The Age of Reform

The Age of Reform is a 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Richard Hofstadter. It is an American history, which traces events from the Populist Movement of the 1890s through the Progressive Era to the New Deal of the 1930s. The Age of Reform stands out from other historical material because Hofstadter's main purpose for writing is not to retell an extensive history of the three movements, but to analyze the common beliefs of the reform groups in our modern perspective to elucidate historical distortions, most notably between the New Deal and Progressivism.

Hofstadter organizes The Age Of Reform chronologically, beginning with Populism. The key concept he introduces is "the agrarian myth," the representation of the homage Americans have paid to the subsistence, innocent, and yeoman farmer of old. The myth became a stereotype since agriculture became more commercial and industrial. Populism's main cause for formation was the alleged loss of "free land." Many Populist leaders believed that industry and government had a vendetta to destroy the agricultural business.

The last chapter on Populism explains the agricultural prosperity after the Populist revolt because city migration lessened competition that had caused farmers to organize for the first time. Hofstadter highlights the foibles in the Populist revolt. The first was its sectional appeal, rather than national. Also, he argues its leaders were incompetent and that there was a perennial lack of funds. However, the single most destructive weakness was lack of silver. By joining with the Democratic campaign of 1896 on silver, Populists lost political ground. Despite their dissolution, Populists were successful because they caused the passage of new laws, years later.

The next major reform movement was Progressivism. The two groups of Populism and Progressivism shared many philosophies, but the latter was widely accepted because it was not seen by the majority as anarchically. The causes for Progressivism were the status revolution in the post-American Civil War era ("new money" supplanted "old money" prestige), the alienation of professionals, and the introduction of the Mugwump. The urban scene during the Progressive era, as argued by Hofstadter, provided little support for the Progressive movement because immigrants cared not for reforms but for democracy in general. Hofstadter provides evidence from numerous sources of the general nativism possessed by Progressives. As a corollary of the growing urban scene, aggressive newspaper reporters, named muckrakers, emerged. The Progressive journalists multiplied as new styles of magazines appeared.

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