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6WDEOH85/http://www.jstor.org/stable/25144440 .
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on Periodizing
Thoughts
Gilded Age: Capital
Accumulation,
Society,
1873-18981
Politics,
the
and
by Richard Schneirov, Indiana State University
was
There
a time
once
in
not
the
too
recent
when
past
scholarly
discus
was central to the task of writing and
over
periodization
the
Gilded
and
Era. Scholars
such as
Progressive
thinking
Age
Richard Hofstadter,
Robert Wiebe,
and Samuel P. Hays applied versions of
to
the
and early twentieth centuries to
modernization
late
nineteenth
theory
sion and debate
about
came
as the "organizational
synthesis." A com
on the rise of the large business
peting periodization
corporation
in
Martin
and
works
Weinstein,
Sklar, James
by
James Livingston.2
appeared
Since the 1970s, however, the new social and cultural history has introduced
what
produce
to be known
centered
amultitude
mentation
of new fields and perspectives. By the 1980s, the perceived frag
an
In 1986
history had generated
appeal for "synthesis."
Bender called for new and intelligible narrative plots that would
of
Thomas
scholarship with its intensive specialization,
fragmenta
with groups." Yet, since then, occasional
tion, and preoccupation
attempts
to synthesize have been stillborn, and for the Gilded Age as well as for the
transcend
"recent
Era
Progressive
the
search
for
synthesis
seems
to have
is a revised
and expanded
of a paper
version
Boston, March
Historians,
Norton Wheeler,
John B. Jentz, David Nichols,
John Enyeart,
comments.
for their helpful
^his
of
reached
a cul-de-sac
no exit in sight.3
with
article
the Organization
2Robert
of American
H. Wiebe,
of Reform (New York,
1957); Louis Galambos,
History,"
Search for Order,
1955); Samuel
Business History
1877-1920
P. Hays,
at the Annual Meeting
like to thank
26, 2004. I would
and two anonymous
reviewers
delivered
(New York,
1967); Richard Hofstadter,
Age
to Industrialism
1885-1914
(Chicago,
Response
"The
in Modern
Emerging
Organizational
Synthesis
AA (Autumn
Samuel
P. Hays,
1970): 279-90;
in Building the Organisational
onAssociational
Society: Essays
Review
American
"The
New
Activities
in
Organizational
Society,"
ed. Jerry Israel (New York,
Modern America,
The Corporate Ideal
1972), 1-15; James Weinstein,
in theLberal
State, 1900-1918
(Boston,
1968); James Livingston,
Origins of the Federal Reserve
1890-1913
System: Money Class, and Corporate Capitalism,
(Ithaca, NY,
1986); Martin
J. Sklar, The
Corporate
Reconstruction
of American
Capitalism,
1890-1916:
The Market,
The Eaw,
and Politics
UK,
1988).
(Cambridge,
"Wholes
and Parts: The Need
for Synthesis
in American
Bender,
3Thomas,
History,"
at 120 and 136; see also "A Round
73 (June 1986): 120-36, quotes
Journal of American History,
Table:
in American
The Journal of American History,
74 (June 1987); for
Synthesis
History"
see
Bender's
latest thinking
of Narrative
in American
Synthesis
"Strategies
History," American
Historical Review 107 (February 2002): 129-53.
It is noteworthy
recent
that the most
important
at periodization
a
of the Gilded
scientist
rather than a his
attempt
Age came from
political
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra 5:3 (July 2006)
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
190
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
to the
essay does not attempt to bring unity and coherence
prolifer
a
synthesis of the late nine
ating new histories and to create out of them
teenth century or Gilded Age. Such an endeavor may well be Sisyphean. The
This
new
duced
perspectives,
in the past
of
monographs
information
that have been pro
topics, and exploding
three decades are too heterogeneous
and many of the
new
too
to
to
histories
be susceptible
these
specialized
does not depend on synthesizing
all
"synthesis." In any case, periodization
a
in the field of history
the work
into
narrative.
single comprehensive
a
in
it
involves
narrative
form
based
framework
Rather,
creating
theoretically
Such a framework must make enough sense
by time boundaries.
to historians working
to generate
in a variety of sub-fields and perspectives
common
to
and hypotheses
of
interest, allowing them
questions
speak to
delimited
one another
across
the boundaries
of
their scholarship
in the service of this
larger paradigm.4
This essay offers some thoughts and suggestions
relevant to constructing
a historical paradigm or
for the Gilded Age. It begins with a
periodization
of this period and
of the need for amore rigorous periodization
discussion
to
American
late-nineteenth-century
why the last major attempt
periodize
the limits
theory was flawed. After considering
society using modernization
more
to
recent
the essay proceeds
discuss the much-debat
of
approaches,
the historiography
transition to capitalism, examining
ed antebellum
posit
ing
the
existence
of
a
pre-capitalist
household
the more
and
economy
recent
a "market revolution."
It then argues for using Karl Marx's
arguing for
a non-capitalist
of pro
mode
of
concept
simple commodity
production,
and the social relations of capital
duction lacking both capital accumulation
to
farms on which most white
commercial
the
small
describe
ism,
family
work
worked
Americans
essay proceeds
torian;
see Richard
and lived in the first half of
the nineteenth
recent work
evidence
to examine
Franklin
Bensel,
providing
The Political Economy
of American
century. The
that
supporting
Industrialisation,
1877
1900 (Cambridge,UK, 2000).
to his
on research-relevant
of periodization
4The dependence
theory can be off-putting
as a way of
are
historians
of theory, which
torians. Many
they view
fitting the vari
suspicious
this empiricist
The problem
with
bed of dead concepts.
ety of the past into a procrustean
it or not, history
is an intrinsically
theoreti
historians
is that whether
acknowledge
position
an
even the
that oper
historian
undertakes
cal enterprise.
investigation
empiricist
Implicidy,
ates within
a field
answers,
historians
and what
odization
scheme
believe
silence,
stifle,
with
this view
or
to look for
to pose, where
that determine
what questions
assumptions
some
answers
to
other
On
the
them.
constitute
would
hand,
satisfactory
of one peri
for the superiority
that there is no way to argue successfully
to do so would
over another; moreover,
or master
narrative
inevitably
of
narratives
alternative
competing
marginalize
are necessary
is that rules constituting
objectivity
or community
in the field
of inquirers whether
that also
exist. The
problem
any schol
or the sciences. For
to the existence
of
of history
arly discipline
see Peter Novick,
The "ObjectivityQuestion"
That
Noble
Dream:
the argument
against objectivity
"The Value of
and theAmerican Historical Profession (Cambridge,
UK,
1988) and Hayden White,
Discourse
and
in The Content of Form: Narrative
in
the
of
Reality,"
Narrativity
Representation
L. Haskell,
in favor see Thomas
Historical
1987). For arguments
(Baltimore,
Representation
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Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodi^ing theGildedAge
and detailing how simple commodity
to slavery, household manufacturing,
interrelations
contention
to a
enterprise dissolved, giving way
tion by the early 1870s.
political
production with
and emergent
191
its close
capitalist
of capital accumula
economy
The body of the essay examines the 1870s and 1880s using political devel
to describe the rise of a dominant cap
in New York and Chicago
opments
italist class and a permanent wage-labor
class co-existing
in interrelation
and remnants of older modes
of pro
simple commodity
production
in 1873-74 inaugurated the period we call
duction. Three key developments
the Gilded Age: the start of a crisis period of capital accumulation
charac
a reconstruction
terized by "overproduction,"
of the party-electoral
system
to that crisis, and the rise of class antagonisms which
directly attributable
with
into broad social upheavals. Much of the rest of
erupted intermittently
of the Gilded Age examines the transition to this era within
discussion
the
the
thinking of labor leaders. The remainder of the essay creates a "book-end"
for the Gilded Age in the appearance during this period of key elements of
"new liberalism" and the subsequent
transition from proprietary
competi
tive to corporate
capitalism
Periodization
The
beginning
and
of
Historiography
used
periodization
concept
recent
from the most
departs
scheme, which has been advanced
In this approach, periodization
a
existing during
society-type
terms
of
its
in the late 1890s.
and
requirements
here
on
builds
and
in some ways
and
theorized
rigorously
periodization
Martin
Sklar
the
for
by
J.
Progressive Era.
is a derivative of social theory that postulates
a delimited
capacities,
period.
that
is,
It defines
those
aspects
that society
that
are
in
nec
essary and inherently limiting, along with those that make up the society's
or change-potentials.
a paradigm to any soci
range of possibilities
Applying
in
means
its historical dimension
also
it as a dynamic unity
ety
understanding
of continuity and change. In different words, change must be tracked on a
field of continuity, otherwise
there is no standard against which to measure
it. That field of continuity may be called the "transhistorical"
dimension,
while the change being tracked is called the "historical." The former is pre
dictable
The
at least in the short run, while
transhistorical
foregrounds
human
is the deterministic
the latter is notoriously
in history, while
factor
changeable.
the historical
agency.5
Is Not
Rhetoric
Versus
in Peter Novick's
Practice
That Noble
"Objectivity
Neutrality:
and Theory 29 (1990): 129-57 and David Hollinger,
"T S. Kuhn's
of
Dream,"
History
Theory
Science
and Its Implications
for History,"
in In theAmerican
Province: Studies in theHistory
and
IN, 1985).
Historiography
of Ideas (Bloomington,
5Martin J. Sklar, "Periodization
and Historiography,"
in The United States as a
Developing
in the Progressive Era and the 1920s
Country: Studies In U.S. History
1992), 2, 3,
(Cambridge, MA,
see
also
Walter Dean Burnham,
"Pattern Recognition
and 'Doing' Political History:
6-8;
Art,
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
192
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
adopted here draws on the work of Marx but views
and enduring in Marx as part of a broader common
a
ground created by host of classical and more recent social theorists from
the eighteenth
including Adam Smith, James
through twentieth centuries,
Ferdinand
Emile
Madison,
Tonnies,
John Stuart Mill, Henry Maine,
The
what
periodization
is most useful
Max Weber, John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen,
and more recendy
Durkheim,
Karl Polanyi, Barrington Moore,
and Ellen Meiksins
Jr., C. B. Macpherson,
centu
Wood. This approach differs in important ways from mid-twentieth
ry American
porary
modernization
historians
who
theorists,
a
vogue
among
contem
and Progressive
Era. Modernization
a real historical
of evolution without
of
theory, by creating
attained
the Gilded Age
an abstract model
dimension,
by inventing flattened universal terms such as industrialization
and rational behavior to replace the older classical terms of capital accumu
and by often seeming to celebrate what clas
lation and profit maximization,
treated with
sical theorists
critical distance, diverted attention from the his
destructive
aspects of modern
development.6
to peri
of
classical
theory it is possible
ground
and often
torical, conflictual,
Based on this common
its history as a self-governing
society
society throughout
or the state),
on
of
the
based
sovereignty
people (rather than the monarch
In different words, vol
constitution.
the regulative concept of the American
odize American
untary
associative
in the
practices
sense
of
making
contracts,
enter
forming
activity, defining and debating issues in the public
at the
lawmaking, and litigation need to be placed
sphere, electioneering,
to
resist the
center of American
life. To classify American
society this way is
prises,
and other market
to view
tendency
"police
power"
as
America
or
regulatory
essentially
power
capitalist.
of
In
law,
service
to
and freedom
of
government
eral welfare"
constitutional
in
the
the
"gen
contract,
trumps property
rights
normally
soci
at the state and local level. To say America
is a self-governing
is not to say that it has not been capitalist; it is to say that cap
ety, however,
that could not have
italism was a closely related, but distinct development
existed without political will being exercised.
especially
sense of
in the broad
Politics
the term is critical
in understanding
how
two or more modes of productions
the existence of
society accommodated
one (or several) mode of production
a
time
period and how
single
during
of
into another. There were (and are) in fact numerous modes
transitioned
production
in American
history
in addition
to capitalism,
including
the
ed. Lawrence
in The Dynamics
ofAmerican Politics: Approaches,
Schemes
and Tarty
CO,
1994), and "Periodization
(Boulder,
Jillson,
as a case in Point," Social Science History,
10 (1986): 263-314.
'System of 1896'
Systems': The
in U.S. as a Developing Country, 45-55;
Political Development,"
6Sklar, "Studying American
A Critical
the
and
Dean
C. Tipps,
"Modernization
Study of Societies:
Theory
Comparative
in Society and History
15 (1973): 199-226.
Comparative Studies
Perspective,"
Science,
C. Dodd
or Bootless
Enterprise?"
and Calvin
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Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodicing theGildedAge
chattel
household,
slave,
crop
small
lien-sharecropper,
193
or
producer
self
in the nineteenth
and
of production
labor, and socialist modes
employed
can be called a "developmental
mix" or
centuries. What
early twentieth
consists of several modes
of production
held together
"social formation"
we
that
know
the mix of
and
market
relations
by
political negotiation. Thus,
labor, household
labor, and an expanding
slavery, self-employed
as the social basis of the First Republic
sphere of capitalist enterprise served
to
the Civil War. The dominant mix of the Gilded Age
from the Revolution
chattel
or Second Republic consisted of a dominant proprietary capitalism in amix
of production
with secondary or declining modes
including self-employed
labor and the Southern commercial planter system. Much of national poli
the often-diver
tics in American
history has centered on accommodating
and stabilizing the
gent interests generated from these modes of production
succession
of "mixes"?usually
of production?that
constituted
one
in any
the hegemony
of a dominant mode
the socio-economic
matrix of the country
under
period.7
in the shape of assembling diverse coalitions capable
an electoral majority also
explains the transition from one mode
Politics
to
tion
another.
Historical
notion
that
Marxist
cast
has
research
class
grave
conflict?however
doubt
important?can
on
of winning
of produc
the
classical
serve
as
the
of social change. Whether
historians are dealing with the
the
of
the 1850s,
Revolution,
Party coalition
Republican
central explanation
American
or
Progressivism,
of
sisting
tions
of
segments
transacted
it appears
Deal,
classes
fundamental
and
social
that
in conflict
and
with
economic
cross-class
other
coalitions
cross-class
con
coali
change.8
can now
We
was
the New
at first
7On
formation
turn to periodizing
the Gilded Age. The term "Gilded Age"
a
term
that emerged
from the preoccupations
of
pejorative
mix see Sklar, "Periodization
the developmental
and Historiography,"
8-20; on social
see Barry Hindess
and Paul Hirst, Mode
Production
and
Social
Formation:
An Auto
of
and interpen
of Pre-Capitalist Modes
1977). The amalgamation
of Production (London,
of modes
of production
and classes
is a commonplace
social historians
of
among
to capitalism;
from feudalism
the transition
see, for example,
Moore,
Barrington
Jr., Social
and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in theMaking
Origins of Dictatorship
of theModern World (Boston,
Critique
etration
a "mix" of modes
American
of production;
society as
1776-1877"
in Perspectives onAmerican Eabor
Class,
Working
and Alice Kessler-Harris
IL,
History: The Problems of Synthesis, ed. J Carroll Moody
(De Kalb,
1989), 83-151,
esp. 91.
rather than single-class
8The literature on the cross-class
character of transformative
polit
1966). Sean Wilentz
see "The Rise of
views
antebellum
the American
ical movements
see Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free
is too vast to catalog here. For the Civil War,
The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (New York,
1970). For
"An Obituary
for the 'Progressive Movement,'"
American
Era, Peter Filene,
22 (Spring 1970): 20-34, has led most
historians
Quarterly
away from single-class
explanations
and toward broadly political
such as Daniel T Rodgers, Atlantic
ones,
Crossings: Social Politics
in a Progressive Age
formulation:
1998). In Sklar's trenchant
(Cambridge, MA,
"[C]lass conflicts
and changing
class relations,
modes
of production,
with
generate
corresponding
developing
Eabor, Free Men:
the Progressive
and pressures
for changes
of profound
effect,
transact them," (italics in
See "Periodization
original).
conditions
ments
but emergent
cross-class
and Historiography,'
19.
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align
194
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
1920s
Van Wyck
Brooks
and Lewis
Intellectuals,
Young
particularly
in their search for a "usable past." Drawing on the portrait of this
Mumford,
era as one of "barbarism," and hollowness,"
historians of the next three
were less concerned with periodizing
this era than with erecting a
in the
thesis against which could be measured
the antithetical developments
terms from crit
Progressive Era and New Deal.9 They borrowed descriptive
decades
ics of
"Gilded Age"
and
Age,
starting with Mark Twain's
"Robber Barons." Lewis Mumford
Matthew
termed
famously
Josephson's
this period
"the Brown Decades";
Vernon
Parrington,
following Mark
Twain, called the period "a huge barbeque." As late as 1968, John A. Garraty,
the Gilded
in his otherwise
survey of
characterized
excellent
rency to a Gilded
Age
the period
from
by "selfishness,
1877 to 1890, gave cur
materialism"
and "pre
tentiousness."10
in the 1950s historians
theory to the
applied modernization
Beginning
Gilded Age, thereby liberating the writing of American history from the grip
tradition. For the first time historians were able
of the American Progressive
history from the outside in rather than the inside out.
Alfred Chandler, Thomas Cochran, and others rehabilitated America's
cap
Richard
tains of industry from robber barons to creative entrepreneurs.
was the first to systematically
Hofstadter
import social theory into the era
to look at American
his use of
to
the concept of Weberian
origin, "status revolution,"
historians
Urban political
fol
explain the origin of the early Progressives.
onto
manifest
distinction
between
latched
the
when
lowed,
sociological
they
with
and
latent
functions
developed
by
the sociologist
Robert
K. Merton
to
thereby stripping away the muck
Age big city machine,
as
urban
of
politics
simply corrupt. Herbert Gutman
raking understanding
a sociological
of culture and the work ethic to posit
conception
employed
an explanation
of Gilded Age immigrant worker revolts against industrial
rethink
the Gilded
capitalism, thereby transforming
treated
modernization
theory
Progressive
Era
and viewed
labor history.11 Most
the Gilded
Age
it as part of
a
1873); Matthew
York,
1962);
(New York,
3 (Partington
those who
in concert
larger transition
of a Usable
Age: The Provenance
of
American
the
Historians,
Meeting
Organization
The Gilded Age: A
and Charles Dudley Warner,
10Mark Twain
9Alan Lessoff,
the Annual
of
"The Gilded
of
applied
with
the
to modernity.
at
Past," paper delivered
Boston, March
26, 2004.
Tale of Today (New York,
1861-1901
(New
Capitalists,
The Robber Barons; the Great American
Josephson,
Lewis Mumford,
The Brown Decades: A Study of theArts
1877-1890
The New Commonwealth,
1955); John A. Garraty,
inAmerica,
1865-1895
1967), 1,
(New York,
in American
History"
Hayes
De Santis, "The Gilded Age
and 4; Vincent
quote),
Journal 7 (1988): 38-41.
in theHistory
Industrial
D Chandler,
^Alfred
of theAmerican
Strategy and Structure: Chapters
MA,
of Reform: From Bryan to FDR
Age
1962); Richard Hofstadter,
(Cambridge,
Enterprise
in
and Latent Functions,"
"Manifest
Robert K. Merton,
1955), "Introduction";
(New York,
Historical
Social Theory and Social Structure (New York,
1968); Herbert
in Work,
in Industrializing
1815-1919,"
America,
Society
America
1977).
(New York,
and
G. Gutman,
"Work, Culture,
Culture and Society in Industrialising
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodi^ing theGildedAge
we
Thus,
get
the phrases,
"Age of
the
like.12
and
Society,"
"Organizational
of social theory
the application
Though
at
of
the Gilded Age,
attempt
periodization
with it. First, the concepts used to periodize
and historical
transhistorical
between
for Order,"
"Search
Reform,"
the
enabled
there were
195
first
systematic
serious
problems
didn't
adequately distinguish
to call
Thus, it ismisleading
Era an "Age of Reform," when reform
elements.
the late Gilded Age and Progressive
the term
has characterized virtually every period in U.S. history. Likewise,
revolution
and organizational
the
society could characterize
organizational
and early twentieth centuries.
present period as much as the late nineteenth
not searched out some sort of order to their
And when have Americans
lives? More
rated"
the idea that Gilded
recently,
reads
the
backward
Age America
of
consequences
the
was
being
"incorpo
corpo
turn-of-the-century
instance of a larger problem with
almost every
modernization
theory, which is its tendency to find modernity
where in the period under study and then to contrast itwith an earlier peri
rate merger
is only one
This
movement.13
or "pre-modern" with minimal
inves
to
out
has
also
tended
the
flatten
theory
bumps in
to calculate
and thereby neglected
the
seriously
costs and inequalities of modern
that
created
social
conflict.
society
od, which
is then labeled "traditional"
tigation. Modernization
historical
development
human
Era turned
the 1980s, historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive
and
of
from
the
Instead, many
away
synthesis.
question
periodization
embraced what the historian Mary Fulbrook has called "perspectival" para
are constituted when historians
create
so-called paradigms
digms. These
By
new fields of
on old topics. Working
study that grant them new perspectives
class history, women's history, gender history, environmental
history and the
recent histories of whiteness
are all examples of perspecti
and masculinity
val paradigms. Historians with these perspectives
have normally
tended to
a
as
era
the
older
schemes
of
this
and
instead
accept
given
periodization
have
tried
to
were
ernization
treatment
of
introduce
the
notion
sites
actually
the Gilded
Age
Standing atArmageddon (1987),
to modernity
the transitions
urban
life. Instead,
a narrative
history
of
that
contention.
the
value-neutral
Thus,
a recent
processes
popular
of
mod
textbook
and Progressive
Era by Nell
Irvin Painter,
leaves out the standard textbook chapters on
in the spheres of agriculture,
industry, and
she emphasizes
of those who
and class conflict and offers
depressions
resisted the new urban-industrial
order
Search for Order; Hofstadter,
"The Emerging
12Wiebe,
Age
of Reform; Galambos,
and Hays,
see
"The New Organizational
Organizational
Synthesis,"
Society." For a critique
Kenneth
and Amnesia:
The Vision
of Modernity
in Robert Wiebe's
The
Cmiel,
"Destiny
Search for Order,"
Reviews inAmerican History
21 (June 1993): 352-368.
13Alan
The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded
Trachtenberg,
(New
Age
York,
1982).
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
196
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
its confines. Other historians have taken the new tendency to
its logical conclusion
in offering a neo-Populistic,
anti-modern
reading of
the Gilded Age, following
in the path of Lawrence Goodwyn's
Populist
from outside
Moment.14
to Capitalism
If we return to the study of periodization
without
the social
neglecting
we
dislocations
and human costs of modernizing
ask:
what
may
change,
of the Gilded Age look like? To begin with
would an adequate periodization
a commercializa
the South, the epochal defeat of chattel slavery unleashed
The
Transition
a
on amix of labor
planter upper class dependent
and
but
also
wage labor. Self-suffi
tenancy,
share-cropping
tion process
that created
systems, mainly
cient yeoman farmers evolved less rapidly into small-scale commodity
pro
ducers. Both modes of production,
industrial capital,
along with embryonic
to Northern
in semi-colonial
developed
relationship
capital.15
In the North, which will be the focus of this essay, the Gilded Age can be
defined at its start and conclusion
transitions: the first,
by two important
or free labor mode of production
to a capitalist one,
from a self-employed
a
a
a
shift from
and the second,
proprietary competitive
capitalist order to
one. While
of the first transition
administered
the completion
corporate
the beginning of the Gilded Age, the beginning of the second
its close, that is, assuming that we keep the standard years for
these two transitions exists the dom
Age, 1870s-1890s. Between
helps define
helps define
the Gilded
inant mode
in the Gilded Age: competitive,
of production
proprietary cap
itself was part of a larger mix including secondary or reces
and in the South,
labor, household
self-employed
production,
italism, which
sive strains of
large-
and
small-scale
commercial
agriculture.
To begin with the first transition, we must turn to a concept that is inad
in American
society. The first
equately periodized
producer
historiography,
Irvin Painter,
Nell
Historical
Theory
(London,
2002).
Standing At
14Mary Fulbrook,
The Populist
The United States, 1877-1919
1987); Lawrence
(New York,
Goodwyn,
Armageddon:
see
Revolt inAmerica
Moment: A Short History
1978); on neo-Populism
(Oxford,
of theAgrarian
1865-1928
E. McGerr,
The Decline of Popular Politics: The American North,
for example, Michael
Tradition and the
Ritter, Goldbugs and Greenbacks: The Antimonopoly
1986), Gretchen
(New York:
inAmerica
Sanders, Roots of Reform: Farmers,
1997), Elizabeth
(New York,
of Finance
The Incorporation
and theAmerican
State, 1877?1917
1999), and Trachtenberg,
(Chicago,
a nineteenth-century
and
all of which
age of the small producer
golden
of America,
posit
like a declension.
associated
appear
twentieth-century
developments
against which
politics
see Richard
in Gilded Age
labor history
For a criticism of the same tendency
Schneirov, Eabor
in Chicago, 1864-97
and Urban Politics: Class Conflict and the Origins ofModern Eiberalism
(Urbana,
Politics
Workers,
in the special issue of American
of Incorporation of America
also see the criticisms
15
History
Eiterary
(2003).
1877-1913
15C. Vann Woodward,
South,
1951); Gavin
(Baton Rouge,
Origins of theNew
since the Civil War (New York,
in
the
Southern
New
South:
Revolutions
Old
South,
Economy
Wright,
a survey
1988); for
1986); Eric Foner, Reconstruction: Americas
Unfinished Revolution (New York,
on the nature of late-nineteenth-century
in the
economic
and social relations
of debates
1998),
4-10;
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodisjng theGildedAge
197
to apply social theory to nineteenth-century
America never distin
labor or producer society and capitalist soci
guished between
self-employed
never
Hence
ety.
they
fully grasped the nature and importance of the tran
historians
in the late nineteenth
that occurred
sition
to
that mid-
realized
Hofstadter
farmers
late-nineteenth-century
Richard
while
century. Thus,
had
adopt
ed a commercial
that belied the "agrarian
and entrepreneurial
orientation
was so anxious to dispel, he called these farmers "capitalis
he
mythology"
the differences between self
tic." One finds the same inability to distinguish
employed labor and capitalism in Louis Hartz, who despite
cation of Lockean
liberalism as the transhistorical element
tory, didn't distinguish
capitalist
from
development
his brilliant
evo
in American
his
that of
the small pro
ducers.16
the question of capitalist origins has been opened
the mid-1970s,
to capitalism"
for vigorous
debate with the contention
that a "transition
as well as Europe with its feudal traditions. Rejecting
the
existed in America
Since
consensus
view
ans of
agrarian
that like feudalism
tion
Michael
ships," the new histori
of a mode of produc
or
First theorized by
pre-capitalist.17
that capitalism arrived "in the first
life began by positing
the existence
was
non-
and James Henretta
this "household mode of production"
a limited
characterized by subsistence-oriented
production,
surplus that
was
was
Merrill
in markets
exchanged
only
in
circumstances,
exceptional
family-based
in which kinship and community
labor, and a "moral economy"
as
and reciprocity overshadowed
individualism
interdependence
itiveness.18 Since
ture. Thus,
the
one
growing
virtually
The
then, a host of empirical work
influential study contends
that as late as the 1840s, "despite
everything
in a
watershed
Northern
such
and acquis
has documented
this pic
on
emphasis
success...even
values
agriculture
the market..
.,the
farmer
for his farm and family from
relatively
away
from
seems
area
well-developed
been
was
the
able
the farm was
such
as New
into market
self-sufficiency
to have
who
to
provide
a
regarded
York
State."
dependency
in
1850s.19
existence of
logical outcome of new work validating the widespread
household
non-capitalist
production was a new synthesis of early- to mid
One
South
see Scott
P. Marler,
"Fables of Reconstruction:
Reconstruction
of the Fables," Journal
113-37.
Society 4 (Winter 2004):
inAmerica: An
The Uberal
Tradition
16Hofstadter,
Age
of Reform, chap. 1; Louis Hartz,
Interpretation of American Political Thought since the Revolution (New York,
1955).
of theHistorical
Out of Our Past: The Forces That Shaped Modern America
17Carl Degler,
(New York,
1959), 1.
to Eat:
"Cash
is Good
18Michael Merrill,
and Exchange
in the Rural
Self-Sufficiency
of the United
Review 4 (1977): 42-71; James A. Henretta,
States," Radical History
Economy
"Families
in Pre-Industrial
and Farms: Mentalite
William
andMary Quarterly
35 (Jan.
America,"
1978):
3-32.
and Fred Bateman,
in theAntebellum
To Their Own Soil: Agriculture
19Jeremy Atack
The Northern
(Ames, IA, 1987), quote at 203; Clarence H. Danhoff,
Change inAgriculture:
States, 1820-1870
1969), 21.
(Cambridge, MA,
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
North
United
198
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
American
nineteenth-century
history that came to be known as the "market
revolution."20 But, the idea of market revolution, while a step forward in
In Christopher
many ways, has serious flaws for purposes of periodization.
Clark's words, it tended to turn the market into a "reified explanatory force"
like the consensus
human agency. Moreover,
thus discounting
who saw capitalism everywhere,
it conflates
to "economic"
capitalism
including class and gender.21
The historians of the American
reducing
at first divided
between market
of market
data
historians
the market with
and
capitalism thus
its social relations,
ignoring
to capitalism on the land were
and social historians,
the former tracing the
transition
and profit-maximization
among
practices
to capitalism fraught
farmers, with the latter tracing a social transformation
and between this
with social and political conflict both within the household
and a capitalist one. But more recendy, a limited con
mode of production
sensus appears to have emerged. Alan Kulikoff
asserts, "It is evident that
growth
in a transitional
survived for several centuries
economy
not feudal and not yet fully capitalist, but located in an
the American
state?clearly
increasingly
transactions
capitalist
participated
moral economy;
kinship relations
decided
market,
He
world."
in commodity
calls
what
crops
patriarchal
to
produce,
to divide
labor tasks among
and
Atack
Fred Bateman,
Jeremy
with their reference to a "national
how
state,
"yeoman
Yeomen
society."
with
they sought private
(including
this
a
regularity, but only to sustain
of land, but only to sustain
ownership
markets
power).
where
These
and
men,
rather than the
to market
how
them,
and
The market
family members.
seem to concur
historians,
in this characterization
among farmers before
split personality"
suc
"While not profit maximizers
perhaps, these people were
as a way of life and as a
straddling the fence between agriculture
the Civil War.
cessfully
business
The
mode
enterprise."22
yeoman society posited
of production
originally
sounds much
by agrarian historians
sketched out by Marx
and Friedrich
like the
Engels.
1815-1846
Revolution: Jacksonian America,
20Charles
Sellers, The Market
1991);
(New York,
in The New American
1815-1848"
and the Market
Sean Wilentz,
Revolution,
"Society, Politics,
Stokes
and Stephen
ed. Eric Foner
eds., The
Conway,
1990); Melvyn
History,
(Philadelphia,
1800-1880
Revolution inAmerica: Social, Political and Religious Expressions,
Market
(Charlottesville,
VA, 1996).
21
Christopher
in Stokes
North"
22The American
for an introduction
The Origin
Capitalism
140; Attack
"The
Clark,
and Conway,
debate
and a
the Market
of
Consequences
Revolution inAmerica,
The Market
takes off
of
critique
of Capitalism: A Eonger View
in Rural America,"
William
from
a debate
about
the commercialization
in the American
29.
the European
origins of capitalism;
thesis see Ellen Meiksins
Wood,
to
"The Transition
(New York,
1999); Allan Kulikoff,
e^ Mary Quarterly
46 (January 1989): 120-44, quote at
at 267 and 273. Naomi
O. Lamoreaux
has
To Their Own Soil, quotes
and Bateman,
used
of the methods
the usefulness
questioned
to
in the Early
the Transition
Capitalism
"Rethinking
American History
2003): 437-61.
(September
recently
Revolution
by moral
American
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
economy
historians;
Northeast,"
Journal
see
of
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodi^ing theGildedAge
In Capital, Marx
The
capitalism.
sanal workshop,
could not make
one
in which
199
and
"simple commodity production"
on
or
in
the
either
the
land
arti
proprietor,
between
distinguished
self-employed
in order to procure via exchange that which he
produced
himself more cheaply. The society of small producers was
value
were
equivalents
exchanged
without
wealth
being
accu
in the means of production
By contrast, capitalists invested money
to gain not an equivalent but a greater return than was originally laid out?
or
(roughly) profit. That return, according to Marx, depended
surplus value
on a social matrix of productive
in wage labor. The for
relations grounded
mulated.
mula
for the circulation
in simple commodity
of money
and commodities
C referring to commodity
and M referring to
itwas M-C-M1, with M1 referring to the return to cap
was C-M-C with
production
money. For capitalism
ital available for reinvestment.
Far from viewing simple commodity
produc
tion as a golden age, Marx stressed its limitations in excluding technical and
in relation to
scientific development;
capitalism was definitely progressive
social theorists of more recent
simple commodity
production.23 Prominent
to
not yet capitalist, socio-eco
have
also
but
vintage
pointed
post-feudal
nomic
forms.24
into a theory in which
simple com
became a distinct and transhistorical mode of produc
modity production
tion present in various periods from ancient times up through the fifteenth
century. At first, primitive communities
exchanged
surplus products with
historicized
Engels
Marx's
scheme
each other; later, the patriarchal heads of families performed
the exchange.
In simple commodity
the primary means
of production was
production
human labor; therefore the heads of families gravitated
toward the ethical
to
that labor created all value. Holding
belief
that belief would keep the
on an
among households
equal basis and avoid the rise of an
class. Only with capitalism did the exploitation
of labor and capi
exchange
exploiter
tal accumulation
on
arrive
the
scene.25
23Karl Marx, Capital: A Critical Analysis
of Capitalist Production, Vol. I, ed. Friedrich Engels
formula
should not be
(New York,
1967), 146-55; Marx, Capital, Vol. Ill, 807. The M-C-M1
as it omits
taken as a sufficient
of capitalism
definition
the question
of the social relations of
production.
24Karl
(Boston,
1947);
York,
Origins
Abolitionism
other
The Great
The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
Transformation:
Studies in theDevelopment
3-10; Maurice
Dobb,
(New York,
of Capitalism
The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes
to Locke
(New
and the
51-70; Wood,
1962),
Origins of Capitalism; Thomas
J. Haskell,
"Capitalism
of the Humanitarian
Parts 1 and 2" in The Antislavery Debate: Capitalism and
Sensibility,
Polanyi,
1957), chaps.
C.B. Macpherson,
things,
as a Problem
inHistorical
all the above
thinkers
Interpretation, ed. Thomas
of
reject the equation
Bender
capitalism
1992). Among
(Berkeley,
commerce
or the
with
market.
25Friedrich Engels,
and Rate of Profit,"
891
Supplement to Capital, Vol. Ill: "Law of Value
see James
in Capital, Vol. Ill; more
"Marxism
and the
910, esp. 896-900
recendy
Livingston,
on the Work
Politics
of History:
of Eugene
Reflections
D. Genovese,"
Radical History Review
88
(Winter
2004):
30-48.
For Marx's
definition
of
capital
accumulation
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
see
Capital, Vol.
I: "A
200
If,
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
as
some
and
Engels
more
modity
mode
recent
historians
out by patriarchal
carried
have
argued,
simple
com
a distinct
was
householders
production
then republicanism,
also dating to ancient
of production,
times,
stands as its logical correlate.26 In a recent, richly documented
book that has
not been
by scholars, James L. Huston
fully appreciated
reinterprets
from
the point of view of its political economy,
American
republicanism
which
he
calls
a "commercial
agrarian
economy."
Huston's
take
on
republi
from the dynamic of virtue versus commerce
(and inevitable
dating from the influential work of J. G. A. Pocock. According
canism departs
corruption)
to Huston
could adapt to the market just fine as long as cheap
republicanism
land in the west existed to enable the sons of yeomen farmers to reproduce
status of their fathers.
the propertied
The
core belief
anced distribution
of republicanism was that a viable republic required a bal
to avoid the rise of a new aristocracy. Huston
of wealth
of wealth that he finds char
of a republican distribution
of America's
elite opinion leaders and set the param
eters for public policy. The most important of these was the labor theory of
the full fruits of its
value and property, which
taught that labor deserved
lists four axioms
acterized
the discourse
the standard of justice for a republican soci
a
the
power- or wealth-seeking
minority
harnessing
ety.27 Only
by
state to their interested
the republic. Harmful
could corrupt
ambitions
to the establishment
of what Huston
actions by government?amounting
production
and which
became
actions
the granting of spe
calls "the political economy of aristocracy"?included
of
of industry and land, manipulation
cial privileges, especially monopolies
the currency to warp the exchange process to the detriment of productive
labor, the fastening of onerous
a parasitic
large national debt or
despotism
to enforce
taxation
on
bureaucracy,
the will of aminority.28
the masses
whether
and the building
to fund a
of amilitary
a discussion
of "petty commodity
of Political Economy,"
production"
chap. 25. For
Critique
that it was a distinct
alternatives
after considering
in American
concludes
agriculture, which
see Charles
to capitalism,
of production,
mode
which
also aided the transition
Post, "The
to
30-51.
New
Review
133
American
Road
(1982):
Left
Capitalism,"
see Ellen Meiksins
as a mode
of production
26On simple commodity
Wood,
production
The
Foundations
Athenian
Slave:
and
1988); Linda
J.
Democracy
(London,
Peasant-citisen
of
Gender and History: The Lmits
Nicholson,
(New York,
of the Family
of Social Theory in theAge
of History,"
34-35. The term "patriar
"Marxism
and the Politics
1986), 114-21; Livingston,
of
mode
rooted in a male-dominated,
formation
chal" refers here to a historical
family-based
male
dom
of
transhistorical
while
"male
denotes
the
phenomenon
supremacy"
production,
ination.
Concept of Wealth Distribution,
of Labor: The American
in the
1. J. G. A. Pocock,
"Virtue
and Commerce
a
for
3
119-34;
survey
1972):
(Summer
Century," Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Eighteenth
on
see Daniel
Career
of a
T. Rodgers,
of the scholarship
"Republicanism:
republicanism
11-38.
79
American
1992):
History
(June
Journal of
Concept,"
28Huston,
Securing the Fruits of Labor, chap. 2.
27James
1765-1900
L. Huston,
(Baton
Securing
Rouge,
the Fruits
1998),
chap.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodisjng theGildedAge
201
that Americans
facilitate
feared might
heel of a society based on
a
republi
production. Virtually every policy inimical to
simple commodity
can distribution of wealth touched on the issue of "capital accumulation"?
Huston's
portrayal of the policies
an aristocratic revival helps pinpoint
the Achilles
by which Imean not simply the gathering of the physical means of produc
tion in the hands of capitalists, but the growth within
society of the social
at the expense of other social relations. Historians
relation of wage-labor
are familiar with the Hamiltonian
attempt during the early national period to
use a tariff to fund the revolutionary war debt and simultaneously
create a
the second third of
class of state-based manufacturing
capitalists. During
to
century the new threat to the equal exchange necessary
a small
It
society came from currency manipulation.
producer
maintaining
was not by accident that the economic
theorists of simple commodity
pro
to
be
the
medium
and
duction defined money's
only legitimate purpose
the nineteenth
measure
more
of
rather
exchange
than
a storehouse
of
value.
As
money
became
then paper and finally negotiable
securities and
that
deviate
the
labor
would
from
possibility
expended in
prices
grew greater and so did the possibility of unequal exchange or
production
"theft." From the point of view of producers,
those bankers and merchants
abstract?metallic,
credit?the
known
as "middlemen"
became potential parasites on productive
labor.29Of
a
was
to
called
parasitic
fully developed
capitalist and
producers
society simply the economy's
surplus, the sine qua non and engine of
in service to private profit.
and development
albeit one produced
course, what
modern
progress
In short, from the vantage point of the dominant economic
thought in this
to
to
the
the
transition
from
pro
key
period,
capitalism
simple commodity
duction
was
a market
not
or
revolution
the rise of big business
or monopoly.
cal
accumulation.
economy
of
capital
nor
commercialization
Rather
itwas
was
the creation
it
simply
of a politi
the hegemony
of a republican
in
economy
political
and political discourse
and public policy as lasting from
1790 through 1880, the latter date coming within a few years to that which
most
scholars view as the start of the Gilded Age. Despite
the growth in
Huston
views
American
social
the opportunity
for social mobility
into propertied
self
dependency
remained
this
entire
ratio
the
strong during
employment
period. Thus,
between
the number of business firms and farms to the total number of
wage
Americans
these firms
1850 and 1880, though many of
employed actually rose between
and farms were short-lived ventures.30 Within American manu
Eabor and other Capital and the Wrongs
29See, notably, Edward
Kellogg,
of Both Eradicated
see
in working
class radicalism
1971); on Kellogg's
(orig. 1849, repr. New York,
importance
Chester McArthur
"The Influence
of Edward Kellogg
American
Destler,
Radicalism,
Upon
1865-96," Journal of Political Economy 40 (June 1932): 338-65.
30Huston,
Securing
the Fruits
of Eabor,
125-28.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
202
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
the
facturing
firm
average
of
liferation
small firms
size
small?under
remained
ten?due
to
the
pro
little to output. The growth of
increase in the share of total out
that contributed
tended to mask a significant
within
each
smaller number of larger,
put
by a much
industry contributed
more efficient factories, which utilized inanimate sources of power to run
before 1880 from the replace
machinery. Even so, the gains in productivity
small business
ment
of
artisan
shops,
and
manufactories,
factories,
by
sweatshops
accord
ing to a recent synthesis, were "much smaller than would have been antici
pated from the narrative literature."31 One major study of the long swings
finds that in the initial phase of development
of capitalist development
in the 1820s and lasting to the end of century, somewhere
beginning
between 60 and 90 percent of all output growth in industry derived from
in the employment
of wage
labor rather than technological
the growth
is consistent
of production.
Such a conclusion
change or reorganization
slow and small rather than large and dramatic
with the studies suggesting
increases in productivity
growth before 1880.32
into
the continued vitality of a small producer economy
Notwithstanding
the Gilded Age, there are good reasons to believe that capitalism had begun
in the
to challenge and at last overtake once-dominant
modes of production
1848 and 1873. In 1850, the number of wage
economy between
the number of slaves; and by 1860 the
laborers for the first time exceeded
the number of self-employed.
number of wage laborers exceeded
Still, for
Northern
most
part
being
of
the
working
class
was
not
a
permanent
condition.
this period of transition, amajority of wage earners still toiled
Throughout
in agriculture (a sector with high social mobility); only during the Gilded Age
did amajority of wage earners toil in industry. In the 1840s, over 40 percent
of
the industrial
children,
labor force
and these
in the Northeast
temporary
employees
was
made
of women
and
composed
an
even
up
higher percent
in
in the Rise of the Factory
Gains
of Scale and Efficiency
"Economies
31Jeremy Atack,
ed. Peter Kilby,
in U.S. Economic History,
inQuantity & Quiddity: Essays
1820-1900,"
America,
327 (quote); defini
and Stanley Lebergott
CT, 1987), 320-22;
(Middletown,
Jeremy Atack,
and
n. 3; Bruce Laurie and Mark
at 287-88
"Manufacture
tions of firm categories
Schmitz,
in Philadelphia:
an Industrial
1850-1880"
of
The
Base,
Philadelphia,
Making
Productivity:
in the 19th Century, ed. Theodore
(New
Hershberg
Space, Family, and Group Experience
increases due to economies
of scale in the 1850
York,
1981), find an absence of productivity
1880 period.
and Michael
Richard
32David M. Gordon,
Reich,
Edwards,
Segmented Work, Divided
Workers: The Historical
UK,
1982), 81
of Labor in the United States (Cambridge,
Transformation
Work,
85;
see
Economy
Transition
1839-1899"
Gallman,
"Commodity
Output,
in the Nineteenth
34; Kenneth
1960),
(New York,
Century
to the Small Factory Associated
from the Artisanal
Shop
also Robert
in Trends
L.
with
in theAmerican
"Was the
Sokoloff,
in Efficiency?
Gains
in Economic
of 1820 and 1850," Explorations
Censuses
the US Manufacturing
of this era based on the persistence
21 (October
1984): 351-84. For an interpretation
History
and Robert D. Johnston,
class see Burton
of the old middle
eds., The Middling
J. Bledstein
in theHistory
Sorts: Explorations
2001).
of theAmerican Middle Class (London,
Evidence
from
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodi^ing theGildedAge
203
in large-scale, mechanized
factories. Among mid-cen
age of those working
a
in
tury male skilled workers
percentage,
large, indeterminate
particularly
sectors of industry, subcontracted
within
and
the advanced
enterprises
pay for their output rather than their labor time. In addition
it is important to remember the continuing mobility
these characteristics,
to
received
wage
earners
into
free
ly, 1850s
the
class
still-swelling
of
small
Not
producers.
of
surprising
status.
labor as a temporary
wage
in the 1870s was "the dominant understand
viewed
labor
ideology
to Eric Foner, only
According
as freedom of contract
ing of free labor [fixed]
than the ownership of productive property."33
in the labor market,
rather
The rise to dominance
of capitalism was also evident in the new impor
tance given to capital accumulation. Karl Marx showed that the mature form
of capital accumulation
of capital)?according
(the expanded reproduction
to him
goods
the defining
sector
of
the
ingredient
economy
of
grow
that the producer
capitalism?required
faster
than
the
consumer
goods
sector.
this vantage point, it can be argued that capitalist enterprise could
exist in pockets during the antebellum period, but that a capitalist economy
and society was not yet pervasive. The watershed
in the shift to an economy
From
sector occurred during and
priority to the producer goods
after
the
Civil
War.
has recently argued
immediately
James Livingston
nineteenth
cogently for the relevance of this fact to interpreting American
that granted
century history. Those who view the Civil War
always had to contend with Robert Gallman's
which
gross
while
setback have
yet-to-be-challenged
figures,
show an unprecedented
in the
leap in the share of capital formation
national product. In the 1849-59 decade that share was 13.4 percent,
in the 1869-78
decade
the share had
to the early twentieth century,
National
Product
(GNP) maintained
that decade
Gross
as an economic
jumped to 21.3 percent. From
the share of capital formation
in
itself or grew.34
33David Montgomery,
in the United States with
Citisen Worker: The Experience
of Workers
theNineteenth
MA,
Democracy and the Free Market During
Century (Cambridge,
1993), 13; Eric
in Nineteenth-Century
in Free Soil, Free Labor, Free
America"
Foner, "The Idea of Free Labor
The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (repr. New York,
1995), xv-xvi and
at xxxvi; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics
the
Colonial Times
US,
chap. 1, quote
of
to 1970 (Washington,
and Kenneth
Sokoloff,
"Women,
1975), vol. 1, 138-39; Claudia Golden
and Industrialization
in the Early Republic:
Evidence
from
the Manufacturing
Children,
Men:
42
Dan
751-56;
747,
Clawson,
Journal
of Economic History
(December
1982):
Bureaucracy and the Labor Process: The Transformation
of U.S. Industry, 1860-1920
(New York,
1980), 73-77.
Census,"
34Karl Marx,
of Circulation
II, "The Process
Capital, Vol.
Livingston,
Pragmatism and the Political Economy
of Cultural Revolution,
and 31-49; Robert
E. Gallman,
"Gross National
1994), xvi, 5-21,
in Output, Employment,
and Productivity in the United
States, 1834-1919"
in Income and Wealth, Volume
Thirty
(New York,
1966), 34, Table A-3;
"Watersheds
Financing,"
on
and Turning
Points:
Conjectures
34 (September
of Economic History
Journal
of
the Long-Term
1974): 638, 654.
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
35 James
Capital";
1850-1940
(Chapel Hill,
in the United
Product
States After
1800: Studies
Jeffrey G. Williamson,
of Civil War
Impact
204
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
The
in the upward shift of the level of capital accumulation
to explain in historical
terms. During
the 1850s, enterprising
on
to
farmers
the Illinois prairie began
go into debt?something
acceleration
is not hard
Yankee
farmers only did under duress?to
mechanize
their farms with
yeomen
reapers and plows. That plus the phenomenal
Cyrus McCormick's
growth
same
cre
the
decade
the
railroads
and
railroad
of
beginning
supply industry
for the vigorous growth of an American producers' goods sec
tor centered around the iron and steel industry, foundries,
and machine
for expanding factories and railroads.35
shops producing
ated demand
to expansion of the
By the end of the decade, a new coalition committed
at
domestic
the expense of Atlantic
economy
trading system?the
linchpin
of the antebellum ruling alliance of Northern merchants
and Southern cot
ton slaveholders?took
power with the victory of the Republican
Party. It
to rapid capital accumulation:
land
into law a program
conducive
passed
a
to
to
nation
federal
aid
and
tariffs,
railroads,
education, protective
grants
as a revolu
al banking system. Just as significantly,
the use of greenbacks
to finance the war inflated the currency, thus largely wiping
tionary measure
to whole
out the prewar debt inworking capital of Northern manufacturers
sale merchants.
That
in turn made
it easier
for
rising
to accu
manufacturers
capital in fixed forms. Indeed, it appears that the income shares of
to the economy,
all economic
functional
labor, were
groups
including
adversely affected by the inflation, with the exception of industrial capital.
tried to retire the green
When
Secretary of Treasury Hugh McCullough
new
in
coalition
backs in 1866, the strength of the
Congress made itself felt
mulate
by halting it. Robert Sharkey has shown that by 1869, New York bankers and
traders had begun the process of adjustment to the new economy when they
of gold pay
the Public Credit Act, which delayed resumption
supported
ments until 1879.36
crucial
Also
debt,
to capital formation
in this period was retirement
to economic
on which,
historian
according
of
the war
Jeffrey G.
in 1865. After
the interest
GNP
had reached 15.5 percent of Northern
Williamson,
the way for
this
retired
1866 the federal government
debt, opening
speedily
a
in effect transferring wealth
rapid expansion of private debt formation,
and
mercantile
debt held by the Northeastern
from the non-productive
Glenn
Porter
Pragmatism and the Political Economy of Cultural Revolution, chap. 2;
35Livingston,
Studies in the Changing Structure of Nineteenth
andManufacturers:
C. Livesay, Merchants
and Harold
to
Road
"The American
131-53;
96-115,
Post,
1971),
(Baltimore,
Century Marketing
46-51.
Capitalism,"
P. Sharkey, Money, Class,
and Manufacturers,
36Porter and Livesay, Merchants
119-30; Robert
and Party: An Economic Study of Civil War and Reconstruction
1959), chap. 3; Irwin
(Baltimore,
1865-1879
Social and Political History
The Greenback Era: A
Finance,
of American
Unger,
Business
and Radical
"Northeastern
1964), chaps. 4 and 5; Stanley Coben,
(Princeton,
NJ,
Reconstruction:
Livingston,
A Re-examination,"
Mississippi
and the Political Economy
Pragmatism
Review 46
Valley Historical
of Cultural Revolution, 26-34.
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
(June
1959):
67-90;
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodisjng theGildedAge
205
was facilitated
banking elite to debt used for industrial expansion. The shift
new
the
the
federal
tariff,
high gold premium,
protective
by
government's
of the currency raised the price of imports, and an
which like a depreciation
durables in
and unique decline in the prices of producers'
unprecedented
to the national
relation
ment
accounted
estimates
that debt retire
price index. Williamson
for about half the increase reported earlier in the share of
in GNP.37
capital formation
gross national
The new commitment
Public
on passage of the
acts also facilitated capital accumula
to the gold
standard
and Specie Resumption
integration of the nation's
Credit
attendant
into global capital markets
economy
era of globalization, which
lasted from approximately
during the first great
both inside and outside
investor confidence
1850 toWorld War I, bolstered
tion. The
it is true that the bulk of capital necessary
States. Though
from domestic
the
Gilded
during
Age was accumulated
development
to the gold standard assured these domestic
investors
ings, adherence
for
the United
sav
that
in the investment process.
Such
interference
be no political
to
intended mainly
interference,
support the claims of small producers,
would became the central issue of the crisis of the 1890s.38
there would
in social terms of the advent of capitalism during this
implications
are the subject of a recent work by Sven Beckert. Beckert portrays a
period
on the one
the New York City elite between manufacturers
conflict within
The
and bankers
hand and merchants
1870s. Though
chants
on the other and its resolution
a class-analytical distinction
in the transadantic
trade and a diversified
he does not make
engaged
by the early
between mer
capitalist class
economy undergoing
rapid capital accumula
"the bourgeoisie"?his
work is helpful in defining
in a domestic
rooted
broadly
tion?Beckert
calls both
the class shifts that occurred
at the birth of the Gilded
the Civil
Age. During
a
War, the dominant group of New York merchants
negotiated
supported
fearful
of
their
economic
interests.
with
the
South,
peace
During
upsetting
Reconstruction,
they backed Andrew Johnson's policy of rapid restoration
into the Union
early
toward
of
the Southern
merchants
1870s, however,
railroads
and
manufacturing.
into investment
states and feted him
had
reoriented
Some
of
in August
1866. By the
their economic
activities
the wealthier
to market
bankers, helping
on
the
newly formed New York Stock Exchange.
corporations
sified their trading networks. At the same time, Peter Cooper
phosed
ones
the securities
metamor
of railroad
Others
diver
and other
rad
and Turning
Points."
"Watersheds
37Williamson,
The Political Economy
87-91; Barry Eichengreen,
38Bensel,
Industrialisation,
of American
Globalising
System (Princeton,
1996), 38-42;
of the International Monetary
Capital: A History
NJ,
a
H. O'Rourke
and Jeffrey G. Williamson,
Kevin
and History:
The Evolution
Globalisation
of
Nineteenth
Century Atlantic Economy
1999), 220-23; Livingston,
(Cambridge, MA,
Origins of the
Federal Reserve System, 71 -102.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
206
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
ical manufacturers
to
commitments
began to leave behind their antebellum
"the universalist
antebellum
tradition of stewardship
and free labor" and
a view of the
as
class
and
class
adopted
working
unemployed
"dangerous
es." By the early 1870s a relatively cohesive
capitalist class had taken shape,
fused together in cultural institutions
such as museums,
the social register,
elite clubs, and marriage networks and united in fear of the
class
working
an
and
out-of-control
urban
system.39
political
similar was going on in theWestern metropolis
of Chicago. In
Something
the 1850s and 60s the city's politics were dominated by a class of "boosters"
and free labor Republicans
who
and would-be
spoke for small producers
small producers. Their politics were a blend of issues
appealing to this broad
stratum: nationally, an
to slave expansionism
and support for
opposition
free land in the West,
free banking, and federally funded capital improve
ments. Locally, the boosters
and Republicans
the broad acquisi
supported
tion
and a
through rapid growth and real estate speculation
was
that
from
redistribution
of
government
prevented
upward
initiated by prop
by having taxation limited to special assessments
of property
municipal
property
owners
erty
themselves.40
inf i
By the 1870s this coalition was in shambles. The making of Chicago
the nation's railroad hub, the explosive population growth of the city and its
Midwest
occasioned
hinterland, and the trade disruptions
by the war, which
led many
ist
class,
Eastern
tile activities,
Chicago's
to
manufacturers
which
invested
its
assets
relocate
to
Chicago,
spawned
rather
productively,
than
only
a
capital
in mercan
and which
directly employed
large numbers of workers.
to a capitalist politics
centered around two major
that occurred during the 1870s depression.41 The first was a
transition
developments
capital accumulation
crisis occasioned
by rebuilding of
insurance companies
great fires of 1871 and 1874. Eastern
Chicago investments unless strict building
codes were
the city after the
refused to insure
enacted
and enforced,
The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation
39Sven Beckert,
of theAmerican
of an upper class
Bourgeoisie (Cambridge, MA, 2001), chaps. 5 and 8, quote at 211; the making
on the urban
level in this period
is also explored
in E. Digby
Baltzell,
Philadelphia Gentlemen:
a
The Making
IL, 1958), and Frederick
(Glencoe,
of National
Upper Class
Copie
Jaher, The
Urban
in Boston, New
York, Charleston, Chicago, and Los Angeles
Upper Strata
of the urban scene in this period
1981). For a non-class,
pluralistic
interpretation
C. Hammack,
Power and Society, Greater New York at the Turn of the Century
(New
Establishment:
(Urbana,
see David
York,
1982).
40On Chicago
see Richard
in this and the following
Schneirov,
developments
paragraphs
and Governmental
in Gilded Age Chicago,
Reform
1871
Conflict, Municipal
Politics,
in Industrial Chicago,
1850-1910: A Comparative Perspective, ed. Helmut
75," in German Workers
Keil and John B. Jentz (De Kalb,
and Labor and Urban Politics: Class Conflict
IL, 1983), 183-205,
"Class
David
in Chicago, 1863-97
1998), chaps. 2-3.
ofModern Lberalism
(Urbana,
of the political
of class divisions
differs
from that of
recognition
to the Reconstruction
Era in Beyond Equality:
Montgomery's
dating of that recognition
Labor
and the Radical
and the Origins
41This
periodization
Republicans,
1862-72
(New York,
1967).
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodi^ing theGildedAge
207
and that, in turn, required that the local party-state be supplemented
by an
state responsive
to the needs of industry. When
administrative
that proved
too difficult to attain, leading capitalists, merchants,
and bankers formed a
in 1874 to act as a permanent
for
Citizens Association
lobby and watchdog
local
government.
the workers employed
in the
second set of episodes occurred when
new
to
assert
factories
and
facilities
their
inter
city's
transportation
began
ests and power, first in the form of riots and then in demonstrations
and
The
politics under the leadership of socialists. In 1873-74 immigrant workers
on the Relief and Aid Society, an institution
marched
reorganized by lead
a
to
in
in
1867
disburse
relief
aid
such
way as not to disturb
ing capitalists
a
incentives in the labor market. Another
pecuniary
episode on
larger scale
occurred during and following
the great railroad strikes of 1877. For the
first time, free labor advocates did not join workers,
leaving the field open
to a naked
in the city's streets and compelling
the city's politi
to
new
cal system
the
class presence. By the early
working
adapt itself
Democratic
Carter
restive
1880s,
Harrison,
Sr., had incorporated
Mayor
class conflict
to
immigrant workers,
ical
in New
in
Later
coalition.
socialists,
political
the
same
York City between
road
and
strike
the machine
However,
slave-labor
above,
suggested
there
Age
for the start of
the
with
are
into his ruling polit
accommodation
occurred
and the unions.42
the
coincidentally
the
replaced
as
not
a similar
decade,
and Labor
in the Gilded
Society
Historians
have given various dates
common
one
most
1877,
being
Reconstruction
and trade unions
the Gilded
generally
same
the
year
accepted
as
the
or
wage-labor
reasons
strong
Age,
end
for
of
rail
nationwide
social
the
question.43
1873
taking
as
the
critical year. That year marked the start of a five-year depression,
the first of
a series of periodic contractions
in the 1893-97 business
that culminated
downturn.
Some
sis phase of
economic
the "long
historians
view
it as
swing" that characterized
the
start
of
the nineteenth
the
last
and
cri
century. The
see Martin
"Trade
Politics, chap. 6; on New York
Shefter,
The Organization
and Disorganization
of the American
in the Late Nineteenth
Class
inWorking-Class
Formation: Nineteenth-Century
Century"
on Western
and Aristide
R. Zolberg
Europe and the United States, ed. Ira Katznelson
Labor and Urban
42Schneirov,
Unions
and Political Machines:
Working
Patterns
see
154-56; on the west
1986), 270-71; Montgomery,
(Princeton,
NJ,
Citisen Worker,
John P.
"The Exercise
of the Intelligent
Ballot: Rocky Mountain
Urban
Politics
Workers,
Enyeart,
and Shorter Hours,
1886-1911"
Labor 1 (Fall 2004): 45-69.
43C. Vann Woodward,
Reunion
and Reaction: The Compromise
of 1877 and the End
of
Reconstruction
Ginger,
The New
Commonwealth,
1877-1890;
(1951; repr. Boston,
1966); Garraty,
Ray
1877 to 1914 (New York,
Age
of Excess: The United States from
1965); H. Wayne
to McKinley: National
From Hayes
1877-1896
Party Politics,
(Syracuse, NY,
1969);
On
see Sean Cashman, America
the other hand,
in the Gilded
Standing atArmageddon.
Morgan,
Painter,
Age: From
see De
to the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
of Lncoln
in American
"The Gilded Age
History."
the Death
Santis,
(New York,
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
1984);
for a survey
208
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
in capital accumulation
after the Civil War with its priority on
had the effect of shifting the
capital goods over consumer goods production
ratio of fixed to variable capital so that a higher proportion went into fixed
forms. In different words, a higher percentage of capital went into plant and
acceleration
to Williamson's
and raw materials. According
than into wages
the capital-labor
ratio rose continuously
history of the period,
until the 1890s depression.44
equipment
economic
to recognize
the first contemporaries
this was Chicago
banker
to
the
later
become
William
of
Lyman Gage,
Treasury.
McKinley's
Secretary
a House
to Gage,
in 1879 as to the
committee
According
testifying before
One
of
cause of
it had been due to, "the immense transfer of capi
the depression,
tal into fixed forms, such as ships, railroads, mines, manufactories,
&c" and
was manifested
in "a large surplus of loanable funds in the banks." In 1884,
classical political econo
the economist Arthur Hadley directly challenged
was impossible. He traced the 1873
my's dictum that general overproduction
to
the much greater investment of capital
panic and subsequent depression
in fixed forms, mainly
existence of
in railroad building. "[T]he continued
such masses
difference
of undisposable
[sic] surplus may be regarded as the leading
the long crisis of 1873 and the shorter one of 1857." In
between
and the bulk of his popular sur
he
which
vey, Recent Economic Changes, to the topic of overproduction,
in excess of demand
of commodities
defined as "an amount of production
at remunerative prices." Wells attributed the chief cause of overproduction
1889 David Wells
to
excess
As
capital
economic
the introduction
devoted
and
the
observers
use
of
noted,
labor-saving
the
new
machinery
circumstances
in
of
production.45
production
cre
ated high fixed costs for many capitalist firms and led them to resort to cut
to cover those costs. The result was a series of periodic
throat competition
that classical political
crises of generalized
something
"overproduction,"
of 1873-98 are added
If the downturns
impossible.
were more months
than of expansion,
of contraction
leading
together there
some to portray the 1873-97 period as a "great depression."
Still, it would
economy
said was
to accept this characterization
of the Gilded Age if only because
to grow at only a slightly diminished
annual average rate
continued
this era, while real wages actually rose. Nonetheless,
falling prof
throughout
and economic
it rates and falling prices, together with rising bankruptcies,
be difficult
GNP
in
and Labor
Class
44Michael
Relations,
Reich,
History"
Development,
"Capitalist
Late Nineteenth
on American
Labor History,
49-51;
43-45,
Jeffrey G. Williamson,
Perspectives
Century American Development, A General Equilibrium History
1974), 73.
(Cambridge,
a Select Committee
of Representatives,
45U. S. House
by
of
Investigation
of the House
as to Chinese
Labor
and
Business:
And
to
in
the
General
the
Causes
Relative
Depression
of
Representatives
sess.
"Over
T. Hadley,
2d
46th
5-6; Arthur
1879),
(Washington,
Cong.,
Immigration,
A.
3
Science
and
Political
David
Political
40-43;
Wells,
Production,"
(1884):
Economy
Cyclopaedia of
Recent Economic Changes (New York,
1889), quote at 25-26; 27-28, 67-69.
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Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodisjng theGildedAge
209
the Gilded Age; and these trends and their social
instability characterized
and political consequences
go a long way to defining it.46
The impact of the 1870s depression was immediately felt in voting behav
ior. As a result of the electoral realignment of the 1850s and the departure
of
the Southern
inant nationally.
crisis
states in the 1860s, the Republican Party had become dom
and others have shown, the 1873-74
But, as Paul Kleppner
"reinstated"
Democratic
strength,
the national level. In part, the Democratic
the exception
the Southern
states?with
Carolina?into
of
the
on
Congress
a white
creating
an
electoral
on
stalemate
from the return of
surge resulted
of Louisiana, Florida,
supremacy
and South
a better
basis,
measure
than the final withdrawal
of troops in 1877.
from
the
in industrial areas
which
But,
depression,
led immigrant unskilled laborers to defect from the Republican Party or sim
in higher numbers by the Democratic
Party. In some situ
ply be mobilized
the end of Reconstruction
in the North
it stemmed
a temperance movement
as
the depression
ations, as in Chicago,
preceded
another reason for the defection of immigrant voters. But even in that case,
the class issue was prominent,
for temperance developed out of the attempt
to
the
elements
by
Evangelical
bring public law and order to a city filled with
transient
workers.
created a party equilibrium or balance
resurgence of the Democrats
within the nation. The average margin of differential between
the two par
contests between
ties in presidential
1876 and 1892 (when another realign
ment began) was just 1.4 percent. Meanwhile,
the Congress
remained inter
The
controlled
the Senate for
nally divided between the two parties. Republicans
all but four years between
1874 and 1894, while the Democrats
did the same
with
the House.
Neither
of
party could boast control of both houses
and the Presidency more
than once. The closely matched
Congress
party
balance opened
the way for another defining characteristic
of the Gilded
to
labor, greenback, or prohibition,
Age: the ability of third parties, whether
exercise disproportionate
influence in Northern
elections and public poli
cy.47
and Reich, Segmented Work,
Edwards,
46Sklar, Corporate Reconstruction, 20-33, 43-47; Gordon,
Divided Workers, 94-99,
"The Social Analysis
of Economic
101-03; James Livingston,
History
on Late-Nineteenth
and Theory:
American
American
Conjectures
Century
Development,"
Review 92 (February
Historical
Business Cycles, 1865-1897
Fels, American
1987): 69-95; Rendig
David
The
the
House
Fall
The Workplace,
Eabor:
the State,
Hill,
1959);
of
(Chapel
Montgomery,
of
and American
1865-1925
Eabor Activism,
The Third Electoral
47Paul Kleppner,
1979),
(Chapel Hill,
Silbey, The American
see Charles W.
chap. 4; Schneirov,
1838-1893
Political Nation,
Calhoun,
The Gilded Age: Essays
1996), 185-213.
UK,
1987), 214-56.
(Cambridge,
Parties, Voters,
System, 1853-1892:
"Class Conflict
and Governmental
"The
Political
on the Origins
and Political
Cultures
Reform";
for an excellent
Joel H.
(Stanford,
1991), 219;
Culture: Public Life and the Conduct
of Modern America,
ed. Charles W
DE,
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Calhoun
survey
of Politics"
in
(Wilmington,
210
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
over which
the two major parties divided during the post
Reconstruction
setdement reflected the emergence of a new mix with cap
italism as the dominant
element. The issues of sectionalism
and the status
The
issues
of
the freedman, which had divided Southern planters from Northern
cap
italists, faded from saliency. Instead, as Richard Bensel has argued, the major
issues of contention were regional and intersectoral and centered on feder
al policies
Of
the two major parties, the
promoting
capital accumulation.
Party, still dominant at the federal executive level, was the quin
Republican
tessential party of national development,
while the Democrats
served as a
haven for those regional and class groups disadvantaged
by capital accumu
lation. Three major Republican
tariff, adher
Party policies?the
protective
ence
to the international
of a
gold standard, and creation and maintenance
as the
national market untrammeled
by stringent state regulations?served
fulcrum for private accumulation
and major party competition.
Though
and banking policy and judicial review (which limited the degree
monetary
state
of
regulation of emerging national corporations) were less than popu
the political capital accruing to the
lar under the best of circumstances,
from
of
their
the tariff and the military pensions
sponsorship
Republicans
it funded
the party to hold together its diverse coalition and main
at the federal level. Even the
of key policymaking
positions
to the presidency did not break
of Democrat
Grover Cleveland
allowed
tain its control
ascendancy
the hegemony
of pro-development
policy, for he parted from his party base
in taking the necessary
steps to support the gold standard at the start of the
1893-97 depression.48
segments of the
parties used these issues to appeal to different
as
tariff
the foundation
the
class.
defended
protective
Republicans
working
contended
that the tariff and,
of a high standard of living. The Democrats
Both
of silver and the lack of state regula
the demonetization
as
as
from the
well
created
tion,
abetting the shift of wealth
monopolies
agricultural South to the industrial East. On the urban and state levels, espe
more centralized and possessed
and
patronage
cially where machines were
to a lesser extent,
to distribute, both parties were adept at incorporating work
labor reform, such as immigration restriction
supported moderate
nationally and bureaus of labor statistics on the state level, and carefully cal
of the police during strikes to the existing balance
ibrated the performance
other resources
ers. They
as did Chicago's Carter
level. By responding
to the more
classes they helped
Harrison
salient needs of the working
third
"immunize"
them from socialist and radical
party forays following
of
class forces
labor upheavals.
on
On
the urban
the other
hand,
to keep
the capitalist
classes
from
xix, xxi, chaps. 5-7; Woodward,
48Bensel, The Political Economy of American
Industrialisation,
Illinois: A Bicentennial History
Reunion and Reaction; Richard
1978).
(Urbana,
Jensen,
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Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodisjng theGildedAge
engaging
in citizens
reform
party politicians
campaigns,
to create public agencies
reformers
relatively insulated from the consequences
and allowed
spending
ment
that were
the West,
where
however,
er, large movements
party
and
patronage
organization
on
retrenched
within
of
govern
elections. In
were
far weak
of agrarian and labor reform grew up in this period
to party cooptation.49
proved immune
If we begin the Gilded Age with the panic and depression
of
of the labor movement
also come
of the central characteristics
and
1873, some
into clearer
the rising rate of capital
and Reconstruction,
and steeply falling income share accruing to labor, contrasting
of production
small producer mode
the still-vibrant
impelled labor
the Civil War
focus. During
accumulation
with
211
leaders toward the theories of Edward Kellogg. By 1866, the National Labor
under the leadership of iron molder union chief William
Sylvis and
Union
Chicago Workingmans Advocate
convertible bond arrangement
The
Campbell.
replace money
editor Andrew
advocated
proposal would
replace
issued by the banks with
Cameron
the inter
endorsed
protege, Alexander
by a Kellogg
the national banking
system and
government-issued
greenbacks,
and
credit
wealth
from
redistributed
away
thereby cheapening
keeping
being
from the holders of labor-based property into the hands of the unproduc
tive banking
and mercantile
had been
interests. But, by the end of the decade,
and the NLU was moribund.50
labor's
restored
wage position
The post-Greenback
with
its powerful
phase of the labor movement,
socialist component
and its repeated attempts at class-wide mobilization
and
can
to
be dated
the period after 1873. The depression
organization
again
the wages
devastated
and income of unskilled workers.
It also destroyed
most
of
movement
the English-speaking
in many
cities
national
in German,
and local unions,
pro-socialist
hands.
the labor
leaving
Even
more
cru
and producing
cially, the intense pressures created by cutthroat competition
a
new
to use
below cost inaugurated
period in which employers attempted
to replace or dilute the skill of craftsmen, who still were the
mechanization
the attempt to displace skilled
process. Though
linchpins of the production
labor had only fitful success until the twentieth century, it led many elements
to ally with newly mobilized
the fledgling
labor movement
unskilled
workers evident in the unemployed
of
which
1873-74,
uprisings
prefigured
of
the great railroad strike of
1877. It also predisposed
skilled workers
to con
L. Huston,
"A Political
to Industrialism:
The Republican
of
Embrace
Response
Labor Doctrines,"
70 (June 1983): 35-57; Martin
Journal of American History
to Reform:
The Legacy of the Progressive
Shefter, "Regional Receptivity
Era," Political Science
98 (Autumn
Dean
"Political
Immunization
and
Burnham,
Quarterly,
1983): 459-83; Walter
Political Confessionalism:
The United
States and Weimar
Germany,"
Journal of Interdisciplinary
49James
Protectionist
3 (Summer
1972):
History
Withered
and Other
Away
50Sharkey, Money, Class,
E. Wolfinger,
Have Not
1-30; Raymond
"Why Political Machines
Revisionist
Journal of Politics 34 (May 1972): 365-98.
Thoughts"
and Party, chap. 5; Montgomery,
340-56.
Beyond Equality,
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212
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
sider more
or
inclusive
class-aware
mobilizing
strategies,
forms
of
organiza
the 1877 strikes, the Socialist Labor
tion, and programs. Thus, following
the International Labor Union
and local German
Party, which
sponsored
and
the
of
both gained
Labor
speaking unions,
English-speaking
Knights
in urban-industrial
centers.51
footholds
and trade union activ
By the early 1880s, with the revival of employment
solutions and adopt
ity, top labor leaders began to jettison older producerist
a much
more
modern
outlook.
To
trade
labor
unionists,
reformers,
indeed
most working
people,
not rise in proportion
the question of the day was poverty or why wages did
to the new productive power of the economy and the
to late
of new wealth. The three doctrines popular among mid-
creation
nineteenth
or
unionists?Greenbackism
interconvert
Campbell's
system, Henry George's
Single Tax, and the Republican
Party's
tariff?each
looked to factors outside the wage-labor
relation for
century
ible bond
protective
an answer
on an iden
to the poverty question. Each solution was
premised
a very real
to
of
interests
and
between
labor
sublimate
and
tity
capital
sought
class conflict within the producer stratum into a conflict between producers
or
and non-producers,
identified as either middlemen,
land monopolists,
transatlantic
traders. Each
solution
also assumed
to which
classical
political economy
according
limited by a fixed fund provided
that trade unions could not raise the wages of all workers but
selected groups of skilled workers
capable of excluding others from
were
strictly
spread belief
only
their craft labor markets.
side
the wages-fund
theory of
the wages paid to workers
by capital, hence the wide
the market,
that
Finally,
is, from
each looked
government,
to
to an intervention
ameliorate
from out
poverty.52
at the second convention
In 1883, labor leaders meeting
of the Federation
to the
and Labor Organizations
of Trades
immediate
forerunner
(the
of Labor) rejected each of these solutions and their
American
Federation
and settled on a doctrine
premises
51On
of
1979); Gordon,
"Social Analysis
"The Failure of
Jentz,
labor movement.
to the modern
in labor-saving machinery
and later scientific management
colliding with
see David
Workers Control inAmerica
skilled workers
(New York,
Montgomery,
113-26 and Livingston,
and Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers,
Edwards,
on the events of the 1870s see Herbert
G. Gutman,
of Economic
History";
investment
the interests
Quarterly
suited
in 1873," Political Science
for Public Works
by the Unemployed
Labor and Urban Politics, 53-56,
254-76;
Schneirov,
chap. 3; John B.
in the 1860s and 1870s,"
in an Emerging
Industrial
City: Chicago
In his survey of labor history
Sean
17 (May 1991): 227-63.
scholarship
the Movement
80
(June 1965):
"Class and Politics
of Urban History
concludes
that only during the 1870s depression
see "The Rise of
al working
class presence"
evident,
128-34.
1877," 84-85,
Journal
Wilentz
were
"the first
the American
clear
Working
signs of nation
1776
Class,
in A Documentary History
and John B. Andrews,
"Introduction"
of
52John R. Commons
et al. (New York,
American
Industrial Society, Vols.
9-10, ed. John R. Commons,
1958); on the
inAmerica:
Industrial Democracy
Dickman,
theory see Howard
Ideological Origins of
wages-fund
National
Labor Relations Policy (La Salle, IL, 1987), chap. 5; Herbert
and
Enterprise
Hovenkamp,
American
Law,
1836-1937
(Cambridge,
MA,
1991),
chap.
16.
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Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodisjng theGildedAge
213
on the theory propounded
Ira Steward,
by the Boston machinist,
Drawing
was
to
that
it
the theorist of the eight-hour day, unionists
argued
possible
increase wages for all by increasing the standard of living. The quickest way
to promote higher living standards was by shortening
through trade union action (in this respect they differed
wanted to win eight hours through legislative enactment),
ulate new wants
of
labor
from Steward who
which would
stim
and desires
lead workers
would
the hours
among workers. Over time, increased ambitions
to demand and win higher wages. Rather than increas
or
other workers, as
stopping capital accumulation,
impoverishing
in Steward's view,
theory, higher wages would,
predicted by the wages-fund
to take advan
boost purchasing power, which would allow manufacturers
ing prices,
tage of
of
economies
scale by investing
in the latest labor-saving
machin
ery.53
as
Not only did the new theory accept capital accumulation
potentially
to workers,
beneficial
but it explicitly recognized
the function of rising
in ameliorating
workers' consumption
the Gilded Age problem of overpro
duction.
was
Samuel Gompers' mentor, Cigarmaker's
Strasser,
secretary Adolph
a student of world-wide
business cycles caused by overproduction.
He
labor history into four stages, each one punctuated by a financial
panic. Indeed, in 1883 he accurately predicted that the next downturn would
occur in the mid-1880s.
heavily on Steward, Strasser testified
Drawing
before the 1883 Senate Committee
that "the trade unions try to make their
periodized
members
better
thereby enlarging the home market. If we can
better consumers, we shall have no panics."54 The
consumers,
make
the working people
concern with depression
and overshadowed
supplemented
producer repub
licanism's concern with the balanced distribution
of wealth. For Steward,
and
Gompers,
other
labor
thinkers
capital
accumulation,
rather
than
some
to be feared, was
a necessary
in
thing
(though not sufficient)
ingredient
labor's emancipation,
for it promoted
the introduction
of labor-saving
an
created
the
foundation
for
machinery,
cheapened production,
ever-rising
standard of living, and in the long run served as the foundation
for the
the triumph of the new outlook
socialist project.55 Nonetheless,
did not dis
"A Reduction
53Ira Steward,
of Hours An Increase of Wages,"
Pinchers Trade Review, Oct.
14, 1865; U.S. Senate, Testimony Taken by the Committee of the Senate upon the Relations Between
Eabor and Capital, 4 vols. (Washington,
1885).
54US. Senate, Committee upon the Relations Between Eabor and Capital, Vol.
see also
I, 459-60;
in Cigarmakers' OfficialJournal,
Strasser editorial
July 1885.
to "the accumulation
wrote:
of wealth"
Samuel Gompers
"Do what you will,
55Referring
as you may,
cannot be confined
declaim
industrial
and commercial
within
the
development
to fit past decades
are
limits of laws enacted
to be
to
the theories of which
sought
applied
modern
(August
(December
(Chicago,
conditions."
See "The Lesson
205; also see Samuel
1896) and Henry White's
1894):
1900),
324-30;
Gompers'
of the Recent
Review 159
Strikes," The North American
the Trusts," American Federationist,
Gompers,
"Attacking
and Gompers's
in Chicago Conference on Trusts,
testimony
socialist orientation
is demonstrat
during the Gilded Age
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214
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
place labor republicanism.
tension with one another
new
Labor's
two outlooks
continued
the Gilded
throughout
was
union-based
philosophy
"the first class conscious"
theory of
Commons,
ment.
The
It was
class
selfhood;56
in
conscious
in which
wage workers
that
it
accepted
in parallel
Age.
in the words
of
John R.
labor move
the American
as normal
and in
a new
status
for
they could alienate their labor time without violating
rather than reliance on politicians or
self-organization
it stressed
action that might reflect the social outlook of the non-working
government
class American majority; and it envisioned
the reduction of hours and union
as
organization
serving the needs of all workers not just skilled workers.57
Some labor historians have emphasized
the exclusionary
aspects of the
unions of skilled workers.58 That judgment relies heavily on an overvalua
its short heyday as a more
inclusive
in the perspective
of the longer sweep of the Gilded
toward labor organizations
of all types incorporating
tion of
the Knights
alternative. However,
of Labor
the trend was
Age
during
in their ranks. Almost
all unions
ever-larger numbers and types of workers
a
were
before the Civil War
of
small craft elite seeking to protect
composed
their trade standards against threats from the less skilled, and this remained
the dominant
in some organizations
tendency
hoods
was
and the bricklayers. However,
counteracted
and greatly modified
such as the railroad brother
during the Gilded Age this tendency
as skilled workers'
resorted to inclu
to the increased hiring of specialists and piece
sive strategies in response
evident in unskilled workers' new assertiveness
workers and the possibilities
in riots and strikes. The Knights
of Labor and, after their decline, skilled
Iron and Steel Workers,
such as the Carpenters,
and Wood Workers, Mine Workers, Garment Workers, Butchers,
workers'
unions
Furniture
and others
to organize laborers, helpers, and other unskilled work
in factories and other work
where
ers, particularly
they worked
side-by-side
in craft councils. The 1880s
places, and to unite with other skilled workers
recognized
the need
popularity of the demand for the eight-hour day and the standard minimum
wage and the new tactics of the consumer boycott and sympathy strike inau
gurated
during
ed in Stuart Kaufman,
1896 (Westport, CT,
56The
movement
association
that decade
reflected
Samuel Gompers
1973).
of this
shift
and the Origins
in workers'
shift
to
of theAmerican
a more
Federation
in the
consciousness?evident
more
the advent
is made
of
"American Workers
recently, Eric Arnesen,
in The Gilded Age,
39-61.
Nineteenth
Century,"
and
the Labor
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
in Amy
Dru
class-wide
of Labor:
1848
shorter
hours
From
capitalism
and the Market
in the Age
Marriage,
of Slave Emancipation
see David
in an earlier period
for the same point
MA,
1998), 89-90;
Brody,
(Cambridge,
in In Labors Cause: Main
"Time and Work During
Themes on
Industrialism,"
Early American
theHistory
(New York,
1993), 3-42.
of theAmerican Worker
to Volumes
IX and X," 26.
"Introduction
57John R. Commons,
see
58For example,
(New York,
1929) and
Selig Perlman, A Theory of the Labor Movement
Bondage
in this period?with
to Contract: Wage Labor,
this
Movement
Stanley,
in the Late
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodisjng theGildedAge
215
outlook.59
Labor's
1880s. Of
occurred
statistics
new oudook
in the mid
took hold during the "Great Upheaval"
waves
seven
in
of
strike
American
the
greatest years
history, two
in 1886 and 1887 during the height of the Great Upheaval. Other
suggest that the Great Upheaval was a turning point in workers
union recognition. Between
1881-85 and 1886-89 the percentage
to
and security almost doubled
that involved union recognition
that level through the end of the decade.60
14.3 percent and maintained
demanding
of strikes
centered in the Midwest.
levels of capital
High
Upheaval
labor shortages, and strong unions had kept laborer's real wages
investment,
to those of the Northeast
until around 1880, when falling
in
relation
high
Labor's Great
that point,
the labor market. After
transport costs deflated
interregional
on the railroads, faced great
those
Midwest
including especially
employers,
cost pressures and responded with attempts to replace highly paid skilled
workers who also exercised control over the process of production. Where
this was not immediately feasible, they turned to wage cuts. Both attempts?
exacerbated by a rise in the cost of living due to rising Midwest
foodstuff
that region a center of the nation's class conflict in
1880s. Shelton Stromquist
shows that the railroad strikes of
to make
prices?helped
the mid-to-late
on the railroads
the late 1880s and early 1890s stemmed from overcapacity
and were centered in the Midwest
and West. My own study shows that the
key groups of strikers in the Great Upheaval, with the possible exception of
those in the building trades, worked in industries facing cost pressures relat
ed to overproduction.
Thus, Chicago became the center of the nation's great
in 1885-87.
30-40 percent of the nation's
Approximately
were
in
strikers
200,000 eight-hour-day
Chicago.61
The labor upheaval of 1885-87 and another one during the 1894 Pullman
Strike were indications
that the political accommodation
between workers
labor upheaval
"Rise of the American
139-51; Wilentz,
Class,
Beyond Equality,
59Montgomery,
Working
The Practical Utopians: American
Steve Leikin,
Workers
and the
127-29;
1776-1877,
124-25,
in the Gilded Age
(Detroit, 2005), 25-46; Schneirov, Eabor and Urban Politics,
Cooperative Movement
Schneirov
and Thomas
39-40, 307-16; Richard
J. Suhrbur, Union Brotherhood, Union Town: The
1863-1987
IL, 1988),
(Carbondale,
History
of the Carpenters' Union of Chicago,
to a
estimated
that only
1915, Theodore
Glocker,
pointing
"gradual evolution,"
as craft unions;
unions
active in the labor movement
could still be classified
16, 21-43. By
28 of the 133
the rest were
see
in American
of Related
Trades
Unions"
American
"craft-industrial";
"Amalgamation
Economic Review 5 (September
1915): 554.
60P K. Edwards,
Strikes in the United States, 1881-1974
(New York,
1981), 28, Table 2.5, p.
Eabor and Urban Politics, 203-04,
"Strikes
37; Schneirov,
252-55;
chap. 5; David Montgomery,
in Nineteenth
Social Science History
4 (February
Century America,"
1980): 81-104.
61
and Reich,
Eate
Gordon,
113-27; Williamson,
Edwards,
Segmented Work, Divided Workers,
American Development,
Eabor and Urban Politics, chap. 8;
198-200;
Schneirov,
Nineteenth-Century
Shelton
Stromquist,
Century America
the United States
Management
A
Generation
(Urbana,
1987),
OH,
(Columbus,
Relations atMcCormick
of Boomers: The Pattern of Railroad Eabor Conflict inNineteenth
3 and 5; Andrew
Roy, A History
of the Coal Miners
of
A
Robert
241;
233-37,
Ozanne,
1907),
Century of Eabor
chaps.
and International Harvester
(Madison,
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
WI,
1967),
9-22.
216
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
and capital did not
from
include
business
aroused
permanent;
of workers.
large groups
interests
could
it was
Moreover,
reverse
easily
far
pro-labor
policies by party machines. Collective bargaining was also in its infancy. Only
scarce or where workers
where
skill was exceedingly
could help employers
new
stabilize the product market
the
union
label boycott were
through
unions
As
in the Gilded Age.
able to gain a foothold
is well known
the social crisis on the land, which
the
produced
Farmers' Alliances
and the Populist Party of the 1890s, also had its roots in
a vast new landed
The
overproduction.
bringing into cultivation of
empire
to all the acres under cultivation
the century?equal
the Civil War?together
with the advent of production
for interna
tional markets, which forced American
farmers to compete with farmers in
in the last third of
before
other
regions of the world, simultaneously
enlarged the class of small pro
a
to produce,
ducers and created
the analog
problem of global overcapacity
sector. Whatever
of surplus capacity in the urban-industrial
the differences
in the South
farmers
between
and Great
Plains
regions, the results of over
all farmers producing
for
a credit
squeeze?hit
capacity?falling
prices and
the market. Those Midwestern
and other farmers who
of
talist methods
credit were
immune
Populism
to the discontent
costs
and had
that roiled
easier
to capi
access to
of
large segments
the
in the late 1880s and 1890s.62
agrarian economy
was
its defeat
and
to reduce
accumulation
had shifted
the
farmer's
yeoman
"last
stand"
not
socially
or economically,
that
but politically. Recent
scholarship has demonstrated
as well as rural and that it had a broad and diverse
could
be
urban
Populism
small farmers. In fact, what
social basis, extending well beyond declining
in all its political varieties was its classic anti-monopolist
united Populism
that
its sustenance from a republican political economy and the
drew
politics
stemmed not from
dictum that social imbalances
hoary American
or
but
from
the abuse of
lution of the market
"capitalism,"
power?often
minorities. While
termed
Populist
a federal
demanding
class
or
legislation
political
interested
special privilege?by
broke from an older laissez-faire
prescriptions
sub-treasury
the evo
system,
state
ownership
of
the
in
railroads,
an older
they were aimed at restoring
its epochal elec
"natural." Following
deemed
economy
proprietary-based
toral defeat in the 1896 election, and with agricultural prices rising again, the
and other
activist
large majority
of
federal measures,
farmers
abandoned
the attempt
to replace
the gold
stan
1860-1897
The Farmer's East Frontier, Agriculture,
Shannon,
1945);
(New York,
Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeomen Farmers and the Transformation
of the Georgia
see
C.
of Populism
1850-1900
1983); on the economics
(New York,
Douglass
Upcountry,
Past: A New Economic History
Growth and Welfare in theAmerican
Cliffs, NJ,
North,
(Englewood
62Fred. A
Steven
1966),
Agrarian
137-48,
Unrest
McArthur
Chester
142-45;
Destler,
esp.
in Illinois,
1880-1896."
Agricultural History
Readjustment
"Agricultural
21 (April 1947): 104-16.
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
and
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodisJng theGildedAge
the same market-based
and adopted
of agricultural
cooperatives?that
investment bankers had used at the turn of
dard
form
cooperative
proprietary
the century
217
methods?in
the
businessmen
and
to combat
overpro
duction.63
Gilded
Politics
Age
Capitalism
The relationship
and
between
tion and the social movements
the
to
Transition
Corporate
the new political economy of capital accumula
of workers and farmers is not hard to grasp.
national politics with socio-economic
has been
developments
Correlating
more problematic. Political historians have long noted the fact that most of
tar
the issues that divided the two major parties at the polls?temperance,
to
the
civil
service
and
similar
the
issues
iff,
reform,
money question?were
the parties in the second party system. Electoral politics largely
ignored the issues stemming from the rise of capitalism, class conflict and
to this interpretation.
the rise of big business,
But, electoral
according
that divided
is only one aspect of politics; the other, the actual policymaking
of
offers
better
for
the nineteenth
century party-state,
prospects
understanding
In this respect,
what was new about the Gilded Age.
the typology of
behavior
Theodore
and others
Lowi, Richard McCormick,
and
distributive,
redistributive,
regulative politics
that was
shift
occurring.64
Distributive
politics
and involved
period"
of
groups
in distinguishing
between
us
understand
the
helps
special
was
practiced by party leaders during
to favored
the informal distribution
benefits,
immunities,
and
access
to
resources.
the long "party
individuals and
Distributive
fearful
politics was particularly well suited to a republic of small producers
of unequal exchange or any external force that might use the state to facili
tate the rise of amonied
the kind
of
Hamiltonian
the Republican
also hindered
aristocracy. That
fear and distrust militated
against
action which,
like the stillborn
government
systems and the Civil War legislation passed by
redistribute wealth
toward the favored few. It
Party, might
the kind of open compromise
between organized
interests
all-embracing
or American
"The Political Economy
to the
of American
from Jackson
Goebel,
Populism
Studies inAmerican
Political Development
11 (Spring 1997): 109-48; Michael
Kazin,
The Populist Persuasion: An American
"Man Over
Palmer,
(New York,
1995); Bruce
History
Money": The Southern Populist Critique of American
1980); Hofstadter,
Capitalism
(Chapel Hill,
63Thomas
New
Deal,"
a recent synthesis
see Robert
C. McMath
chap. 3; for
Jr., American
Populism, A
1877-1898
see William
F.
(New York,
1993); for a review of the literature
In Search of Context,"
64 (1990): 26-58.
Holmes,
"Populism:
Agricultural History
64Theodore
"American Business,
Public Policy, Case-Studies,
and Political Theory,"
Lowi,
Age
of Reform,
Social History,
World
16 (July 1964): 677-715;
L. McCormick,
Richard
"The Party Period
and Public
in The Party Period and Public Policy: American
Politics from
the Age
of Jackson to the
The Public City: The Political
197-227;
(New York,
Progressive Era
1986),
Philip J. Ethington,
Construction of Urban Lfe
in San Francisco,
1850-1900
UK,
1994), 299-308; Bensel,
(Cambridge,
The Political Economy of American
Industrialisation,
chap. 4.
Politics
Policy,"
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
218
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
in a purportedly
egalitarian society of small property hold
ers. The fear of capital accumulation
and special or class legislation, also
state
limited
and
elevated
the party and the courts to policy
kept
capacity
status. Thus, throughout
the party period the national government
making
that was
taboo
itself
limited
tariff
ters,
Distributive
to distributing
cheap
and not
protection,
land, railroad and other corporate char
to its constituents.
least, patronage,
of a logrolling
support in the manner
politics consolidated
one
not
the
benefited
did
with
coalition;
another, but
groups
negotiate
one
were
to
the party's coalition by party
"dealt in" informally,
rather
by one,
leaders.
as distinguished
from private property in simple commodity
pro
or pro
duction, was less suited to distributive politics. To the paterfamilias
was
simply the tangible result of his
prietor of the family farm property
of his personality. Capital,
labor and represented
the external manifestation
Capital,
it from the family farm or artisan
labor by removing
and subjecting it directly to larger societal forces. Capital and its
workshop
on the advance of science and technology
and the
accumulation
depended
socialized
however,
literacy and technical knowledge
acquired through public education; it
relied on direct and indirect government
subsidies, such as land grants and
basic
accumulation,
and
ization
came
to
affected
of
society
by a broader
new
and
and
not
least,
capital
In
culture.
short,
labor, which
affected
capital
and
expanded
or wage
that of class-based
and
was
social interest. A wide
tendency
and Henry
socializing
Sumner
Graham
normally
accompanied
higher degree of bureaucratic organ
function;
social relationship,
pervade
consolidation
amuch
capital required
specialization
a new
developed
and
concentration
because
tariffs;
of
Samuel Gompers,
fruit of private accumulation:
President
variety of observers noted this
the market
including William
as AFL
as
Few were
clear-sighted
and
capital
George.65
who challenged
that capital was
the belief
the
a
and purer view, regard
taking more comprehensive
and dis
all capitals large and small, as the fruits of labor's economies
of laborers
coveries, inventions and institutions, of many generations
The Trade Unions,
of
and capitalists,
ble
as
a
living
theoreticians
and practitioners,
practically
as indivisi
man."66
result of capital's socializing tendency was that regulative
sense than before. As mentioned
tributive policies made more
One
65Jeffrey
Sklansky,
The Souls Economy: Market
Society and Selfhood
inAmerican
1920 (ChapelHill, 2002), 105-36.
66"What
1891-1893,
Does
Labor Want"
ed. Stuart B. Kaufman
in The Samuel
and Peter
Gompers
J. Albert
Papers, Vol.
(Urbana,
1989),
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
3: Unrest
392.
and redis
earlier,
Thought,
in
1820
and Depression,
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodisjng theGildedAge
219
levied taxes by spe
government
of
the
the
property holders who
petitions
depending
would receive the benefit of the resulting revenue. The first break from this
it became clear that the refuse
practice occurred after the Civil War when
from the new slaughtering and meatpacking
industry was fouling the city's
Chicago, before
cial assessment
the Civil War
the municipal
on
to general revenues to cleanse
drinking water. In response, the city resorted
from which
the Chicago River so that waste did not flow into Lake Michigan
obtained its drinking water. Thus, under the new conditions
the population
a redistribution
of
of concentrated
capital clothed with the public interest,
resources
undertaken
by
government
became
necessary
and
legitimate.
cities invested heavily in new city services
During
Of course, redistributive
and infrastructural development.
politics always
that taxes on the wealthy
could be used to fund
risked the possibility
the Gilded
Age American
for the poor and propertyless. This prospect
accounted
improvements
much of the resistance to "machine" politics and widespread
support
fiscal retrenchment
class
leaders
the
Gilded
by upper
during
Age.67
for
for
the Gilded Age party leaders and government
officials resort
Throughout
and
redistributive
ed to a complex mix of distributive,
regulative,
policies.
But, the trend was clearly toward the latter two, in part because regulation
normally arose as a response
the national level it was evident
and redistribution
interests. On
the tariff and adherence
redistributive
to the lobbying of organized
over
in regional contestation
to the gold standard, both issues with profound
Itwas also evident in how local and state govern
implications.
In Chicago,
dealt with the strikes carried on by organized workers.
to
leaders
first
the
rise
of
class
party
responded
working
political power with
distributive politics. By withholding
they allowed political
police protection,
ments
ly favored strikers to establish mass picket lines that could intimidate strike
In effect, they distributed
breakers.
immunity from the law to favored
as
much
enforced
the temperance
laws during the
groups,
they selectively
the
of
life
1877
occasioned
the
strikes and
period. But,
by
disruptions
public
the early 1880s, together with the cost pressures
to overproduction
and the rise of the political
responding
those of
felt by employers
power of unions,
this approach to keeping the peace between classes. The great
1886-87 and the Haymarket Affair were rooted in the break
upheaval
down of this distributive
strategy. In 1890, with a disruption of the building
of theWorld's Columbian Exposition
threatened by the Carpenters Union,
undermined
of
leading bankers,
accept collective
judges, and newspaper
in effect,
bargaining,
editors
called on the contractors
accepting
a regulative
solution
to
to
Einhorn,
Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833-1872
1991), 9
(Chicago,
invest
195-215;
237-44;
Schneirov, Eabor and Urban Politics, chap. 2; on urban
services,
see
and fiscal retrenchment
the Gilded
The Unheralded
ments,
during
Jon C. Teaford,
Age
1870-1900
Triumph: City Government inAmerica,
(Baltimore,
1984), chaps. 8-10.
67Robin
25;
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
220
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
the Pullman Strike, a cross-class
Following
labor leaders and reformers?the
immediate
labor conflict.
ness
and
National
Civic Federation?lobbied
Illinois
of busi
forerunner
to the
successfully
for an
to resolve
board
arbitration
the state of
coalition
labor disputes.68
of
goes a
importance
politics clothed with social connotations
as
women
urban
long way toward explaining the fast growing importance of
in the Gilded Age, which
reformers
is often attributed simply to women's
culture. Urban women,
like wage workers and socialists, had no stake in the
new
The
small producer mode of production.
in the release of women
acceleration
The Gilded
Age
from household
a
also witnessed
labor. Women's
sharp
fertil
ity rate and the size of households
dropped precipitously, making possible a
in
increase
the
number
of
female
wage workers outside the ranks of
large
household
service. New labor-saving household
technology allowed middle
careers and engage
and upper-class
urban women
the time to contemplate
in social and political activity.69
com
The socialization of the labor of large numbers of urban women,
the moral authority vested in them by the two-sphere
system,
them to bypass older shibboleths
and grasp more quickly the need
for vigorous
created by the
public action to regulate the social problems
bined with
enabled
of industrial capitalism. Women were prominent
in the move
emergence
ments for compulsory public education, regulation of sweatshop labor, pub
lic sanitation, and the arbitration of strikes. In addition, female reformers
sanctioned
stemming
with
from
The
workers.
grant
male
1880s
civic
of
rise
leaders
leftward
Union,
the
gence within
settlement
women
new
reform
the labor movement
house
as
public
and reformers, was
shift in politics
the
with
Temperance
social
in the family to challenge patriarchal relations
in the families of immi
the abuse of children and women
social intervention
activism
of women
reformers,
often
evident
of
of
especially
the Woman's
women's
activists,
clubs,
in
coalition
in the late
Christian
the
emer
and the rise of
the
movement.70
Labor and Urban Politics,
68Schneirov,
a shift to
also
finds
Ethington
regulatory
99-114;
168-73;
192-93; 285-88,
342;
141, 149-51;
to labor, see The
and redistributive
relating
policies
on urban governance
see
influence
interests'
organized
Public City, chap. 7; on the rise of
sees
Unheralded Triumph, chap. 7; Michael
Les Benedict
constitutionalism
Teaford,
laissesjaire
as a response
to the rise of
see "Laissez-Faire
and
and redistributive
regulatory
legislation,
A
of
the
and
of
Laissez-Faire
Re-Evaluation
Constitutionalism,"
Meaning
Origins
Liberty:
Law
Review 3 (Fall 1985): 293-331.
andHistory
in the United State
Out to Work: A History
Women
69Alice Kessler-Harris,
of Wage-Earning
Women
and theAmerican
3rd ed.
141; Nancy
110-15,
Woloch,
(Oxford,
1982),
Experience,
2000), 277-306.
(Boston,
"The Domestication
of Politics: Women
and American
Political
70Paula Baker,
Society,
American Historical
Review 89 (June 1984): 620-47;
Sara M. Evans,
"Women's
1780-1920,"
a Feminist
to Public Life"
in Visible Women:
Toward
and Political Theory:
History
Approach
onAmerican Activism,
A. Hewitt
ed. Nancy
and Suzanne Lebsock
New Essays
1993),
(Urbana,
Ruth Bordin,
1873-1900
Women
and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Lberty,
119-39;
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodi^ing theGildedAge
221
of "courts and parties" and
of a state composed
state to the Progressive
Era. It was then, at
the regulative
created the model
Roosevelt's
President Theodore
request, that Congress
of the
the
for strong commission
powers
government
by increasing
Scholars
date the decline
the rise of
in 1887. Only after the turn
established
Commission,
of the century were politicians able to muster enough public support for the
to enforce legislatively enacted
sort of administrative mechanisms
needed
Commerce
Interstate
pur
important to recognize for periodization
regulations. It is nonetheless
on all lev
poses that itwas in the Gilded Age that Americans
experimented
solutions to the
els of government with major regulatory and redistributive
created by the rise of capitalism.71
problems
From
this
recent
perspective,
scholars
have
made
a
strong
case
that mod
ern liberalism, whose
emergence past scholars traced to the decade of the
1890s, had its urban and intellectual origins in the 1880s. By that time, a crit
ical mass
female and other public-interest
intellectuals,
of labor and capital accepted a number of new
reformers, and spokespeople
or large enterprise was not the
that
tenets, including especially:
"monopoly"
outcome of forces external to the market, but an outcome
of the logic of
of
leaders,
that the competitive market under conditions
of increasing
in fixed capital produced
surplus capacity and recurring depres
the market;
investment
sions;
civic
and
that unrestricted
competitive
social problems,
individualism
created
and morally
intolerable
including
sweatshop
women
and children, low pay and excessively
long hours for male
and an inequality in bargaining power in the workplace. The new
tions contradicted
central to English
classical political
dogmas
such
as
Say's
Law
with
incompatible
anced distribution
or state dictation.
tion
and direction
of
Markets
and
freedom
of
contract.
They
intractable
labor
for
workers,
observa
economy,
were
also
that a society of small producers
and a bal
of wealth were "natural" in a society free of aristocracy
To the contrary, the new forms of thought took inspira
the belief
from
academic
socialism
learned
in Germany
and
the
Heroes
The Politics and History
1981), 95-139; Linda Gordon,
of Their Own Lves:
(Philadelphia,
(New York,
1988), chap. 2, esp. 20-21, 56-57; Schneirov,
of Family Violence, Boston, 1880-1960
Labor and Urban Politics, 266-68; Meredith
Tax, The Rising of theWomen: Feminist Solidarity and
Class Conflict,
1880-1917
(New York,
1980); Maureen
Flanagan,
Seeing With Their Hearts:
F. Davis,
of the Good City, 1877-1933
(Princeton,
Chicago Women and the Vision
2002); Allen
American Heroine: The Lfe
andLgend
(New York,
1973).
of Jane Addams
not
to promote
but
accumulation,
71Polanyi argues that the growth of state regulation,
just
to protect
see The
the expansion
of modern
markets;
society from its ravages, accompanied
Great Transformation,
161-77; McCormick,
130-34,
27; Stephen
Skowronek,
Building aNew American
1870-1920
(New York,
Capacities,
1982); William
"The Party Period
and Public Policy," 224
State: The Expansion
ofNational Administrative
R. Brock,
Investigation and Responsibility: Public
in the United States, 1865-1900
Keller, Affairs
(New York,
1984); Morton
Responsibility
of State:
in Late Nineteenth
Public Lfe
MA,
Century America
1977), 171-96, 319-42; Theda
(Cambridge,
Political Origins
Protecting Soldiers and Mothers:
Skocpol,
of Social Policy in the United States
(Cambridge,
MA,
1995); Teaford,
Unheralded
Triumph,
chaps.
5 and 6.
This content downloaded on Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:52:36 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
222
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
of
agenda
the American
The
Socialist
new
the American
the root of ethics
it shifted
Labor
coopera
Party, from Christian
actions
and
the
of the
tradition,
republican
as well as from
social
observers.72
insightful
liberalism involved several profound
shifts in perspective.
First,
tivism, parts of
labor movement,
and value
realm of consumption
and anchored
in the replacement
in economic
from
both
to the
the realm of production
in the social whole. This was evi
dent
theory of the labor theory of value by
as
marginal utility theory and the new analysis of depression
being caused
or
it
sanctioned
Second,
by overproduction
underconsumption.
cooperative,
in place
of
the
market?sometimes
collectivist, or organizational
regulation
and more
to supplement?individual
action. This was evident in
the increasing, though still contested,
acceptance by public opinion of the
of
business
firms, of wages by arbitration
regulation
prices by large-scale
and collective bargaining,
and of economic
behavior by the state. Though
of
the new
sought
often
liberalism was
heavily
its prime thinkers
by socialism,
and statism, between
individualism
influenced
to chart a middle
way between
and cooperation,
innovation
and between
to combine the best of both polar opposites.
competition
that sought
and stability, a path
In this vein, Henry
Carter Adams,
co-founder
of the American Economic
Association,
argued
was
to retain the competitive market while making
in 1886 that it
possible
use of state regulative action to remove ethical abuses. This would
be
by state
by raising the ground floor or plane of competition
free rein above that plane.
individual enterprise
allowing
in
the
of
those who
justified trade
appeared
writings
reasoning
accomplished
action, while
Similar
the standard of living, raising
action. They argued that improving
and
hours
collective
wages,
shortening
through
bargaining was also good for
it raised consumption,
counteracted
and profit because
private business
of
stimulated
the
and
introduction
labor-saving machinery
overproduction,
union
and capital accumulation.73
to the
and political
liberalism
all date the intellectual
72The following
origins of modern
Public
1880s: Polanyi, The Great Transformation, Part IP,Mary O. Furner, "Knowing
Capitalism:
in the Long Progressive
and the Labor Question
Era," in The State and Economic
Investigation,
Furner
ed. Mary
and Barry
and British Experience,
O.,
Supple
Knowledge: The American
in
Industrial Democracy
UK,
1990); Sklar, Corporate Reconstruction, 43-72; Dickman,
(Cambridge,
A Uving
Lawrence
and
Eabor
Urban
11;
3;
Glickman,
America,
Politics,
Schneirov,
chap.
chap.
and theMaking
Workers
1997); Livingston,
of Consumer Society (Ithaca, NY,
Wage: American
and
Ross, "Socialism
Pragmatism and the Political Economy of Cultural Revolution, chap. 6; Dorothy
in the 1880s," Perspectives inAmerican History
Social Thought
Liberalism:
American
Academic
liberalism
and the Idea of
G. Donohue,
Freedom from Want: American
and
2003),
Mugwumps, Morals,
(Baltimore,
chaps 1 and 2, Gerald W. McFarland,
The Reconstruction
1884-1920
Cohen,
MA,
Politics,
1975). Nancy
of American
(Amherst,
con
as a Gilded
liberalism
1865-1914
liberalism,
Age
(Chapel Hill, 2002) also views modern
it as anti-democratic.
but unlike others, depicts
struction,
9 (1977-78):
the Consumer
7-79; Kathleen
"The Relation
73Henry Carter Adams,
Carter Adams,
ed. Joseph Dorfman
Henry
of
the State
(New York,
to Industrial
1954),
57-133;
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Action"
George
in Two Essays by
Wealth
Gunton,
Schneirov / Thoughts onPeriodising theGildedAge
an intellectual
this shift was
Underlying
revolution
Jeffrey Sklansky. The upheaval, which generated
in place of political economy
ogy and psychology
the market positively
tual discourse,
reconceived
social
self,
created
"culturally
reflecting
than the arena for the ratification
desires,
the new
223
recently charted by
sciences of sociol
as the
ground of intellec
as the generator of a new
and
habits,
mores"
rather
by individual propri
that no consensus
of values
produced
it
be
their
labor.
should
Still,
emphasized
through
the Gilded Age elements of the new
existed on the new liberalism. During
in complex ways with the old producer
liberalism coexisted
republicanism
etors
and defenses
of
the naturalness
and beneficence
of
the self-regulating
mar
ket.
By the time of
90s,"
the
stage
was
the 1893-97
set
depression
a multi-class
for
and its corollary,
movement
of
labor
the "Crisis of
leaders,
the
progres
sive capitalists, investment bankers, reform intellectuals, and political leaders
the difficult transition out of the Gilded Age into cor
capable of managing
a
relations. The
porate capitalism with administered market
triumph of
of capital
"new liberal" political ideology and the corporate reconstruction
ism is beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say, the transition to mod
ern corporate
was
the Civil
Like
capitalism
profoundly
political.
War/Reconstruction
transition
to the Gilded
a
Age, itwas made possible by
its origin in the late 1880s and
which had
political movement,
took political power with the electoral victory
William Jennings Bryan.75
cross-class
of William
McKinley
over
in
Once itwas dominant within the economy and society, the corporation
in the sense of knitting
its daily operation was itself political
together
in a new mix.
of production
diverse classes and old and emerging modes
But unlike earlier mixes,
integration occurred
largely through the visible
hand of administration
rather than the invisible one of
the market.
It did so
class and ever broader seg
through its dispersal of stock to the old middle
ments
of the general population,
its reconstituting
and administering
of
to
floor
labor
that
left
had
been
skilled
workers
practices
shop
previously
and the labor market; its shaping of consumer demand through advertising;
its use of profits for philanthropy,
reform, and funding of electoral activity,
and not least its ability to accommodate
the rise of a regulatory and welfare
on higher taxes and increased
regulatory costs to the public
not
to
This
is
that
the
say
corporate stage of capital
through higher prices.
state by passing
and Progress: a Critical Examination
The
1887); Geo. E. McNeill,
of theLabor Problem (New York,
The
Gunton,
Eight Hour Primer: The Fact, Theory, and theArgument
1889); George
(Washington,
Economic and Social Importance of theEight-Hour Movement
1889); Lemuel Danryid,
(Washington,
and Philosophy of the Eight-Hour Movement
History
1889).
(Washington,
74Sklansky,
the
75On
Reconstruction,
The Soul's Economy,
social movement
"Introduction,"
3.
see Sklar,
of
corporate
origins
capitalism
Corporate
and Livingston,
Origins of the Federal Reserve System, Part II.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
224
Journal of theGildedAge and ProgressiveEra / July 2006
was free of conflict, class or otherwise,
ist development
only that it consti
a
new
ever
tuted
and
broadening
ground for that conflict, which has not
in the last one hundred years.76
been superseded
of corporate capitalism, the cen
Looking backward from the perspective
tral characteristics
of the Gilded Age appear to be its tendency toward cri
sis in the capital accumulation
in
process and social instability as manifested
recurrent
financial panics, crises of overproduction,
falling prices and prof
with
electoral stalemate, broadening
and intensifying class conflict
its, along
and general labor upheavals, agrarian discontent,
the rise of Populism,
and
a "new liberalism." On the other hand, from the
standpoint of the antebel
lum mix
of
and
labor, slavery, household
manufactures,
self-employed
the
Gilded
the
full-scale
emergent
capitalism,
Age highlights
triumph of
a new mix. The
within
of
mode
capitalist
capitalism
production with its
of
accumulation
and
social
relations
based on per
political economy
capital
manent
labor, replaced various forms of unfree labor and household
and
and partially eclipsed
labor.
production
supplemented
self-employed
a shift in
away from distributive
Integral to that triumph came
policymaking
to social prob
and
toward
and
redistributive
solutions
regulative
politics
wage
without
the requisite state capacity to enforce such policies.
lems?though
All this occurred on the basis of the political and economic
transformation
by the triumph of the Republican
Party during the Civil War
accomplished
and
Reconstruction.
The Modern
Scott R. Bowman,
24-30;
Historiography,"
Park, PA, 1996);
Thought: Eaw, Power, and Ideology (University
Revolution
in American
Business
The Managerial
Chandler,
Jr., The Visible Hand:
<&Workers: Origins of the Twentieth Century
Nelson,
1977); Daniel
Managers
(Cambridge, MA,
Factory System in the United States, 1880-1920
(Madison, WI,
1975); Sanford Jacoby, Employing
inAmerican
Unions, and the Transformation
Industry, 1900-1945
Bureaucracy: Managers,
of Work
76Sklar,
Corporation
Alfred
D.
(New York,
"Periodization
and American
and
Political
1985).
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