that the American project
was headed irretrievably off the rails proved unfounded. So
how did we get from the last American Gilded Age to our cur-
rent predicament? What happened in the intervening century?
This book is an attempt to answer these questions. As such,
it is neither a detailed assessment of our current troubles, nor
an exhaustive portrait of the turn of the last century. Rather,
we seek to provide a more sweeping historical perspective,
aided by a vast array of newly compiled statistical evidence.
This evidence provides a fresh and striking data-based portrait
of the past 125 years of our nation’s history, which is summa-
rized in Figure 1.1.
The trends illustrated below represent a compendium of
scores of different measures of century-long phenomena in
four key areas: economics, politics, society, and culture. (The
underlying numbers that comprise these four curves will be
explored in the next four chapters.) As we looked closely at
each of these facets of American life, we asked the basic ques-
tion of whether things have been improving or deteriorating
since the turn of the twentieth century. In other words, over
the past 125 years, since the last Gilded Age, has America been
moving toward
- greater or lesser economic equality?
- greater or lesser comity and compromise in politics?
- greater or lesser cohesion in social life?
- greater or lesser altruism in cultural values?
When charting the answers to these questions side by side, we
found an unmistakable—even breathtaking—pattern. In each
unique case, the trend line looks like an inverted U, starting
its long upward climb at roughly the same moment, and then
reversing to a downward descent within a remarkably similar
time frame.
FIGURE 1.1: ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND
CULTURAL TRENDS, 1895-2015
Source: See endnote 1.4. Data LOESS smoothed: .2.
A great variety of measures shows that on the heels of the
first American Gilded Age came more than six decades of im-
perfect but steady upward progress toward greater economic
equality, more cooperation in the public square, a stronger so-
cial fabric, and a growing culture of solidarity. Throughout the
first two thirds of the twentieth century we actually narrowed
the economic chasm born in the Gilded Age, making progress
not only during the Great Depression and World War II, but
for decades both before and after. In that same period we
gradually overcame extreme political polarization and learned
to collaborate across party lines. We also steadily wove an
ever-stronger network of community and family ties. And our
culture became more focused on our responsibilities to one an-
other and less focused on our narrower self-interest. In short,
America experienced a dramatic, multifaceted, and unmistak-
able upswing.
During these decades Americans became—perhaps more
than ever before—focused on what we could accomplish to-
gether. And this sense of shared responsibility and collective
progress was not simply some victory lap after overcoming the
Great Depression and defeating the Axis powers, as many have
suggested. As this chart makes clear, and as the data we shall
present in the forthcoming chapters prove, it was, in fact, the
culmination of trends plainly discernible across the previous
half century.
By the time we arrived at the middle of the twentieth cen-
tury, the Gilded Age was a distant memory. America had been
transformed into a more egalitarian, cooperative, cohesive, and
altruistic nation. At this mid-century moment our still seg-
regated and still chauvinist society was far from perfect, as
we shall discuss in detail in later chapters, but as the 1960s
opened we were increasingly attentive to our imperfections,
especially in racial and gender terms. Our new president de-
scribed us as poised to tackle our challenges together. “Ask not
what your country can do for you,” he said, “ask what you can
do for your country.” To Americans at that stage in our history,
Kennedy’s argument that collective well-being was even more
important than individual well-being was hardly countercul-
tural. Though the rhetoric was powerful, to his contemporaries
he was stating the obvious.
Over the first six decades of the twentieth century America
had become demonstrably—indeed measurably—a more “we”
society.
But then, as the foregoing graph indicates, and as those who
lived through that period know too well, in the mid-1960s the
decades-long upswing in our shared economic, political, social,
and cultural life abruptly reversed direction. America suddenly
found itself in the midst of a clear downturn. Between the
mid-1960s and today—by scores of hard measures along mul-
tiple dimensions—we have been experiencing declining eco-
nomic equality, the deterioration of compromise in the public
square, a fraying social fabric, and a descent into cultural narcis-
sism. As the 1960s moved into the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond,
we re-created the socioeconomic chasm of the last Gilded Age
at an accelerated pace. In that same period we replaced coop-
eration with political polarization. We allowed our community
and family ties to unravel to a marked extent. And our culture
became far more focused on individualism and less interested
in the common good. Since the 1950s we have made impor-
tant progress in expanding individual rights (often building on
progress made in the preceding decades), but we have sharply
regressed in terms of shared prosperity and community values.
JFK had foreshadowed the transformation that was to come,
because his idealistic rhetoric was, in retrospect, proclaimed
from a summit to which we had painstakingly climbed, but
were about to tumble right back down. And though that sum-
mit was certainly not nearly as high as America could hope
to climb toward equality and inclusion, it was closer than we
had yet come to enacting the Founders’ vision of “one nation...
with liberty and justice for all.” Thus, Kennedy’s call to put
shared interest above self-interest may have sounded at the
time like reveille for an era that was opening—a new frontier of
even greater shared victories—but with the perspective of the
full century, we can now see that instead he was unwittingly
sounding taps for an era that was about to close.
Over the past five decades America has become demonstra-
bly—indeed measurably—a more “I” society.
Generally speaking, each of the trends we uncovered is
recognized in the relevant scholarly literature, although they
have largely been examined separately. Rarely have scholars
recognized the striking concurrence of a multiplicity of fac-
tors that followed the same curvilinear course in the twenti-
eth century. Furthermore, examinations of these trends have
most often focused exclusively on the second half of the curve
—America’s downturn—ignoring the equally notable first half
—America’s upswing. By contrast, our study aims to achieve a
broad analysis of many different variables over a much longer
period of time in order to expose the deeper structural and cul-
tural tendencies that have roots in the opening decades of the
twentieth century and that have culminated in today’s multi-
faceted national crisis.
By using advanced methods of data analysis to combine our
four key metrics into a unified statistical story, we have been
able to discern a single core phenomenon—one inverted U-
curve that provides a scientifically validated summary of the
past 125 years in America’s story. This meta-trend, represented
in Figure 1.2, is a phenomenon we have come to call the “I-
we-I” curve: a gradual climb into greater interdependence and
cooperation, followed by a steep descent into greater indepen-
dence and egoism. It has been reflected in our experience of
equality, our expression of democracy, our stock of social cap-
ital, our cultural identity, and our shared understanding of
what this nation is all about.
FIGURE 1.2: COMMUNITY VS. INDIVIDUALISM IN
AMERICA, 1890-2017
Source: See endnote 1.4. Data LOESS smoothed: .1.
In each of the next four chapters of this book we will
consider a single core trend: economics, politics, society, and
culture, and reflect upon how its unfolding has contributed
to our nation’s upswing toward a “we” ethos and subsequent
downturn toward an “I” ethos. As we zero in on each inverted
U-curve, we will take a deep dive into the myriad underly-
ing statistical measures that comprise the overarching trend
but, equally important, we explore its historical context—the
unique confluence of circumstances, forces, and factors that
likely contributed to its formation. As a result, in the historical
narratives throughout this book we will revisit certain charac-
ters and events several different times as we view the century’s
unfolding through our four basic analytical lenses—econom-
ics, politics, society, and culture.
Two additional analytical perspectives that we will apply to
this time period, devoting a separate chapter to each, are race
and gender. Indeed, no discussion of “I” and “we” in the twen-
tieth century could be complete without asking the question of
how these trends were or were not reflected in the experience
of traditionally excluded groups. However, because our analy-
sis necessarily relies upon data sets that span 100+ years of
history, we spend far less time in this book discussing the ex-
perience of Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and
other peoples of color than we do African Americans. This is
certainly not because these groups and their unique stories are
unimportant, but because the statistical sources on which this
book relies do not consistently single out other peoples of color
alongside African Americans until late in the twentieth cen-
tury, making it nearly impossible to discern long-term trends
in arigorous way. Our discussion of race is therefore focused on
African Americans, and our mention of other racial and ethnic
minorities is limited.
While aggregate measures of economic inequality, political
polarization, social fragmentation, and cultural narcissism all
follow a strikingly similar inverted U-curve over the course
of our 125-year period, the story is far more complex when
it comes to measures of racial and gender equality. Because
African Americans, women, and many others had to fight to
achieve even basic forms of equality and inclusion during the
first two thirds of the twentieth century, it might be fair to as-
sume that any supposed “we” America was moving toward in
this period was inherently racist and sexist. Indeed, it is im-
perative for this study to consider the very real possibility that
the “we” taking shape at this time was a fundamentally white,
male “we.”
The broad-strokes histories of both race and gender in
twentieth-century America are often characterized not as an
inverted U-curve, but as something resembling a hockey stick.
In other words, widespread intolerance, inequality, and op-
pression are often thought to have been the unchanged norm
for blacks and women until the watershed changes of the mid-
Sixties Civil Rights and feminist revolutions led to improve-
ments at an unprecedented pace. However, this cartoon history
is in important respects misleading. A close reading of the
data, which we will present in later chapters, indicates that a
surprising number of gains in both racial and gender equality
happened well before 1970—and in fact constituted a long pe-
riod of progress that corresponds to the story told by the vari-
ables charted above. It seems that as America’s sense of “we”
was expanding over the first two thirds of the century, blacks
and women actually benefited as racial and gender disparities
in education, income, health, and voting gradually narrowed.
We will therefore argue that the rights revolutions of the 1960s
and 1970s must be seen not as a bolt from the blue, but rather
as the culmination of more than four decades of progress.
This progress was most often made in persistently segregated
spheres, was (in the case of race) driven largely by black Amer-
icans themselves rather than by institutional change, and was
certainly far from sufficient, but it is nevertheless a vitally
important part of the history of equality and inclusion in the
twentieth century.
Furthermore, our examination of race in twentieth-century
America will show that the decades after 1970—the period
Americans often believe brought about the greatest gains in
racial equality—actually represented a marked slowdown of
progress for black Americans. (The story of gender equality is
somewhat different, as we shall explain in detail in Chapter 7.)
This period of deceleration is as surprising as it is clear, but
also corresponds to the story told by the curves charted above.
It seems that as America took a more individualistic and nar-
cissistic turn after 1970, we simultaneously took our “foot off
the gas” in pushing toward true racial equality. This surprising
and even counterintuitive story, which focuses not on absolute
levels of racial equality, but the rate of change over time, chal-
lenges some popularly accepted ideas about the history of race
relations in this nation. Thus, when it comes to racial equality
the shape of the curves looks different, but the phenomenon
underlying the data turns out to be a subtle and unexpected
confirmation of the story of America’s I-we-I century. We will
lay out this case in detail in Chapters 6 and 7, which is why the
preceding chapters will address questions of race and gender
only lightly.
And yet, despite the real and often underemphasized
progress African Americans and women were making early in
the century, our analysis also reveals the undeniable ways in
which the mid-century “we” was nonetheless highly racialized
and gendered, and just how far short of the goal we were, even
at a time when America’s comity and cohesion were at an un-
precedented high. It is thus critical to avoid nostalgia about
the 1950s as some sort of “golden age” in America’s quest for
an egalitarian society—exactly because of the experience of
people of color, women, and other embattled groups. Indeed,
we will see clear evidence of the fact that America’s failure to
create a fully inclusive, fully egalitarian “we” over the first two
thirds of the century played a critical role in the nation’s larger
turn toward “I.” Why this is and what it could mean for the
challenges we face today will be one of the more thought-pro-
voking questions this book will take on. And it may turn out
to be a key that unlocks a greater understanding of why today
—half a century after the Civil Rights and women’s revolutions
—we find ourselves in a society still deeply divided along racial
and ethnic lines and still struggling to define and achieve gen-
der equality.
Our ongoing failure to achieve racial and gender equality
and inclusion is a deeply troubling aspect of our national life—
indeed one that violates foundational principles of the Amer-
ican project. However, it is far from the only problem our
country now faces. In politics we’re fighting in exceptionally
angry ways; in economics the gap between rich and poor is
tremendous in virtually all aspects of life; in social life we
are often lonely, disconnected, and despairing; and our “selfie”
culture continually reveals itself to be blindly narcissistic.
Today we find ourselves living in an extremely polarized, ex-
tremely unequal, extremely fragmented, and extremely self-
centered nation, a fact of which we are all painfully aware.
For nearly fifty years, across party lines and with only a few
short interruptions, most Americans—by a two to one margin
or more over the last decade—have said that our country “is on
the wrong track.” A recent study by the Pew Research Center
revealed that Americans are “broadly pessimistic” about the
future, with clear majorities predicting that the gap between
rich and poor will widen, that the country will become yet
more divided politically, and that the US will decrease in im-
portance on the world stage over the next thirty years.’ The
American Psychological Association reports that “the future of
our nation” is a bigger source of stress among average Ameri-
cans than even their own finances or work.
How did we get here? Until we can answer that question, we
shall be condemned to plunge further down an ever-darkening
path.
The 1960s represented an extraordinarily important hinge
point in the history of the twentieth century—a moment of
inflection that changed the course of the nation. But, as this
book will argue, accurately answering the question of how we
got here is only possible when viewing the Sixties as a second
inflection, not a first. The coming apart set in motion in the
mid-1960s, though deeply salient to those who lived through
it, was a phenomenon whose effects were largely equal and
opposite to what had happened as the century opened. Only
when our lens zooms out far enough to consider both of these
hinge points together can we begin to get an accurate picture
of how we have arrived at our current predicament—and how
we might navigate our way out again. Indeed, our hope is that
by presenting a new, evidence-based story spanning the past
125 years of our nation’s history we might begin to bridge the
“OK Boomer”? generational divide—and the many other lines
of fracture facing our nation—in order to construct a shared vi-
sion for the future that we can all work toward together.
Rebecca Edwards, a historian of the Gilded Age, observed
that “the lessons one draws from a period of history depend
to a large degree on one’s choice of beginning and ending
points.” This book will argue that the historical period from
which we must take our instruction today doesn’t start in the
1960s. Looking back only that far has taken many commenta-
tors down the road of nostalgia—leaving them little more to
do than lament some paradise lost and argue about whether
and how we should re-create it. In other words, looking to
the moment when an upswing culminated turns out not to be
very instructive. Looking to the moment of its inception proves
far more fruitful, especially when the context of that moment
bears a striking resemblance to the context in which we find
ourselves today. As represented in the subtitle of this book, our
thesis is not that we should return nostalgically to some peak
of American greatness, but that we should take inspiration and
perhaps instruction from a period of despair much like our
own, on the heels of which Americans successfully—and mea-
surably—bent history in a more promising direction.
If, as Shakespeare wrote, “what’s past is prologue,” then what
follows surely depends upon us gaining a right understanding
of where we’ve been. The seldom remembered second half of
the Shakespearean epigram—‘“what to come, in yours and my
discharge”—reveals not a pessimistic statement of historical
determinism, but rather a more realistic and even optimistic
argument that the past merely sets the agenda for choice going
forward. Coming to see our past more clearly serves to better
prepare us to gain mastery over our future.
Let us begin, then, at the beginning.
This book will trace the roots of today’s problems to the last
time these same problems threatened to engulf our democracy.
It contains an evidence-based story about how we have arrived
at our current predicament. We will examine how economic
inequality, political polarization, social fragmentation, cultural
narcissism, racism, and gender discrimination each evolved
over the course of the last 125 years—not merely the last fifty.
Doing so will unearth some unexpected twists and turns, and
will challenge some settled truths among pundits and histori-
ans about the twentieth century—the “American Century.”
Rather than citing some recent event or offering a narrative
of long-run decline, we will argue that the state of America
today must be understood by first acknowledging that within
living memory, each of the adverse trends we now see was
going in the opposite direction. And we will show that, to a
surprising degree, century-long trends in economics, politics,
society, and culture are remarkably similar, such that it is pos-
sible to summarize all of them in a single phenomenon: The
story of the American experiment in the twentieth century is
one of a long upswing toward increasing solidarity, followed
by a steep downturn into increasing individualism. From “I” to
“we,” and back again to “I.”
The Upswing is a history of the United States in the twentieth
century, but it is avowedly a simplified history, and it leaves out
much that is also important. But in so doing, it accentuates real
trends that are highly relevant to our current set of challenges.
This book is, therefore, an exercise in macrohistory, and as such
it will be controversial among historians. Furthermore, writ-
ing contemporary history is always precarious, because our
understanding of the past evolves as the future unfolds. Peaks,
valleys, and inflection points take on new meaning in the light
of each new decade. But we borrow our motto from Alfred
North Whitehead: “Seek simplicity and distrust it.” Finally,
this book is not primarily about causal analysis. It is about
narratives. Narratives, as we use the term, are not merely enter-
taining tales, but events linked together in trends inter-braided
by reciprocal causality. The strands of a narrative are inextrica-
ble, but still interpretable, and therefore instructive as we look
to the future.
As Tocqueville rightly noted, in order for the American
experiment to succeed, personal liberty must be fiercely pro-
tected, but also carefully balanced with a commitment to the
common good. Individuals’ freedom to pursue their own inter-
ests holds great promise, but relentlessly exercising that free-
dom at the expense of others has the power to unravel the very
foundations of the society that guarantees it. Looking back
over the full arc of the twentieth century, we will see these
ideas and their consequences borne out in vivid historical and
statistical detail. And finally we will turn to the implications
of our findings for reformers today. For the arc we describe is
not an arc of historical inevitability, but an arc constructed by
human agency, just as Shakespeare suggested.
Perhaps the single most important lesson we can hope to
gain from this analysis is that in the past America has experi-
enced a storm of unbridled individualism in our culture, our
communities, our politics, and our economics, and it produced
then, as it has today, a national situation that few Americans
found appealing. But we successfully weathered that storm
once, and we can do it again. If ever there were a historical mo-
ment whose lessons we as a nation need to learn, then, it is the
moment when the first American Gilded Age turned into the
Progressive Era, a moment which set in motion a sea change
that helped us reclaim our nation’s promise, and whose effects
rippled into almost every corner of American life for over
half a century. Understanding what set those trends in mo-
tion, then, becomes of critical importance. We will therefore
close our book by examining the inflection that set the stage
for the twentieth century’s communitarian climb, attempting
to glean lessons from the story of those who, during the last
American Gilded Age, refused to let go of the reins of history,
and took deliberate action to reverse its course. In their story,
more than in the story of those who lived through a supposed
golden age, we may find the tools and inspiration we need
today to create another American upswing—this time with an
unwavering commitment to complete inclusion that will take
us toward a yet higher summit, and a fuller and more sustain-
able realization of the promise of “we.”
Note: Contact Clif Hostetler for "Endnotes" for Chapter 1.
