Century of Difference: How America Changed in the Last One Hundred Years

Preface

PREFACE THE CONCERNS of the present, historians warn, often direct our views of the past. A couple of generations ago, in the middle of the twentieth century, learned observers worried thatAmerica had become a bland, uniform, conformist mass society; the specter of the Nuremberg rallies hovered in the background.They described an American history in which controlling and homogenizing forces from above—big government, big business, big media—had effaced local culture and individual distinctions. Otherdirected conformists had replaced enterprising individualists. In our time, the public warnings instead are about too much division and difference, about a society that is crumbling into economic, cultural, and political fragments .Unsurprisingly,then,our effort to understand the vast social changes Americans experienced between 1900 and 2000 focuses on difference and diversity. However, what we end up seeing and reporting in this book are not greater divisions—in some ways, divisions narrowed over the years— but, more important, new patterns of division. Drawing on a century’s worth of censuses and seven decades of surveys, we describe how Americans changed demographically, economically, and culturally.We attend in particular to how the attributes that shaped Americans ’ lives in 1900 became less important and other attributes became more important. Region, race, and gender divided Americans much less in 2000 than they did in 1900. Other lines of division, most notably level of educational attainment, came to shape Americans’ lives much more.America remained a divided society, but divided in modern ways.The critical dividing moments were less often birth and more often early adulthood—for example , gender less and graduation more. Also, divisions that touched on class tended to widen,while cultural differences,such as religion,nationality,and region, tended to narrow.Whether Americans form (or ought to form) a community of kindred souls or a nation of divergent groups has been under debate for generations. By drawing on these historical data, we hope to add some empirical material to the early twenty-first-century version of that discussion. This project took seven years of planning and execution.The Russell Sage Foundation provided continuing financial and intellectual support, from inviting our proposal for the research to its final publication.We especially thank Eric Wanner for his engagement with the project and us. Berkeley’s Survey Research Center and its data analysis and technical assistance staff also supported our work with local expertise, research facilities, and collegial environment.We are especially grateful to Director Henry Brady who always said “yes” whether we wanted to monopolize the conference room for a few days, use more staff time than we could pay for, or upgrade the computers with his money. The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series project of the University of Minnesota’s Population Center provided one hundred years of census data in easy-to-use formats. The Berkeley Sociology and Demography Departments offer an ideal environment for this kind of wide-ranging endeavor.We thank our colleagues who asked questions and offered suggestions at six colloquia where we presented draft chapters. And we took for granted and fully exploited the steady stream of unbelievable talent that flows through both graduate programs . First, we thank our collaborators and graduate student coauthors, Jon Stiles, Aliya Saperstein, Gretchen Stockmayer Donehower, and Jane Zavisca. Each was indispensable and instrumental to whatever success we have achieved.We also thank Christine Getz, Nancy Latham, Jenn Sherman, Stephanie Mudge, Melissa Wilde, Sara Nephew, Cid Martinez, Jianjun Zhang, Caroline Hanley, Emily Beller, and Shannon Gleeson for their assistance .They wrote detailed memos, crunched numbers, attended meetings, and enlivened the project in many ways. Colleagues at Berkeley and around the country gave us help and comments at various points. We thank Mark Chaves, Sheldon Danziger, Reynolds Farley, Leo Goodman, Andrew Greeley, Kristen Harknett, Arne Kalleberg, Michael Katz, Ron Lee, Rob Mare, Adrian Raftery, Steve Ruggles , Christine Schwartz, Chuck Tilly, and John Wilmoth for their suggestions and advice. Claude S. Fischer Michael Hout x Preface ...