Part 3: What Allowed American Progressivism

Last time I promised to focus on the rise and influence of American Progressivism. The United States has not gone as far or as fast down the road of evolutionary socialism as Europe. One of the most important reasons for this cultural delay appears to have been the strong Christian influence revived by the Second Great Awakening.

One of the most influential social movements in American history is virtually ignored in many of today’s public educational institutions.   The reason for this is simple. The Second Great Awakening (like the also important first) was a protestant/evangelical religious movement. On the religious side some of the largest protestant denominations, especially Baptists and Methodists, received their greatest percentage of growth during and immediately after the awakening. The awakening also began a number of societal reform movements, many later hi-jacked by the progressive movement, that still endure. 

Before the Awakening, American Protestants funded very few foreign or domestic missionary efforts. The great denominational mission efforts, the Bible Societies, and many Christian charities had their beginnings in this movement. Christians also felt called upon to improve conditions for others through such movements as prison reform, more humane treatment for the insane, the provision of public education for those who could not afford it on their own, and most importantly, for many, the abolition of slavery. Almost all of the major abolitionists were directly influenced by one of the great preachers of the Awakening, the Presbyterian evangelist, Charles G. Finney. It was also in these evangelical circles that the idea of women receiving the right to vote first gained widespread support. They also favored voluntary temperance as an answer to the social ills brought on by widespread alcoholism. It is from this movement that such phrases as “tea-totaler”, “going on the wagon,” and “taking the pledge” came.

For a time, the awakening seemed to inoculate America from the intellectual poison that pervaded the European system. Most American religious institutions were very traditionally Christian and very Bible centered. But the education boom following the Civil War was going to change all that.

Americans had always emphasized education to an extent unprecedented in the history of the world. The first compulsory public education laws were found among the American Puritans in the 1600s. Americans were quick to establish colleges, almost all of which were church related. In the period following the First Great Awakening there was a boom in higher education, with the founding of many more religious schools. The Second Great Awakening also caused a further blossoming of higher education opportunities including some of the first for women and blacks. But these earlier booms had been overtly Christian. The one following the Civil War would not.

.

Two things transpired to cause an educational boom in the period immediately after the Civil War. During the war Congress had passed the Morrill Land Grant Act. This act would make large tracts of western lands available for the support of public higher education and many states would imitate this action by the federal government (a good example is Texas). The other force that would help create this late 19^th century boom in education was the philanthropy of many of those capitalists and industrialists who helped to cause and profited from America’s huge post-war industrial and economic boom. They gave vast sums of money to existing and start-up institutions of higher education.

With all the new colleges being founded, there were not enough qualified faculty. Even if American colleges were to wait for future graduating classes from American institutions, it would take a long time to make up the deficit. The solution was to hire European faculty and to send American candidates to the European universities. Especially favored were the high reputation universities of Germany, where extreme religious liberalism and skepticism, evolutionary socialism, and ethnocentric identity politics (J. G. Herder) were already rampant. It would be through this avenue that modern religious liberalism would enter American denominations (and as it had previously done in Europe cause many church splits) and it would be through this avenue that the ideas that eventually became American Progressivism would come.

But a movement as strong as American Progressivism would need more than ivory tower intellectuals to bring about its spread. The ideas, like seeds, needed fertile ground. America in the late 19^th century was definitely fertile ground.

Americans believed in technological progress. After all, they lived in a land where technological inventions were almost monthly improving the quality of life. Social democrats would quickly realize that for their ideas to be accepted they could not be labeled “socialist.” The term “Progressive” would not only be more palatable, it would also fit in better with their Enlightenment inspired views of human nature and its mutability. Many Americans felt drawn to progressivism because it seemed to agree with their vision of a better future fueled by technological advance.

Another factor that prepared the way for progressivism was the lag that always occurs in the rise of living standards for the working class and for agriculturalists during the early phases of an industrial boom. Living standards rise first for the upper and middle classes and only later for those further down the economic chain. Among a literate people, and Americans had the highest literacy rate at the time, such a situation causes many people to assume that somehow others’ advances have come at their expense. Something socialists are always quick to take advantage of, since class envy is often the most successful tool for advancing their agenda in democratic societies.

Progressives got a further opportunity because of a new solution to an old American government problem. Late 19^th century presidents had a growing burden. The spoils system, whereby the party in power gave all government jobs to party loyalists, had created a presidential nightmare. Presidents seemed to spend half their administrations just making appointments. Every position of postmaster, for example, required a presidential appointment. The paperwork was overwhelming. The solution proposed was the Pendleton Act. This act began our current civil service system. While these new professional bureaucrats would make for more government agency consistency through the years, they would also be insulated from the political process. The new civil service would be the ideal tool for Progressivism.

These conditions would make the rise of American Progressivism possible. Next time, I will show what political tools progressives used to gain power and then how progressives held on to and used power to try to achieve their goals. I will then speculate on why they have not succeeded and now face a growing challenge.