Goldberg, David J. Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s. The American
Moment Series, ed. Stanley I. Kutler. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1999.
Discontented America is a story of the ethnic, racial, and ideological conflicts that raged
in the 1920s as a result of ongoing tensions from WWI and the decline of Progressivism. The
author holds that the 1920s was an extremely turbulent time in U.S. history and that turbulence
helped define America in the post-war world.
A summary of the achievements of the Progressive era and the ways in which WWI
helped shatter those ideals sets the tone for this study. In Wilson’s doomed battle for the
Versailles Treaty in America, for example, the passions of the war continued to influence both
sides and reasoned arguments were defeated by emotionalism. War passions also seemed to
influence early foreign-policy decisions of the 1920s including aggressive developments in Asia,
Latin America, and Europe, and Goldberg even hints that our European tariffs and debtrepayment strategies paved the way for fascism to take root in Germany and Italy.
Domestic politics, Goldberg argues, were also “anything but normal.” Internal divisions
and scandals hurt both major parties, and women, hopeful of a larger influence in politics
because of their newfound suffrage, also suffered from internal conflicts that split their votes and
hindered their effectiveness. The Progressive hope of order from Prohibition likewise was
disappointed by the very public displays of violence and disorder over alcohol. The author sees
the 1924 election as a “picture” of politics in the 1920s—the Democrats were split into raucous
factions because of the issues laid bare by the reborn KKK, and the last remaining vestige of
Progressivism fell when Robert La Follette was defeated because he was labeled as too radical.
What resulted, argues Goldberg, was an age of capital, but even that emergence was
mired in conflict, for major unions, for women workers, for blacks, and for those on the new left.
The state repeatedly threw its power against labor movements and effectively wore them down,
especially through support of the American Plan. He writes, “1922 marked the end of an era of
mass labor unrest and inaugurated an era when capital appeared to have emerged fully
triumphant over labor.” (73) African-Americans’ struggle also involved more than labor in the
1920s. WWI had increased their optimism, but they repeatedly saw their goals hindered, despite
groups like Marcus Garvey’s UNIA and the Harlem Renaissance, both of which ushered in a key
characteristic of blacks—pride of race. The author argues that although blacks could not
consider the 1920s a new era, it was a time for hope and limited institution building.
Other groups surveyed by Goldberg include the KKK, whose broader, more inclusive
hatred highlighted racial and religious bigotry in the nation. Organized opposition to the KKK,
however, laid bare the timidity of its membership, and led to a quick decline in its public
popularity. One of the targets of the KKK, immigrants, also were the focus of considerable
agitation. Goldberg notes, “By 1922 and 1923, anti-immigrant sentiments had become part of
the normal American discourse,” (157) and this attitude and its attendant legislation formed the
basis for immigration policy into the 1960s.
This is a gloomy work. Though the series editor claims the book corrects the flappersBabe Ruth type “popular images,” the resulting emphasis on conflict and chaos pushes the
pendulum too far in the other direction, exacerbated by Goldberg’s labeling the Progressive era
as a time of “innocent optimism.” If one can look past this prevailing negativity and realize that
there were some “good times” in the 1920s, Discontented America can serve as a useful
overview of the period.