The 1890’s: A Decade of Creation and Strife

The decade of the 1890’s in the United States was one of innovation and strife. The innovations involved many facets of life in America: industry, politics, economy, and society as a whole. The decade saw the emergence of multi-millionaires like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan, the rise in power of organized labor, the Progressive movement, and the expansion westward. It was also a time of unrest in America, pitting unions against corporations and reformers against corrupt politicians. All of this and more is what H.W. Brands tries to make sense of in his book, The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890's.

In the book’s prologue, Brands sets the stage for the rest of the story. In it, he makes comparisons between the 1890’s and the 1990’s and does so convincingly, comparing the lawlessness of Chicago in the 1890’s to that of Los Angeles in the 1990’s, or comparing Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker with former Washington D.C. mayor Marion Barry, both of whom being Populist heroes who rose to positions of power despite of the obviousness of their corruption. It is within these comparisons that the reader can draw on some of Brands’ conclusions: that the end of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw Populist movements gain traction, (the Progressives in the 1890’s and the conservative movement in the 1990’s,) that both those who saw America in a state of decline and those thought the country had the potential to be prosperous during these time periods were right, and that, in the end, America had and still has a resilience that can steer the country through a great deal of adversity and still come out on top.

The story begins in Oklahoma City in 1893 and details the land-rushing exploits of Fred Sutton as h...

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...lippines as part of the armistice with Spain.

The conclusion of The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890's that one can take is that H.W. Brands got it right. America was and is often what Americans believe it to be. It is in a state of decline and it is prosperous. It has been a battleground between populist reformers and greedy, corrupt politicians. It has seen labor unions and massive industries lock horns and pitch ferocious battles over wages, eight hour workdays, and working conditions. The country has fought over foreign lands and even against its own people. It has seen advances in technology and industry never seen anywhere else in the world, and it has dealt with near economic ruin. The United States has been through stratospheric highs and epic lows, and yet it continues to move forward. That was H.W. Brands’ message in this book, and he got it right.