A Fierce Discontent

Though McGerr employs it as more of a metaphor than a symbol or motif, the image of battles and battlefields plays an important role in giving readers a sense of exactly what progressive reform efforts felt like during the Progressive Era. Middle-class reformers were not picking up rifles and swords and charging across a physical battlefield to fight an enemy, of course, but the amount of work and struggle it took for reformers to change values and behaviors in people and groups who did not want to be changed was—to McGerr—similar to the struggle of a physical battle. The “battlefield” for reformers was the social, political, and financial landscape of America; the “quintessential battles,” as McGerr calls them, were “to change other people; to end class conflict; to control big business; and to segregate society” (23). To win these battles, progressive reformers knew that they would have to convince individuals, the majority of different classes, businessmen, and the federal government that the middle-class vision for America was best for everyone.

Passing their reforms required intense analysis and strategizing: another feature of the middle-class reform effort similar to a material battle. Though the middle class felt that their vision for society was in everyone’s best interest, there were often individual groups—like big business owners or the wealthy—who were more interested in the wellbeing of their individual group or class rather than making changes or sacrifices for the wellbeing of society as a whole.