The Radical Middle Class

Populist Democracy and the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, Oregon

Robert D. Johnston

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780691126005, 9780691096681
• eBook ISBN: 9781400849529
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

America has a long tradition of middle-class radicalism, albeit one that intellectual orthodoxy has tended to obscure. The Radical Middle Class seeks to uncover the democratic, populist, and even anticapitalist legacy of the middle class. By examining in particular the independent small business sector or petite bourgeoisie, using Progressive Era Portland, Oregon, as a case study, Robert Johnston shows that class still matters in America. But it matters only if the politics and culture of the leading player in affairs of class, the middle class, is dramatically reconceived.


This book is a powerful combination of intellectual, business, labor, medical, and, above all, political history. Its author also humanizes the middle class by describing the lives of four small business owners: Harry Lane, Will Daly, William U'Ren, and Lora Little. Lane was Portland's reform mayor before becoming one of only six senators to vote against U.S. entry into World War I. Daly was Oregon's most prominent labor leader and a onetime Socialist. U'Ren was the national architect of the direct democracy movement. Little was a leading antivaccinationist.



The Radical Middle Class further explores the Portland Ku Klux Klan and concludes with a national overview of the American middle class from the Progressive Era to the present. With its engaging narrative, conceptual richness, and daring argumentation, it will be welcomed by all who understand that reexamining the middle class can yield not only better scholarship but firmer grounds for democratic hope.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of Illustrations and Maps
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• PART I. REHABILITATING THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS
• PART II. THE POPULIST POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PROGRESSIVE ERA PORTLAND
• PART III. “THE MOST COMPLETE DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD”: THE POPULIST RADICALISM OF DIRECT DEMOCRACY
• PART IV. A POPULISM OF THE BODY: THE RATIONALITY AND RADICALISM OF ANTIVACCINATIONISM
• PART V. THE USES OF POPULISM AFTER PROGRESSIVISM: THE 1922 SCHOOL BILL AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE KU KLUX KLAN
• PART VI. CONCLUSION: POPULISM, CAPITALISM, AND THE POLITICS OF THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS
• Appendix 1. Tables
• Appendix 2. Map, Voter Registration Density by Precinct, 1916
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Index