The Missionary Generation. Born 1861-1882
They’re the same as the boomers.
Entering midlife around World War I, this generation often found itself split into opposite
camps, rural evangelicals versus urban "social gospelers" (or "modernists"). Yet growing
pessimism about America's future in the hands of their nihilistic Lost juniors brought
them together behind a common generation mission: the vindication of social good over
social evil. Thus did fiftyish Missionaries transform into enthusiastic circa-1917
"Crusaders for Democracy," and later into the "Decency" enforcers of the Twenties.
They pushed through Prohibition, Women's Suffrage, immigration restriction, SmootHawley, Red-deportation, "vice squads," and punitive criminal laws--all in an effort to
rekindle higher principles of national community.
As the 1920s wore on…. Congress virtually halted immigration….
Immigration tends to rise during an Awakening Era, peak during an Inner-Driven Era,
and fall during a Crisis Era. Since most immigrants have always ranged in age from their
mid-teens to late-thirties, Idealist and (especially) Reactive generations have had foreignborn flavors. The Liberty, Transcendentals, Gilded, Boom and 13ers comprise, in fact,
the only American generations in which the share of immigrants has risen over their nextelders. Civic generations, on the other hand, have always shown a marked decline in
their immigrant share. Civics enter rising adulthood during a Crisis Era, when
immigration is more difficult or less attractive--and when elder Idealist leaders typically
take a hard anti-immigrant stance in order to "protect" the national community better than
their Adaptive predecessors.
From the 4th T
The 1850s
Cities grew mean and politics hateful. Immigration surged, financial speculation
boomed…
Run the clock back the length of yet another long life, to the 1760s. The recent favorable
conclusion to the French and Indian War had brought eighty years of conflict to a close
and secured the colonial frontier. Yet when England tried to recoup the expense of the
war through taxation, the colonies seethed with a directionless discontent. Immigration
from the Old World, emigration across the Appalachians, and colonial trade arguments
all rose sharply.
During each of these periods, Americans celebrated an ethos of frenetic and laissez-faire
“individualism” (a word first popularized in the 1840s), yet also fretted over social fragmentation,
epidemic violence, and economic and technological change that seemed to be accelerating
beyond society’s ability to absorb it.
During each of these periods, Americans had recently achieved a stunning victory over a
long-standing foreign threat—Imperial Germany, Imperial New Spain (alias Mexico), or Imperial
New France. Yet that victory came to be associated with a worn-out definition of collective
purpose—and, perversely, unleashed a torrent of pessimism.
During each of these periods, an aggressive moralism darkened the debate about the
country’s future. Culture wars raged, the language of political discourse coarsened, nativist (and
sectional) feelings hardened, immigration and substance abuse came under attack, and attitudes
toward children grew more protective.
During each of these periods, Americans felt well-rooted in their personal values but
newly hostile toward the corruption of civic life. Unifying institutions which had seemed secure
for decades suddenly felt ephemeral. Those who had once trusted the nation with their lives were
now growing old and passing on. To the new crop of young adults, the nation hardly mattered.
The whole res-publica seemed on the verge of disintegrating.
During each of these previous Third Turnings, Americans felt like they were drifting
toward a waterfall.
And, as it turned out, they were.
The 1760s were followed by the American Revolution, the 1850s by Civil War, the 1920s
by the Great Depression and World War II. All these Unraveling eras were followed by bonejarring Crises so monumental that, by their end, American society emerged in a wholly new form.
Each time, the change came with scant warning. As late as December 1773, November
1859, and October 1929, the American people had no idea how close it was.
Then sudden sparks (the Boston Tea Party, John Brown’s raid and execution, Black
Tuesday) transformed the public mood, swiftly and permanently. Over the next two decades or
so, society convulsed. Emergencies required massive sacrifices from a citizenry that responded
by putting community ahead of self. Leaders led, and people trusted them. As a new social
contract was created, people overcame challenges once thought insurmountable—and used the
Crisis to elevate themselves and their nation to a higher plane of civilization: In the 1790s, they
triumphantly created the modern world’s first democratic republic. In the late 1860s, wounded
but reunited, they forged a genuine nation extending new guarantees of liberty and equality. In
the late 1940s, they constructed the most Promethean superpower ever seen.
The Fourth Turning is history’s great discontinuity.
It ends one epoch and begins
another.
-The mood of the current Culture Wars era seems new to nearly every living American but
is not new to history. Around World War I, America steeped in reform and fundamentalism
amidst a floodtide of crime, alcohol, immigration, political corruption, and circus trials. The
1850s likewise simmered with moral righteousness, shortening tempers, and multiplying
“mavericks.” It was a decade, says historian David Donald, in which “the authority of all
government in America was at a low point.” Entering the 1760s, the colonies felt rejuvenated in
spirit but reeled from violence, mobs, insurrections, and paranoia over the corruption of official
authority.
--Immigration to America has also followed a saecular rhythm: It tends to climb in an
Awakening, peak in an Unraveling, and fall during a Crisis. The climb coincides with quickening
social mobility, rising public tolerance, pluralist-minded leaders, and loosening social controls.
The Unraveling-era reversal is triggered by a sudden nativist backlash (in the 1850s, 1920s, and
1990s). The subsequent fall coincides with aggressive new efforts to “protect” the nation—and
by the time a Crisis hits, immigration is often seen as unsafe by the community and unattractive
by those who might in better times wish to relocate.
--The Missionary Generation (Prophet, born 1860-1882) became the indulged home-and-hearth children of
the post-Civil War era. They came of age as labor anarchists, campus rioters—and ambitious first
graduates of black and women’s colleges. Their young adults pursued rural populism, settlement house
work, missionary crusades, “muckrake” journalism, and women’s suffrage. In midlife, their Decency
brigades and “fundamentalists” imposed Prohibition, cracked down on immigration, and organized Vice
Squads. In the 1930s and ‘40s, their elder elite were heralded as “Wise Men” who enacted a “New Deal”
(and Social Security) for the benefit of youth, led the global war against fascism, and reaffirmed America’s
highest ideals during a transformative era in world history. (AMERICAN: (Franklin Roosevelt, W.E.B.
DuBois, William Jennings Bryan, Upton Sinclair, Jane Addams, Douglas MacArthur; FOREIGN: Winston
Churchill, V.I. Lenin)
In the 1850s, foreign visitors remarked on the “seriousness” and “absence of reverence
for authority” of America’s “busy generation of the present hour,” that is, the Transcendentals.
Just after World War I, Missionary crusaders joined the “holy trinity” of populism,
fundamentalism, and feminism to win the day for women’s suffrage and temperance. While a
younger writer lampooned them as pompous Babbitts, middle-aged people slapped a new Code of
Decency on movies, slammed the door on immigration, meted out tougher sentences, and battled
to impose a severe New Humanism on a society that felt out of control.
-****
By the Oh-Ohs, 13ers will comfortably inhabit a world of unprecedented diversity. Few
will share the High-era view that race in America is simply a problem of black versus white.
Asian- and Hispanic-Americans will make 13er race issues a more multivariant equation. As
those ethnicities catapult into the cultural mainstream, they will be greeted with demands
for a clampdown on immigration. A small but significant share of young adults (including
whites) will gravitate toward organizations touting racial or ethnic separatism. From poverty to
crime to simply making families work again, 13ers will redefine old civil rights issues into
problems independent of race. Many will come to associate the phrase “civil rights” with elder
ministers, teachers, and bureaucrats whom they won’t want meddling in their lives. Their goal
will be to stop all the racial game-playing, and they will be skeptical that the solution is simply to
get everyone to understand one another.