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Review
| The Progressive Era and Race: Reaction and Reform, 1900–1917, by David W. Southern. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 2005. 239 pages. $15.95, paper.
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| This overview, written by David W. Southern, is a wonderful addition to Harlan Davidson's American History Series because it provides the reader with both valuable factual data and important bibliographical information about blacks in the beginning of the 20th century. It was a time of hope and experimentation, but one during which racist attitudes about blacks solidified and real conditions for blacks worsened: discriminatory laws increased, economic opportunity declined, and lynching remained an all too common occurrence. Southern argues that "race was the major blind spot of the progressives" (p. 2) and judged by race, the period should be called the "regressive" era. While the book holds an unfortunate and misleading title—there is very little mention of non-black racial groups and so the book is not in actuality a discussion about race in its wider form—this reviewer nevertheless recommends it to teachers and students. |
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Southern has divided his book into five chapters. In his first chapter he explains reconstruction after the Civil War and concludes that it failed to help blacks in their quest for equality because of racism and political realities. He next discusses progressivism and how emerging fields such as eugenics influenced it. He exposes the racial views of some leading progressives and shows that it is not at all surprising that these leaders expended little effort on behalf of blacks. In chapter three, Southern discusses progressivism in the South, where ninety percent of blacks still lived in 1900. Southern explains that southern progressivism consisted of both agrarians or post-Populists and urban elites. These groups, like northern progressives, felt strongly about an active government that would, among other things, regulate big business. He argues, however, that southern progressives contrasted with northern progressives in the vehemence of their quest for prohibition and their lack of strong support for social justice, labor unions, and women's suffrage. Southern progressives were even able to convince northerners of their way of thinking about blacks, forming a "national consensus for Jim Crow" (93). In chapter four, Southern details how the national institutions—the presidency, Congress, Supreme Court, labor unions, political parties, science, and religion—all were complicit in this decline in conditions and status of blacks in America. Southern spends his final chapter on the divisions among black intellectuals during this same period, especially the feud between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. He points out that while these men and the work of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People laid the foundation for a later civil rights movement, their feuding robbed them of the power to make conditions better for blacks during the progressive era. |
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Southern intersperses the details about blacks in this period with historiographical information. He does this both by using examples of how historian's interpretations of this period changed over time as well as by pointing out current disagreements over what this information means to us today. For example, historians' estimations of Booker T. Washington have varied greatly. Most often viewed as an accommodationist, recent research has revealed that Washington secretly fought Jim Crow laws and tried to regain the franchise. In addition, Southern includes a nearly thirty-page bibliographical essay at the end of the book. Just this essay is invaluable to graduate students and teachers but the entire book is useful for a number of reasons. Teachers can obtain lecture and background material but they can also assign the book for a class in African American history, the progressive era, or 20th century America. While Southern does not incorporate research about Native Americans and immigrant groups into his discussions, the book is a fine addition to the series. |
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| Cottey College |
Angela Firkus |
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