The Middle Class Burden

...Daniel Hudson Burnham's "Plan of Chicago" was the apotheosis of a century of moral reform based on the desire to recreate the homogeneity and orderly hierarchy of the rural village...

...Ultimately, claims Boyer, the reformer/scientist came to see the city not primarily as a "problem" but as a "civic ideal," an "agency of moral influence," potentially as sacred as the family...

...Despite the background material —describing the development of the urban population—the "city" remains an abstraction...

...That the middle class itself was becoming a salmagundi embracing parvenus, bankrupts and Philistines only added urgency to its self-conscious anxiety and desire to promote reform...

...His book is admittedly based on primary sources already familiar to social historians, as well as on a thorough review of the secondary literature...

...nevertheless, says Boyer, they "had more in common with the charity societies than either liked to admit...

...Squaring off against this "mighty theme," Paul Boyer, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, has produced a valuable study of America's "moral response" to the city...

...Those who battled the brothel and the saloon, and those who promoted better housing, parks and playgrounds, were alike in their deep concern with the moral climate of the city...

...Their programs, finally, were often couched in scientific terms that completed the secularization of the moral reform movement (prostitution, for example, was now considered a threat to "social hygiene" rather than to "social purity...

...Moreover, reform activity reflected "less the wish to control others than an impulse toward self-definition...

...There is, in addition, no discussion of the asylum, or of public schools, or of the criminal justice system...

...Paul Boyers' assessments are careful, subtle and informed...

...The depression of the 1890s prompted a new "moral awakening" in the reform movement...

...Because the various groups are treated in summary fashion as well, intramural conflicts that influenced the course of reform are glossed over...

...He demonstrates that they actually worked toward the same end—namely, to mold the urban masses in their own image...

...On the whole, though, this survey offers substantial insight into the self-appointed guardians who tried to resist the disorder that accompanied urbanization...

...Reviewed by Ernest H. Schell Department of History, Temple University America's cities have always seemed menacing, but never more so than during the 19th century when the growth of the major metropolitan centers began—fueled by rapid economic expansion and the influx of millions of immigrants...

...So the reformers channelled their evangelical spirit into a series of voluntary associations designed to " revive the power of shame through organized social disapproval...

...Both groups, influenced by the emerging social sciences, made elaborate statistical surveys of the poor and their neighborhoods—with the settlement people pursuing studies of the workplace as well...

...During the Jacksonian era, the principal achievement of the reformers was the creation of numerous tract societies and Sunday schools intended to restore the virtues of sobriety, economy, piety and—most significant—deference...

...Yet, Boyer suggests, such efforts were as important for the companionship and discipline they gave their participants as for the improvement brought to the lower class...

...Boyer argues in his last chapter, however, that by the 1930s the desire had died...

...But because he takes so many reformers on their own terms, the author neglects the overview —a systematic social and economic analysis...

...Boyer is most insightful in his careful comparison of these two schools...

...Friendly visitors," for instance, gave tenement dwellers advice in the name of friendship but in the cause of reform...

...The assumption that the roots of poverty were traceable to the poor themselves continued among charity movements into the Gilded Age...

...Confronted with masses of "foreigners"?many of whom were neither Anglo-Saxon nor Protestant, and most of whom were relatively poor—they rued the loss of a simpler, more homogeneous society and sought refuge from the increasing tumult in movements to establish " moral order...

...The Pre-Civil War period also saw the rise of two important nonsectarian groups—the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and the Children's Aid Society...

...Further, by attending solely to the organized reformers, the author pretty much ignores the sense of corporate social responsibility that arose during the Progressive era...

...Nor could the established city churches—sedate and exclusive—be relied on for aggressive aid in doing something about the intemperate, the improvident and the immoral...

...No longer intent on transforming the individual alone, organizations like Charles Parkhurst's New York City Vigilance League began to attack corrupt municipal governments and work for the election of candidates who would pass and enforce social legislation...

...Nevertheless, it offers a perceptive analysis of a long line of individuals and organizations who sought to curb drinking, gambling, prostitution, sexual immorality, Sabbath-breaking, and a host of other evils...

...The reformers found few allies among the politicians, whose power bases frequently consisted of the very immigrants they hoped to influence, and whom they therefore tended to regard as (in Emerson's words) a corrupt "parcel of demagogues...

...and they were akin in their obsession with statistics...

...Only the Salvation Army managed to carry out a successful evangelical crusade through its notably practical program...

...Middle-class Americans were particularly frightened by the onset of the urban revolution...

...The book suffers from other gaps as well...

...These offered to assist the poverty-stricken while urging them to overcome the moral deficiencies considered to be the cause of their condition...

...As an analysis of the moral reform impulse, Boyer's study is rich, judicious and authoritative...

...Now, the greatest danger to urban life was considered to be loss of individuality, not ethical deviance...

...Both were decidedly secular, too, reflecting the failure of the Protestant establishment to reach the immigrant poor, whether through urban revivalism, city missions, or the so-called inCOMING NEXT DAPHNE MERKIN PAUL BRESLIN ABRAHAM BRUMBERG REUVEN FRANK MARTIN GARDNER WALTER GOODMAN RICHARD HANSER ISA KAPP PETER KENEZ RUTH MATHEWSON PHOEBE PETTINGELL WILLIAM H PRITCHARD STEVEN WEISMAN GEORGE WOODCOCK May 7, 1979 19 stitutional church...

...Other aspects of the evolving social and civic order, such as the rise of organized sports—which directly bears on the subject—are similarly left untouched...

...Boyer does not clearly distinguish among cities in analyzing reforms, nor does he identify the variations between movements in the larger and older urban centers and those in the newer ones...

...Specifically, his study would have benefited from a broader assessment of middle-class behavior—laissez-faire business practices, increased social and geographical mobility, and the general secularization and commercialization of society...

...His compact, reliable volume is the most comprehensive review we have of the struggle for moral reform in urban America...

...Professional city planners attempted to translate this vision of the metropolis into a harmonious place that would insure an equally harmonious social order...

...Though often financed by the elite, these were mostly composed of middle-class volunteers who had originally focused their energies on eliminating a specific evil, but by degrees had widened their concerns...

...This era also marked the beginning of a split in the ranks of the reformers —between those who advocated repressive measures to rid the city of its evils, and those who hoped to eliminate blight and squalor by altering the physical environment...

...The heterogeneity of the city became accepted as a positive feature...

...they self-righteously assumed the authority to intervene for the common good...

...The settlement houses that sprang up were less openly manipulative...