My political memory goes back to the 1960s. As a history major, my knowledge of US history is reasonably comprehensive, but I will admit that there are areas in which I am not as well read as I should be. Giving the matter a few minutes thought, I can only think of two times in our country's history that the populace was as divided as it is currently: the Civil War era, and the Vietnam War Era. Do you see present times as polarized as either of those two times? More polarized? Am I omitting a time period?

What about the period of time around the turn of the 20th century with all the violence associated with the labor movement? If my reading of history is correct, there was a great deal strife and a distinct possibility of class warfare.

Dwight

I don't think that the active labor movement ever represented half of the population, and I know the wealthy didn't. America was still very rural then; I don't think it was until the 1920s that half the population lived in urban areas, and the labor movement was more of an urban thing than rural. Note that the unions really didn't have national clout until the mid 1930s. In the instances I gave, at least one of the sides, and in the case of Vietnam and now, both sides are close to representing half of the people.

All that is not to say that there weren't serious class divisions at that time; there were. But most Americans either didn't know about the labor movement, or weren't involved and didn't care. Labor Day, first celebrated in the 1880s, was mostly a sop thrown to labor to stem the tide of socialism. Grover Cleveland had actually broken a strike (the Pullman Strike), and the government actively supported big business over labor unions, going so far as to provide police and the National Guard as strike-breakers. This practice went on, in varying degrees, until the 1930s.

What about in the early years when the parties were Federalist and anti-Federalist? Each side seemed to hold onto their own ideals of how the country should be like pretty strongly. Or was that not so much the populace and more just the politicians?

I could be wrong, Justin, but I don't think that the average citizen at that time really cared. Like you mention, it was more a concern about the politicians.

quote:

I could be wrong, Justin, but I don't think that the average citizen at that time really cared. Like you mention, it was more a concern about the politicians.

And DG should know, he was there.