The Rush to Organize: Explaining Associational Formation in the United States, 1860s-1920s

Abstract

Americans long been a people given to organizing and joining voluntary membership associations. Associational growth started early in the nation's history, yet accelerated from the 1860s through the early 1900s. Many researchers argued that modernizing forces propelled associational development, but this seemingly obvious explanation has been challenged by scholars who stress the impact of the Civil War, government institutions, political processes, and preexisting social networks. Using a unique data set that tracks foundings of state-level units in major voluntary membership federations between the 1860s and 1920s, we test alternative hypotheses with the aid of event history methods. We find little support for modernization arguments, but document clear links to Union mobilization reinforced by northern victory in the Civil War. Electoral competitiveness and certain preexisting social networks also encouraged associations to form. Our findings suggest fresh leads for further research on civic engagement in American democracy. (A ssociations are created, extended, and worked in the United States more quickly and effectively than in any other country, declared British visitor Lord James Bryce in his 1895 masterpiece The American Commonwealth. The greater associations ramify over the country, he noted, and have great importance in the development of opinion, for they rouse attention, excite discussion, formulate principles, submit plans, embolden and stimulate their members... . (1895, 278-279). In locating much of the vitality of American democracy in the nation's rich profusion of voluntarily organized membership groups, Bryce echoed Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured the fledgling republic half a century earlier, and foreshadowed the arguments of leading twentieth-century scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. (1944), Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba (1963), and Robert D. Putnam (2000). Ironically, however, modern political scientists more often celebrated than studied classic voluntary associations. Research has concentrated on modern interest groups, especially business lobbies and professionally run, frequently memberless advocacy groups (for an overview of this literature, see Baumgartner and Leech 1998). Aiming not only to fill a glaring empirical gap, but also to advance a fresh conception of the forces that shaped the foundations of modern American civic life, this article analyzes the macro factors influencing the historical development of large, popularly rooted voluntary membership associations.