Content Objectives
This unit is designed to take about two weeks, in the course of teaching both the Gilded Age and the Progressive era. Teachers should feel free to split it into its component parts, as it is designed to be used in just such a way. For instance, perhaps one would like to utilize the information and lesson ideas about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire over the course of a week at the end of teaching the Gilded Age, leading into the progressive era, and then some weeks later, when finishing with the Progressive Era, use the Battle of Blair Mountain as the capstone of that movement, flowing nicely into the economic tumult of the 1920’s.
A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America
The late 19th and early 20th centuries were in many ways defined by the Progressive movement. This phenomenon grew in response to the coupled excesses and privations of the Gilded Age, and sought to instill in both the lower and upper classes a sense of “Middle Class principles”[5]. To do so, progressive reformers sought to upraise the working classes to better themselves and better appreciate art and literature, and to reject their unwholesome pleasures in dens of alcohol and promiscuity. At the same time, the upper classes were to be shamed for their profligacy and wanton behavior, and for their reliance on family money over the traditional American values of hard work and moral fortitude. How then, was this movement ever to achieve success when striking out at seemingly all sides around it, making few friends in either. McGerr’s A Fierce Discontent traces the successes and failures of the movement through this period, and reveals that, while seemingly opposed to all parts of society save the middle class, the progressives nonetheless were capable of great appeal to those same parts as well, recruiting many of their most successful supporters from lower- and upper-class neighborhoods and families.
This disparate assortment of supporters of what seems to be a myopically focused social movement pairs well with a larger discussion of how resistance movements can successfully function and achieve buy in from a wider slice of society. For the working classes, the Progressives sought to present their movement as aspirational, and that by adhering to Progressive standards of behavior and social consciousness, working class people could better themselves and achieve more economic success, as well as a happier home life. As will become evident from later discussion, a resistance movement is doomed to very limited success if the working class is not brought onboard, whether by promising them increased socio-economic standing or, at the very least, the standing of their descendants.
Similarly, the upper classes in many cases felt moved to support the Progressives both as a defensive measure (going along with progressive ideas often seemed like the best way to avoid strikes and more violent forms of protest and resistance), and, in some cases, by a genuine desire to better the society which had allowed them to achieve their wealth and power. What this meant for the progressive movement was an influx of cash, and the power it brings with it, as well as the interest of the media, who were, then as now, much more likely to report on the doings and interests of the upper classes than the working or middle class. This illustrates the utility of the upper classes to a resistance. Now, of course, the upper classes are also most likely to be the targets of resistance, and so a wide acceptance of progressive or resistant ideas is unlikely, but a few powerful friends can be of great benefit to a growing resistance movement, for the reasons mentioned above.
The women of Hull House, in particular, serve as an excellent example of positive praxis by the upper classes. The establishment, founded in 1889 by Jane Addams, brought women of every social class together, encouraging sympathy from the upper to the lower classes, and a desire and example to better themselves from the lower towards the upper. It also created a recognition of the shared humanity of women who otherwise would have been very unlikely to meet in normal society. Gathering spaces such as this might also provide a good example to anyone wanting to recreate a progressive-like movement today. [6]
However, the progressive movement of the 20th century was also very different from the progressives of the modern day in some significant ways. Most obviously, they often supported segregation, believing that both white and black societies would be better served by being separated from one another, rather than integrating. Their reasons for this apparently backward viewpoint varied between speakers, but were primarily rooted in the since-disproved eugenics theories of the era, and the racial essentialism that it promoted. Even in this, undoubtedly a shameful mark on the movement of the period, some inspiration can be drawn from its basis in what was, at the time, a well-respected scientific theory to back up their political theories and positions. [7]
A Fierce Discontent, though written earlier in the 21st century, also invites some fascinating comparison with events in the modern era, as an era of economic and social conservatism could perhaps be giving way to a new surge of progressive momentum, as seen by recent victories by the Democratic Socialists of America in 2026. What can modern progressives learn from the victories and defeats of their predecessors, and what can modern conservatives learn to avoid the stunning series of defeats that led to the Roosevelts, New Deal, and Great Society? Though not addressed directly in the manuscript, such questions are invited by its parallels to the modern day in various ways.
Triangle: the Fire that Changed America
Of the two incidents which this course unit will explore, the first chronologically is the disastrous fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York City.
In 1911, New York had dealt with various unionization and work safety movements, and conditions were, generally speaking, much improved from the sweat shops and tenement factories of the Gilded Age. Many of the seamstresses and clothing manufacturers of the city were unionized, and a general strike in the industry some few years before had forced most every factory owner to recognize the garment makers’ union and meet several of its demands. Not all the workers’ demands had been met, however, and the owners of the Triangle Factory in particular were known to be highly resistant to any thought of giving any more ground to the union. [8]
So, on March 21st of that year, when a fire sprung up on the 8th floor of the building (of which the Shirtwaist factory occupied the top three floors, 8th-10th), a combination of insufficient safety measures in the city’s building code, locked doors, and poor workplace safety conditions led to what would become the deadliest disaster in New York City’s history until September 11, 2001. The rows of tables, covered in fabric and cloth, with bins stretching beneath them to hold scraps of the same were a perfect nest for any spark to grow and flourish. When what was probably a carelessly discarded cigar or cigarette caught one of the corner bins aflame, fiery scraps of fabric leapt and danced quickly to nearby tables, cracking and shattering the windows which surrounded the factory floor. Fortunately, most of the eighth floor workers were able to reach the doors to the stairs or the elevators. One of the doors to the stairs was locked, but a foreman, one of the heroes of the event for this and other reasons, unlocked it, meaning that casualties were very light on that floor. The flames took some time to reach the tenth floor, and though by the time they did the stairs to the street were impassible, the route to the roof of the building remained open, and the timely assistance of students taking classes at the next-door New York University were able to help the refugees flee to their building before the fire reached the roof.
Unfortunately, most of the inhabitants of the ninth floor were not so lucky. Reached first by the fire, which soon spread to envelope the stairs in both directions, workers on the ninth floor soon discovered, as fire enveloped the highly flammable room, that one of the exit doors was locked. Some reached the poorly built and rigged fire escape, which collapsed under their weight, dropping the bodies of twenty or more to the street below. Others, seeing the stairs impassible, and the only other exits collapsed or locked, threw themselves from the windows, hoping by some miracle to survive the nine story drop to the pavement below. None did. 146 people died that day, primarily girls and young women, many falling to their deaths or burning to death in full view of the horrified New Yorkers gathered around the building, but unable to help.[9]
The response to this event would ripple outward from New York City to impact the rest of the country, and then the world. The fire revealed the fact that fire and work safety protocols, where they existed at all, were entirely insufficient to the task of keeping Americans safe. From this realization sprang first new and improved building codes in New York City, then a greater concern for worker safety in general, culminating in the establishment, 20 years later, of the Bureau of Labor Standards, which would later be renamed as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, which today ensures safe working conditions for American workers, so that, hopefully, no disaster like the Triangle fire ever happens again. [10]
The Battle of Blair Mountain
Towards the end of what is considered the “Progressive Era”, and at the beginning of the Roaring 20’s, an event occurred which saw the largest use of force by Americans against other Americans outside of the Civil War.
The 1890’s saw a surge of unionization in the United States, most relevantly to our story amongst the mine workers of West Virginia. The United Mine Workers union, or UMW, was established in 1890 but struggled to gain and retain members in the highly controlled corporate mines of Appalachia. Workers who joined the union were most often summarily fired, and thereby deprived of their homes in company towns, or any way of making even the impoverished living of a coal miner. In 1920, the UMW set its sights on this last holdout in the industry, determined to turn these last mines into union shops.
In response, the mine owners hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. This agency were wellknown as violent strike breakers, and functioned less as private detectives, as we today understand them, and more as semi-legal hired muscle to intimidate and punish supporters of the union. In this they followed the tradition of the best-known private detective agency, the Pinkertons, who also have a long history of anti-labor practices.
On May 19th, 1920, a band of Baldwin-Felt heavies arrived in the town of Matewan, West Virginia, intent on evicting the families of union miners from their homes. After doing so, the detectives returned to town to board a train and leave. Before they could reach the train station, they were confronted by Police Chief Sid Hatfield (A relative of the Hatfields of “vs. McCoys” fame), a union supporter, who informed the agents that they were under arrest. The Baldwin-Felts men informed Hatfield that, in fact, it was they who had a warrant for his arrest. The situation swiftly devolved into a shootout, in which 10 men were killed, including the mayor of Matewan, Cabell Testerman, as well as the leaders of the Baldwin-Felts delegation, Lee and Albert Felts, brothers to one of the company co-owners. This event, the Matewan Massacre, became a rallying cry for the miners of West Virginia, and represented the first major setback the Baldwin-Felts agents had encountered. It also represents a somewhat rare event in labor history, in which local law enforcement came down unequivocally on the side of union workers against business owners.
Shortly thereafter, August 1, 1921, Hatfield was gunned down on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse by Baldwin-Felts agents. His body was returned to Malewan, incensing the miners, who armed themselves and began to patrol the town under arms. Logan County sheriff Don Chafin sent men to disarm and pacify the miners, but those men were themselves disarmed and arrested. Emboldened, the union miners began a plan to march on the town of Mingo, there to free imprisoned union members and organize the county, officially. To do so, however, would require them to cross through Logan County, across Blair Mountain, through the territory of Sheriff Chapin.
13,000 miners mustered and began to march, but Sheriff Chapin was undaunted, and raised a private army of 2,000 men, fortifying the mountain to resist the miners. After a few false starts, the Battle of Blair Mountain proper began on August 29th, with the anti-union forces heavily outnumbered, but enjoying the advantages of better positions and better weaponry, including several bombers seconded for reconnaissance from the US military. Both sides deployed gatling guns and machine guns against the other. On September 2, US military forces arrived, and the miners, many of whom were veterans, refused to fire upon them. As a result, the siege petered out, with miners hiding their weapons and returning home individually, or in small groups. 985 miners would be indicted for murder, treason, and other lesser charges, though sympathetic juries ensured that the majority were let off lightly or entirely. Nevertheless, the last miner imprisoned for the Battle of Blair Mountain was not released from prison until 1925.
This event, then, in many ways signaled the last hurrah of the Progressive Era leading into the corporate free-for-all of the 1920’s. West Virginia coal would not unionize fully until 1935, when Roosevelt’s New Deal sparked a resurgence of unionization across the nation.
The Battle of Blair Mountain does not, however, serve as a purely negative example, a failed resistance. Indeed, the bravery of the West Virginia Miners, and the awful conditions which they endured in their places of work, were widely spread across the working class, so that when the tides of public opinion and government once again turned in favor of the unions, many were willing and eager to join up, contributing to the surge in union membership in the 1930’s-1950’s. This, of course, helped pave the way for a golden American economy after the Great Depression and World War II, some of the advantages of which we are still enjoying (and in some cases trying to recreate) today.
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