| Review | Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive era, 7.2

Book Reviews

Scholar-Activists and the Development of Civil Society during the Progressive Era

RECCHIUTI, JOHN LOUIS. Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. ix + 311 pp. Introduction, illustrations, appendix. $59.95 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-8122-3957-7.

New York City was the major national laboratory for social science reform during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As the country's largest and most vibrant city, it attracted a remarkable group of men and women who worked to make the world a better place. They represented a small, elite group of American intellectuals who were drawn to the city from across the nation. John L. Recchiuti, professor of history and director of American Studies at Mount Union College, Ohio, relates the story of this network of social activists and the reform organizations they created in Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City.

Peering out from the cover of Civic Engagement are a few members of this diverse community of scholar-activists. Heirs to the rapid industrial and social changes of the early twentieth century, they utilized the new discipline of the social sciences—economics, sociology, and statistics—to offer prescriptions for managing change. They were also adept at enlisting allies to their causes within government, business, and the local community. These modern crusaders included Florence Kelley of the National Consumers' League, Frances Perkins, who later headed the U.S. Department of Labor, economist Edwin R. A. Seligman, historian Charles Beard of Columbia University, and W. E. B. Du Bois and George Edmund Haynes, African American PhDs who championed civil rights through the NAACP and the National Urban League. Disparate in terms of class, race, and gender, they collectively sought an activist government that would "shield the weak from the exploitation by the strong, regulate the nation's new industrial economy, and advance racial equality" (1).

Inherent within the social-science movement to reform society, however, were certain "unresolved ambiguities." Recchiuti asks: Did helping others foster democracy or paternalism? Was social science an elitist enterprise or a "great democratizing force" accessible to all? Did scientists or the public know best? These competing tensions remained just under the surface during the Progressive Era, as social scientists sought to control public policy within a democratic political tradition.

Despite the unresolved debates of the time, a vast number of voluntary, issue-oriented organizations sought not only to critique society, but to reform it. The leaders, however, did not always agree on the meaning of their data or the ends they wanted to achieve. John W. Burgess of Columbia University asserted that a minimalist government combined with "the energies of a competitive market economy would yield the greatest liberty and promote the good society" (228). Others, such as James B. Reynolds, head resident at the University Settlement House, argued that an activist government best served the public interest. Recchiuti, however, argues that New York City's progressive community generally abandoned nineteenth-century laissez faire doctrines in favor of "middle-way economic, social, and political solutions" (229).

As a case study of Progressive Era reform, New York City provided the perfect laboratory for the study of civic engagement. Amid overcrowded tenements, unsanitary living conditions, and a powerful political machine, it was headquarters to the nation's principal reform organizations. It was also the largest point of entry for the nation's immigrant population, many of whom were desperately poor. Consequently, many of the tensions inherent in a modern, industrializing economy were magnified within the crucible of city life, providing the social scientists of the day with a "laboratory" for research, experimentation, and reform.

One of the strengths of the book is that the men and women of the social science network are placed within the social and intellectual currents of the time. Recchiuti examines "competing gospels" such as social Darwinism, Christian sociology, and democratic elitism and their impact on remaking longstanding social relations. He also effectively incorporates into his narrative the role of Enlightenment thought, racial attitudes, and economic status, which the scholar-activists used to challenge the concept of a fixed natural social order. If the book has any weakness it is that its emphasis on the role of the expert and the ideals of scientific management provides too limited an explanation for understanding the Progressive Era. While social scientists stressed rational planning and efficiency to end the inherent defects of capitalism, progressives were just as likely to be ordinary men and women who utilized every level of government to remake society. It was on their shoulders—as well as those of the experts—that the social policies of the New Deal, Fair Deal, New Frontier, and the Great Society stood.

Civic Engagement contains important lessons for the present as well. In view of today's shrinking levels of community involvement and social connectiveness, the progressives and their organizations provide an instructive model for twenty-first-century reformers. Furthermore, the paradox of democratic elitism, or social control, remains a central tension today in terms of providing educational access, economic opportunities, and political justice for all. Overall, Recchiuti has written an important book that will deepen understanding of a complex period in U.S. reform history. Students of the Progressive Era and those interested in the development of civil society will benefit from this thoughtful and well-researched book.


	Mary L. Kelley Lamar University

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