Review: The Populist Moment by Lawrence Goodwyn.

The Populist Moment by Lawrence Goodwyn.


Goodwyn’s 1978 book, published in the post-Vietnam/post-Watergate era, is heavily laden with Marxist analysis and argues, “The agrarian revolt demonstrated how intimidated people could create for themselves the psychological space to dare to aspire grandly….” Consensus did not exist, the meaning of the agrarian revolt was its cultural assertion as a people’s movement of mass democratic aspiration against entrenched interests to which “the plain people” were diametrically opposed.(Goodwyn, 295) The Populists were attempting to bring the corporate state under democratic control.

Goodwyn argues that how money was created, and on what basis it circulated, defined in critical ways the relationships of farmers, urban workers, and commercial participants in the emerging industrial state. The government’s reliance on the gold standard meant deflation, which translated into the long postwar fall of farm prices. (Goodwyn, 24) High interest rates benefited only creditors and moneylenders. Furnishing merchants, for example, demanded that their debtors plant one certain cash crop, cotton. “No cotton, no credit”. If the farmer failed to “pay out” he still owed the merchant a remaining balance for the supplies furnished on credit during the year. Such was the crop lien system. The crop lien system became for millions of Southerners, little more than slavery. (Goodwyn 21-25) To the nation’s farmers, contraction of the money supply, caused by business’ insistence on “hard currency”, was a “mass tragedy”. Farmers had three choices, they could put their hopes on more efficient farming, they could concentrate their energies on economic cooperatives, or they could organize and secure changes in the regulations that governed the relations between different classes of citizens. (Goodwyn, 109) When economic cooperatives failed, farmers turned to politics. Goodwyn argues that business and financial entrepreneurs had achieved effective control of a restructured American party system in both the North and the South and farmers had little choice but to turn to politics if they were to “…(achieve) a civic culture grounded in generous social relations and in a celebration of the vitality of human cooperation and the diversity of human aspiration itself ” (Goodwyn, 292) The Populist Movement was the product of an insurgent culture that grew out of the gradual raising of class consciousness as farmers struggled against bankers and financiers. (Goodwyn, 61)

Goodwyn argues that Populism was a insurgent democratic movement who’s time had not yet come. “What could a Protestant, Anglo-Saxon Alliance organizer say to the largely Catholic, largely immigrant urban working classes of the North….In 1892, what (Populism) lacked was a social theory of sufficient breadth to appeal to all….”(Goodwyn, 177) The agrarian movement achieved the politicization of masses of people, however it was still unable to break the bonds of inherited political habits. Populist attempts to construct a national farmer-labor coalition came before the fledgling American labor movement was internally prepared for mass insurgent politics. (Goodwyn, 297) Goodwyn argues, “A consensus thus came to be silently ratified: reform politics need not concern itself with structural alteration of the economic customs of the society. This conclusion, of course, had the effect of removing from mainstream reform politics the idea of people in an industrial society gaining significant degrees of autonomy in the structure of their own lives.” (Goodwyn, 284)

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The Populists and the Progressives

Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform, New York: Random House, 1955

Richard Hofstadter examines the great American reform movements from 1890 - 1940 (the Populist Movement, Progressivism, and the New Deal) and asks: (1) What were the ideas of the participants? and (2) How did Populism and Progressivism differ from the New Deal?

The ideology of the Populist movement reflected the American agrarian myth (the virtues of the independent yeoman farmer). Urbanization and industrialization, coupled with a virtual “immigrant invasion” gave rise to the notion of an innocent and victimized rural population. Populism insisted that the federal government had some responsibility for the common welfare, “The people versus the interests, the public versus the plutocrats, the toiling multitude versus the money power….” (Hofstadter, 65) Failure at the ballot box (the defeat of the third party bid to capture the White House) led rural interests to pursue modern methods of pressure politics and lobbying within the framework of the existing party system where they were largely successful in accomplishing their economic goals. (Hofstadter, 95)

The Progressive movement was urban, middleclass and nationwide. Progressives (like the Populists) were native born Protestants. Corporations, labor unions, and political machines (which organized incoming immigrants) were aggregating and presenting unorganized citizens the prospect that they would be unable to resist the new forces. The Progressive movement was “the complaint of the unorganized against the consequences of organization.” (Hofstadter, 216) Progressivism tried to restore a type of economic individualism and political democracy that was believed to have existed earlier in America and to have been destroyed by the great corporations and the corrupt political machines.(Hofstadter, 5)

Hofstadter argues that Populism and Progressivism were driven by moral absolutes arising from the Protestant evangelical tradition. He suggests that to some degree both the Populists and Progressives were deluded by these ideological motivations which did not align with either their true economic interests or the necessity for new organizational modes required by a more advanced technological society. He argues for example that, “The prosperity of the commercial farmers was achieved not only in spite of but in good part because of the rise of American industry and the American city”. (Hofstadter, 110) Hofstadter argues that Progressives were trying to keep the benefits of the emerging organization of life and yet to retain the scheme of individualistic values that this organization was destroying. (Hofstadter, 217) Hofstadter’s central argument is that modern organizational necessities trumped ideology, “In their search for mechanical guarantees of continued popular control the reformers were trying to do something altogether impossible…to institutionalize a mood.” (Hofstadter, 266) Neither the Populists nor the Progressives offered an effective countervailing organizational structure for the realization of their reform goals. The New Deal, which was above all else pragmatic and boldly experimental, offered such an alternative organizational structure, pro-active big government.

How effective is Hofstadter’s argument? His deconstruction of the “soft” and “hard” motives of the Reformers is illuminating. He basically suggests that there was no inherent conflict between the new emerging organizations and the Protestant farmers and middle class who made up the Reform movements. Farmers’ economic interest benefited from the advent of urbanization and industrialization. In absolute terms, the native middle class also enjoyed material benefits. Hofstadter’s view is perhaps too materialistic. Progressives at the time argued that the nation was enjoying prosperity but losing its soul. “Anything that makes the organization greater than the man…is against all the principles of progress.” (Hofstadter, 226) Hofstadter appears to have little patience with intangibles and projects a firm believe in the values of pragmatism. To dismiss intangibles, however, is to deny the importance of irrational motives in history. There are, however, numerous historical examples of people and nations acting in ways inconsistent with their apparent self interest (e.g. the continuation of the slaughter in World War I long after the point where any conceivable goal could justify the cost).

Hofstadter’s concentration on the “critical path” of history, determined by emergent technical and social forces, is a powerful analytical technique. Basically his argument runs: The growth of big organizations was inevitable in a more complex technical and social environment. “Soft motives”, like the myth of the yeoman farmer, always lag behind the emerging necessities of modernity. Such old myths may produce social anxieties but may also have uses in softening transitions between historical periods (e.g. reform movements). “The rise of big business may have been inevitable, but if so it was salutary that it should have taken place in a climate of opinion that threw it intermittently on the defensive”. (Hofstadter, 255)

Hofstadter’s book is a product of the 1950s and makes virtually no mention of either women or African Americans which will be jarring for the modern reader.

The Gilded Age and Revolution

Love, Sex and Marriage in Victorian America

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The Civil War in Northern Virginia

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Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Civil War

In 1861, thirty one million people lived in the United States. The economic and political development of the North and South were so dramatically different that only a long and bloody war could create one nation. The two sections also developed differently with regard to the rules of love, sex and marriage. An understanding of these differences is an invaluable aid in helping to understand the social development of the United States.



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Book Review: Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s

LINK TO: Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s By Sherrie Tucker

The history of “all girl” bands of the 1940s highlights the issue of the relationship between art and commerce, or what you might call “the artist’s dilemma” (i.e. I can pursue my artistic vision or I can pursue commercial success). There were substantial financial rewards to be had by musicians. Elsie Blye, for example, found that the wartime demand for musicians made switching from Oklahoma schoolteacher to Hollywood pianist a lucrative option as her salary shot up three hundred percent. Many black women found music paid better than domestic work or sharecropping (Tucker, 55). While artists could make money doing what they loved, they did so at the price of giving up control over the “rules” of work. Then and now, it seems that managers and music entrepreneurs, rather than artists, control what is played, how it is played and under what circumstances it is played in order to maximize profits. Maximizing profits depends on catering to audience expectations and pre-dispositions not only about the music but about the performers. Musical marketing appears to be a “total package” concept, involving the music, the performer, and the values/dreams the music and performance embody for the audience (i.e. does the music allow the audience to vicariously “live the life they have imagined”).

The American public embraced “all girl” bands during the World War II era as a novelty, a temporary expedient in time of war. This is not how the women, many of whom were professional musicians before the swing band shortage of the war years, saw themselves, “We put in the time. We put in the hours. We didn’t consider ourselves a novelty”. Creative artists are generally in the vanguard of social movements, anticipating the changes in society which are about to emerge. White women were joining “all girl” black bands in order to become better musicians and to find a more appreciative audience for the type of music they wanted to play. They were being accepted at considerable risk to the black members of the band out of what you might term artistic solidarity. The artists were anticipating the social changes that were about to come, but as a practical matter had to conform to social conventions. Thus white performers had to be hidden and disguised in order to play with black bands. Similarly, women musicians had to conform to conventional expectations of femininity, often being dressed in elaborately feminine frocks that made playing their instruments more difficult. As a practical matter, individual artists could not do just as they pleased, they had to operate between the freedom of art and the constraints of commerce. Although artists constantly struggle for autonomy, and frequently violate norms and conventions, they can only go so far before risking commercial failure. As has been said of one of the “all girl” bands, the Darlings of Rhythm, “Women who broke too many rules wound up on the cutting-room floor of earthly history”(Tucker, 224).

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe: First Lady of Rock

LINK TO: Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe


The career of “Sister” Rosetta Tharpe embodies many of the themes endemic to American popular music, authenticity, gender mediation, the impact of technology on the creation and distribution of music, and race mediation.

Rosetta Tharpe was raised within the Pentecostal tradition which regarded music as a way of achieving religious ecstasy. Gospel music audiences expected their singers to be “clean and untarnished by the world” (Wald, 139). Songs were expected to be spiritual and spirit filled, a gospel song was to be, “a sermon set to music”. Rosetta Tharpe could perform within this milieu, but like many other gospel performers faced the dilemma of limiting her options (and income) or crossing over to perform secular music as well. Performers such as Tharpe, and Sam Cooke “crossed over”, while others such as Mahalia Jackson and Dorothy Love Coates, “could not relate to (secular) music”. Mahalia Jackson was embraced as the preeminent Gospel singer because of her authenticity. Gospel audiences were skeptical about Rosetta Tharpe’s sincerity as a spiritual entertainer because she also performed secular music.

There was room for skepticism. Rosetta’s personal life suggests that while she may have been willing to placate audiences and offer up a public persona somewhat matching their expectations, in private she was a woman with the type of “will to power” associated only with men during that period. Rosetta was a hard living woman with a string of husbands and some say at least one woman lover (the later being an unforgivable sin to conservative Christian audiences). In her professional career she was a domineering force (to the chagrin of men), outplaying men on the guitar ( the “man’s instrument”) and issuing orders authoritatively to subordinate males (reversing the “natural order” of things).

Rosetta pragmatically adapted her career to meet changing circumstances. Starting in gospel music, she crossed over to secular blues music as the size of radio and television audiences eclipsed the size of gospel audiences. In the early 1950s she was not afraid to record with country music idol Red Foley. In 1958, as Britain and Europe embraced American black musicians, Rosetta quickly discovered the value of “folk credentials” (bestowed on her a decade earlier by Alan Lomax). “If ‘folk’ was the rage among a record buying public of earnest young people, then ‘folk’ she would be” (Wald, 175).Sister Rosetta Tharpe played the game, and played to win.

The unintended consequences of Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s larger than life career are musically telling. She had a tremendous influence on young British musicians who, in turn, would re-interpret American black music and re-introduce it to mainstream American audiences. The British invasion together with the heavily Gospel/Blues influenced music of Elvis Presley put black music and style at the center of American popular music, “but the conduit(s) of these new sounds and styles did not have to be black” (Wald, 145).

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Book Review of: Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience

Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience
by Steve Waksman

Did rock ‘n roll represent the “pent up anger of the age, and loud rock ‘n roll thus became an acting out of that anger?” Music historians would have you believe that it was music that brought down racial barriers and changed American society. This may be a romanticized myth.

Rock, like other cultural forms, represented the fears and aspirations of its time. It did not cause them, it reflected them. It was two world wars and the advent of nuclear weapons which threatened life on earth that caused great numbers of people to question the old racial, gender and religious myths and mores of failed elites who had produced such devastating consequences in the lives of the people of the world. If rock ‘n roll had never emerged, some other cultural device would have been used to manifest the aspirations of the people.

Interestingly, it was that most conservative of all institutions, the military, that proved to be the exemplar for promoting social and racial equality in America. In 1948, President Truman signed an Executive Order integrating the military and mandating equality of treatment and opportunity. It became illegal, per military law, for a soldier to make a racist remark. Truman's Order extended to schools and neighborhoods as well as military units. In 1963, the Department of Defense made it the responsibility of every military commander to oppose discriminatory practices affecting his men and their dependents and to foster equal opportunity for them. The military needed black manpower during the Korean War and the Vietnam War, racial liberalization in the military followed. Similar troop level requirements led to the integration of women and gays into the military on terms of equality.

Which force was more powerful in acting as a catalyst for racial and gender change in American society, the amorphous message of rock (“turn on, tune in, drop out”) or the directed mandate of the military? A difficult question, but what is clear is that whatever the personal motivations of individual musicians, the music business itself, is just that, a business. Not a cause, but a business. Musicians like Muddy Waters were more interested in commercial success than some notion of racial “authenticity”. Chuck Berry pursued financial success by appealing to what white teenagers were focused on at the time, “school, love, and cars”. Col. Parker and RCA made Elvis “tone down” his act to reach wider cross-over audiences. Jimi Hendrix’s decided to play rock music as oppossed to a “blacker” style such as jazz, soul, or even straight electric blues.(Waksman,177) What music gets made and promoted for mass consumption is done for purley business reasons. Popular music and musicians are, first and foremost, the saleable commodity of the music industry.

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