Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919 (Paperback)

by Nell Irvin Painter (Author) "THE END of Reconstruction in 1877, tragic as it was for poor southern blacks, could only be termed anticlimactic..." (more)
Key Phrases: noteworthy prosperity, southwestern railroad system, southwestern strike, United States, New York, Knights of Labor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
"Fear of working-class violence," the author comments in the preface, "explains much of what has been called progressive reform." In this excellent illustrated survey of American labor radicalism and political reaction from the end of Reconstruction to the end of World War I, Painter concentrates largely on the struggle between "partisans of democracy" and "protectors of hierarchy" during a 42-year period when the country was evolving from an agrarian to an urban industrial society. Her major theme is the public's identification of organized labor with incendiary radicalism. She notes that the years of greatest unrest inspired ever more violent "red scares" during which the restoration of law and order meant using whoever could be defined as "reds" as the scapegoats. The author is a history professor at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
This book offers general readers and students a fresh introduction to the United States during the Gilded Age and the progressive era. Painter has relied on the latest biographies and monographs to write her descriptive synthesis. She gives attention to blacks, women, and immigrants as well as the industrial and political elite, combining social, economic, and political history. The author concludes that the strong pressures of the agricultural and industrial laborers forced the passage of progressive reforms in the early 20th century. Painter's narrative joins other worthwhile surveys of the era, e.g., S.D. Cashman's America in the Gilded Age ( LJ 12/15/83) and Ray Ginger's standard treatment Age of Excess (1975, rev. ed.). Joseph G. Dawson III, History Dept., Texas A&M Univ., College Station
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (April 17, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393305880
• ISBN-13: 978-0393305883
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #74,982 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars America's Greatest Hits, 1877-1919, April 2, 2000

By	William L. Grabow (Rutland, Vemont) - See all my reviews

Standing at Armageddon, by Nell Irvin Painter, covers American history from Reconstruction to the end of World War I, outlining American progress many fronts. At different times, it works as pieces of social, political, and economic history. Painter's attention to detail informs the reader with razor-sharp accuracy, but also at times provides too much information, revealing Painter's personal biases. In outlining this period of American history, Painter asserts that America was performing a tight-rope walk on the brink of destruction. America's omnipresent danger of collapse is portrayed through looks at social, economic, and political history, but the three are sometimes interconnected and some are presented more than others. In the mix, reform and inequality are paramount. Painter belabours the plight of women and blacks especially, devoting a chapter to each. Using many resources, Painter explores the aspects of social reform, including comprehensive reports of the working class, and the struggle for reform, this book is easily called social history, perhaps at the expense of political and economic history. Painter discusses the plight of women with especial detail, showing all sides of suffrage and oppression. Her female subjects range from Jane Addams to Emma Goldman, displaying convictions, goals, and accomplishments of each. Her thoughtfulness in this type of integration shows she has a flair for demonstrating societal matters. As a work of political history, SAA is fine. Important acts of legislation and politicians are not left out of the mix, and are integrated well with social aspects. With regard to legislation, no important bill is left out. The book nicely traces the rise and fall of the Civil Rights Act of 1975 and then follows up, discussing the "separate but equal" and Jim Crow laws that followed. Seamlessly, Painter follows up with the effects of said laws on society, furthering this book as a piece of social history. Economic history is present in this book, but is the servant of social and political history. For example, the bimetallism debates of the late 19th-century are explained with regards to society, such as farmers and rural citizens, and politics, such as the international effects of bimetallism, but the book does not speculate on bimetallism itself. The book also discusses economic factions such as the Greenbackers, but does so with regard to the groups themselves, instead of their economic principles. This book is not a work of economic history, but it does effectively integrate it with other subject matters. SAA covered a great many different topics within its time period, but concentrated most heavily on social history. Political history is also used, discussed, and mentioned. However, the economic history as a servant to the other two lessens its value as an independent topic, though it is nonetheless worthwhile. Though Painter tries mightily to cram a lot between the covers of this book, she doesn't spend as much time on some topics as one might expect. For example World War I is crammed into about 25 pages, whereas the 1890's depression, women's suffrage, and racial inequality are all discussed in more detail. This can be construed as a shortcoming, but considering the number of other books on World War I, and the relative scarcity of books combining information on suffrage, racial tension, and the 1890's depression, it is understandable. It is important that Painter's book is not a comprehensive report of 1877-1919, rather, a selection of various topics from that period. All subjects can be discussed in either more or less detail, and with only a few discrepancies, Painter strikes a nice balance. While reform is an omnipresent theme, especially in the era of SAR, Painter sometimes leaves gaps. Her treatment of the conservation movements of the early 20th century are interesting, but she leaves out looming subjects, including the Hetch-Hetchy debate. She also discusses strikes, but never puts them into perspective with eachother. That weakness is also evident in her handling of the topic of the International Workers of the World - it is often mentioned but little-discussed. However, the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union is revealed in great detail. Painter's feminine bias towards history, revealed in the way she attaches a feminine viewpoint to everything, is usually interesting, but rarely in perspective with larger issues. Perhaps the best thing about SAA is topic selection. While at certain moments they seem illogical and myopic (25 pages for WWI! ), they ultimately provide a clear view of SAA's time period and act as excellent intellectual springboards, informing you of a topic, telling you important details and piquing your curiosity should you choose to pursue a subject further. On any topic, SAA provides a fair idea of whatever the subject is, inasmuch as 30 or so pages will allow. Aside from that, there are no great shortcomings to SAR. As a whole, SAA is pretty optimistic. No matter what topic, one gets a sense of hope. Painter allows for a subjective look at history, although emphasizing the good over the bad. For instance, even the coverage of the depression of the 1890's quickly gives way to the hope and good fortune of "Coxey's Army," and sums up with the fact that Jacob Coxey died that the age of ninety-seven, completely vindicated. SAA is not a tragedy. It describes the hard times, scandals, and evils that accompanied this period, but never despairs for healthy resolution. SAA hopes for the best, and describes it. All in all, Standing at Armageddon is an impressive work. Tackling topics ranging from Bolshevism to the Spanish-American War is no small feat, and Painter succeeds. Aside from a few grievances (unequal coverage of topics, etc.,) SAA offers a sweeping view of 1877-1919 that is practically comprehensive. More information would make the book bulky and unwieldy, and less would be inadequate. Nell Irvin Painter should congratulate herself on writing a book deftly covering so much between covers that are so close together. In the end, Standing at Armageddon walks the same tight-rope that America did at the turn of the 20th century and rarely

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, dense and uncharted like the Nation itself, January 14, 2009

By	Herbert L Calhoun "paulocal" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book is written with a flair and urgency that is so fast moving one needs a rest after reading it. It is enervating in the extreme, and thus is not for the faint of heart. In short, this is a breathtakingly sweeping glimpse of U.S. foreign, domestic and social policies, leaving no stones unturned, at one of the most pivotal junctures in the history of the nation's development. In a rapidly moving if not razor-sharp, staccato-like fashion -- but yet surprisingly dense prose -- the author lives in her material, letting it all "hang out" and the reader feels and benefits from her verve and enthusiasm.

Although it covers legislative Bills quite well, it is long on critical details, but short on meaty explanations, specific policies decisions and motives. For the latter the author relies mostly on her own rather contrived explanation that America was on some kind of precipice, reluctant to lose its viginity. Yet despite this as her crowning organizing idea, coupled with the implied over-structure of Manifest Destiny, she seems to have had as a backup, mostly strategic comments by key officials, observers and commentators, and especially those of the landed gentry of the times. Except for this (and this actually is no small matter), the book is difficult to criticize. After reading it, one has a full understanding of from whence contemporary American attitudes across a broad range of issues, have come, even if one does not fully understand why.

On the point about explanations and motives, although it was somewhat annoying for the reader to be left hanging (with only the author's impressionistic assertion of a barely credible impending doom for the nation) to draw his own conclusions about the kinds of motives driving such momentous events as: colonial expansion into far off places such as the Philippines; its reasons for pressuring Cuba to liberate Cuban slaves yet continuing slavery in the U.S. and thus only placing Cuba under the further subjugation of a new set of American instead of Spanish colonial masters; why it took an avowedly backward turn in the aftermath of Reconstruction and with regard to women's sufferage -- deciding to leave the issue of race in the hands of the "wealth and intelligence of the South," and its general lack of a grand plan for its burning expansionist desire for more power, more markets, more class distinctions, more freedom for the business classes, more racial and sexual privileges for the white man, and more respect on the world stage. Altogether, this does not seem much like a nation on a precipice, but one lurching back and forth to find its place in the world?

Thus, somewhat in relief, the reader understands what happened even though he does not get even a hint from the author (beyond the barely credible appeal to Armageddon) as to why. At the end of the book, I had a hundred "why" questions.

For a country that up until the 1877-1919 time period, had been an isolated backwater of a nation, the reader basically gets to see how sausage of the nation-building variety is made in a vibrant, rural, racially tense culture seeking to modernize itself and to find its destiny on the world stage. Beyond the avowedly racist worldview of Manifest Destiny, there was little rhyme or reason for the nation's lurching from one self-made crisis to another. That is to say, until somehow, despite itself, it had evolved into a world power. To say that the U.S. was on the edge of an armageddon like implosion is to give more order to its willy-nilly development than perhaps it deserves. Pure and simply, it was hubris, chest-beating, racial, sexual and cultural hegemony, all the way down into the 20th century.

As an important afterthought, if nothing else, this book certainly helps the reader understand why it is that even though Bush I was a very different kind of political animal than his son, Bush Jr., each is a separate prototype of a strain of American history that can be mapped one-to-one back into earlier periods of our nation's evolution: The father represents the stability, single-mindedness and refined if not staid nature of the "landed class;" the son the buccaneer, rough and tumble wildcat cowboy nature of the frontier. Some good political and social history, here but not the best. Four stars

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good history of an ignored era, October 23, 2008

By	Mark bennett "Mark" (portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This is a good general history of a deliberately overlooked period in American history. It is an era of economic turmoil, the failure of reconstruction, social ferment and political corruption. This is mostly not a happy political era, but its an important era to understand in terms of the history of the country. The history of the period is especially important in terms to understanding the reality of American history and the fact that there was no golden age of business-led prosperty at any point in the past.

The only flaw of the book is its reach. 1919 is too far. The book should have stopped at the election of Teddy Roosevelt or even the spanish American war breaking out. The progressive era and the world war one era are too much for a book like this to cover. It would have been better with the scope cut back. But all in all a decent book of history.