JIGSAW GENS
Aucto-Progressives — The Globalist Microgeneration
As the youngest Stowegressives and the oldest Missionaries, this cusp tangled with everyone from Confederates to Communists
Regardless of in which direction the political winds drift, American life has been forced to confront intersectional realities involving gender, race, sexuality, disability, religion, and socioeconomic class. During each new decade — hell, with each new calendar year! — this becomes more and more palpable across our cultural landscape.
Overall, this is a positive thing. At least, when done constructively, mindfully, and with thoughtful nuance.
But there’s one attribute that insists on being divisive in a way that none of those other attributes are — a person’s age.
Specifically, one’s generation (which is based on their calendar year of birth).
And it’s multidirectional. Americans become obsessed with “generations” for all the wrong reasons.
Hence, my “Jigsaw Gens” series — an ongoing anthological endeavor that tracks “generations” (as blandly as they can be defined) across the centuries. With the caveat some people’s generational identity can be amorphous or fluid.
For those of you who are passionate about teaching history to younger generations, please try to view this as an opportunity. Since “generations” are a human construct, they tell us more about the gatekeepers than they do about those who are being defined.
In this spirit, I’ve laid out a basic blueprint for 27 broad generational cohorts across the history of the United States:
Parliamentarians | Concentrics | Inflectors
Kingdomites | Cavaliers | Magnas
Glory Warriors | Lumineers | Enlightening Rods
Septennials | Liberty Lords | Goodpublicans
Madisonians | Unimpressionists | Transcendentals
Redeemers | Golden Renegades | Stowegressives
Missionaries | Hemingrebels | GI-Gens
Traditionalists | Baby Boomers | GenXers
Millennials | Zoomers | Alphas
If we accept my premise that main generations are categorized in broad-based ranges — it only makes sense to acknowledge the presence of “microgenerations.”
Forming a “cusp” between two adjacent larger generations, a microgeneration provides us with a “buffer zone” through which the youngest members of one generation can transition to connect with the oldest members of the next generation.
What were these “cuspers” viewing or experiencing, as revelatory moments, throughout their lifetimes? That’s exactly what I’m trying to explore, in this second phase of my “Jigsaw Gens” series.
Today, allow me to introduce you to a cusp of Americans who were born in the early- to -mid-1860s. I call them the Aucto-Progressives.
Who They Are
Aucto-Progressives were born approximately between 1862 to 1866 — give or take a couple of years on either end. They were born into a transitional period where the youngest Stowegressives and the oldest Missionaries (“Fly Kids”) entered the world. Born literally during (and in the immediate aftermath of) the American Civil War, they were teenagers during Reconstruction and the first half of the Gilded Age.
Once Aucto-Progressives reached adulthood, they were caught in a world preoccupied with Thomas Edison’s inventions, expanded American imperialism, augmented sports cultures, the rise of the automobile, and U.S. involvement in World War I. Accompanying these major developments was heightened activism on behalf of women as well as people with African, Indigenous, Latine, and Asian heritage.
I call Aucto-Progressives “the Globalist Microgeneration” because they were on the forefront of American intervention (and intrusion) into the affairs of virtually every continent throughout the world. Ties to Europe had never been severed — but the U.S. government expanded its reach into Asia, Oceania, Africa, Central America, and South America during the lifetimes of those on this cusp.
Aucto-Progressives aged into senior-citizen status across the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, and the beginning of the Cold War. They began being born a few years following the end of the Strauss/Howe-designated “Progressive Generation” — building on the wisdom of Americans from that 17-year period (hence the prefix of “Aucto-,” which means “increase” or “augmentation” in Latin).
Their Early Lives
Being the final microgenerational cusp to have any memories of America’s Civil War, the Aucto-Progressives saw reactions to President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination fresh in the minds of their elders. From their childhoods, they could recall the rise of the KKK, the first Jim Crow laws, baseball’s surging popularity, President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, and the advent of railway travel.
Grangers, women’s suffragists, racial desegregationists, and organized laborers kept alive the great American tradition of challenging the status quo. People followed the leads of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony — although these movements would inevitably split into smaller factions based on differing priorities or disagreements over what their approach should be.
As the Aucto-Progressives’ adolescence drew nearer, their cynicism would grow. The Great Chicago Fire, the Whiskey Ring Scandal, the Panic of 1873, Spain’s execution of the Virginius crew, Boss Tweed’s trial, and passage of the Comstock Act made this cohort fear what might be in store for them as adults. Benjamin Bristow, Victoria Woodhull, George H. Pendleton, John Sherman, Ferdinand Hayden, and Quanah Parker inspired ordinary people to call out inequity and suppression.
When They Came-of-Age
Beginning with Aucto-Progressives, American life expectancies turned a corner. Their average lifespans shot upward — into one’s forties rather than one’s thirties. This followed nearly a century-and-a-half of stagnancy and decreases in birth due to warfare. Once the Civil War had ended, most wars of the late-Nineteenth Century were localized where the U.S. federal government accosted Tribal Nations.
From coast to coast, these teens experienced a distinctly more exciting adolescence than their parents, grandparents, and older ancestors had. Baseball, railroads, oil wells, and Edison’s inventions (the light bulb and the telephone) accompanied the end of Reconstruction. The Wild West entered its final decades of significance, as Wild Bill Hickok, Jesse James, and the O.K. Corral fatalities all perished.
But, despite how they were maturing within the so-called Gilded Age, there was plenty of chaos and devastation witnessed by Aucto-Progressive teenagers. In 1876, Samuel Tilden was controversially denied a presidential victory by Congress. President James A. Garfield was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau. The Chinese Exclusion Act served as a precursor for future decades of white supremacy in U.S. immigration policy.
As the 1880s continued, Americans let themselves continue to be divided. At Rock Springs in Wyoming Territory, White miners attacked their Chinese counterparts in a violent riot. Over in Chicago, the Haymarket Riot found organized labor demonstrators and police officers coming to blows. President Grover Cleveland lost the 1888 Electoral College to Benjamin Harrison (despite Cleveland winning the popular vote). The Cherokee Strip was exploited from land runs by Boomers/89ers/Sooners. West-Central Pennsylvanians’ lives were destroyed due to the Johnstown Flood.
With an eight-hour workday becoming the norm, Aucto-Progressives moved from adolescence to young adulthood against a backdrop of vaudeville, boxing, wrestling, fencing, track & field, Coca-Cola, power lines, and the newly-erected Statue of Liberty and Washington Monument.
How They Shaped The World
Now tackling parenthood themselves, Aucto-Progressives increasingly struggled with providing for them…no matter how “gilded” this age was for the upper classes. The Sherman Antitrust Act attempted to promote competition by outlawing monopolies. But the Panic of 1893 ushered in another economic depression, giving way to the rise of populist figures. James S. Coxey and Eugene V. Debs became notorious leaders of such rabble-rousing. Meanwhile, a turn-of-the-century hurricane in Galveston reminded Americans how much damage Mother Nature’s whims can inflict upon livelihoods and property.
The Wounded Knee Massacre and 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson ruling drove Black and Indigenous Aucto-Progressives to keep fighting for liberation. Meanwhile, Ellis Island opened in New York City…and the Pledge of Allegiance opened a new chapter for American nationalism. The overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani and annexation of the Kingdom of Hawai’i extended white supremacist imperialism into the Pacific Ocean. Cubans sinking the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor triggered the Spanish-American War. The U.S. government went on to annex the Philippines, while President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Square Deal” and John Hay’s “Open Door” policy created an alliance between the U.S. and China.
When it came to accessing new luxuries and services, White Aucto-Progressives were clearly at an advantage compared to their BIPOC counterparts. Edison’s radio, strip motion picture film, and the kinetoscope (buoyed by the Nunn Brothers’ alternating current) changed the game on moving-image technology — culminating in the recorded 1894 Corbett/Courtney boxing match. This gave way to live performances, exhibitions, and matches. Although Carnegie Hall had opened and the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair had been a resounding success, there was more to come. Oscar Hammerstein piggybacked off of these opportunities by opening New York City’s Olympia Theatre.
Basketball, golf, football, long-distance running, and the Olympics exploded in popularity. Gold prospectors flocked to the Klondike. The first American-made automobiles were sold and driven. Underground subways, voting machines, and national parks became mainstays of daily life.
In their forties, Aucto-Progressives joined the rest of the country reeling from President William McKinley’s assassination by Leon Czolgosz. They grew excited over the addition of the Rose Bowl, the World Series, and the Indianapolis 500 to sports culture.
The Wright Brothers’ Kitty Hawk Flyer and C. Harold Wills’s Ford Model T brought us a revolution in transportation. Charles J. Bonaparte’s creation of the FBI (along with James Robert Mann’s crusade against human trafficking) planted new roots for principles of law & order. Both the San Francisco Earthquake and the fire at Manhattan’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory reminded Americans that disaster could strike at any moment.
Roosevelt acquired the Panama Canal on behalf of the United States — although it wouldn’t open for another eleven years (under President Woodrow Wilson). Organizers from Black communities mapped out blueprints for action via the Niagara Falls Conference and the NAACP being established. The U.S. government sought better diplomatic relations with Japan over emigration, desegregation, and territorial sovereignty. Angel Island opened in San Francisco Bay to facilitate Asian immigration into the United States.
1912 was a watershed year for Aucto-Progressives. Now preparing to become fiftysomethings, they recoiled in horror when the Titanic sank in April of that year. One month earlier, the Girl Scouts had been founded. That summer, former President Teddy Roosevelt mounted a third-party presidential candidacy that promoted expansions of Roosevelt’s “Square Deal” platform.
Women’s suffrage picked up speed due to the efforts of leaders from younger generations: Alice Paul, Jeannette Rankin, Edith Wilson, Anna Jarvis (herself an Aucto-Progressive), and countless Silent Sentinels. Finally, in 1920, women gained the right to vote, nationally, via the Nineteenth Amendment.
Reflecting America’s love of baseball, Aucto-Progressives were some of the sport’s earliest stars: Frank Grant, Dummy Hoy, Billy Sunday, Matt Kilroy, Bobby Lowe, Connie Mack, and “Parisian Bob” Caruthers. In the boxing ring, James J. Corbett and Jack McAuliffe stole the show.
The business world kept flourishing, with copious Aucto-Progressive entrepreneurs:
Henry Ford’s automobile empire.
A smaller automobile kingdom led by John Francis Dodge.
William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper juggernaut.
The circus culture boosted by Charles Ringling.
Samuel P. Bush starting his family’s dynasty through steel manufacturing.
Key leadership for Black bankers from Maggie Lena Walker.
Three Aucto-Progressive business giants — railroad executive John B. Thayer, mining & importation heir Benjamin Guggenheim, and real estate mogul John Jacob Astor IV — all died when the Titanic sank.
Aucto-Progressives had fueled additional U.S. Constitutional Amendments. They created a federal income tax (with the subsequent Underwood Tariff) and mandated that U.S. Senators be directly elected through statewide popular vote. Temperance activists amongst them brought about Prohibition and the Volstead Act.
Under their watch, implementation of new modern conveniences thrived: the assembly line, transcontinental phone calls, airmail services, live radio broadcasts, and Daylight Savings Time. Farmers gained access to federal land banks and National Farm Loan Associations.
Race relations continued to evolve. Devastating events such as The Birth of a Nation’s premiere, the lynching of Anthony Crawford (himself an Aucto-Progressive), and the Tulsa Race Massacre pushed Black families northward. Filipinos began to enter the U.S. once the Philippine-American War had ended. 1917’s Lansing-Ishii Agreement attempted to delicately balance American tensions with China and Japan. The worldwide Spanish Flu Epidemic stigmatized Americans with Latine heritage. Within three years, nativist doctrines protecting white supremacy had severely curbed immigration via the Emergency Quota Act.
Aucto-Progressives detected a retread of Gilded-Age corruption when Germans sank the British Lusitania and the Black Sox Scandal rocked the sports world. Ultimately, U.S. involvement in World War I (then referred to as “the Great War”) led to sectarian scapegoating of the Interbellum Period — with an emphasis on weeding out communists and socialists. Once America emerged from the two-year Mini-Depression of the early-1920s, people were ready to have some fun. Hence, the Roaring Twenties.
Only one U.S. President — Warren Harding — was an Aucto-Progressive. While this cusp generated three U.S. Supreme Court Justices (Charles Evans Hughes, George Sutherland, James Clark McReynolds), they didn’t have as many standout lawmakers compared to past (and future) microgenerations. Calvin Coolidge’s vice president, Charles Dawes, landed along their cusp — as did California governor Hiram Johnson.
Where Aucto-Progressives visibly excelled was producing so many revered writers and journalists: Nelly Bly, Edith Wharton, Ida B. Wells, Richard Harding Davis, Clyde Fitch, O. Henry, George Santayana, Ernest Thayer, Lincoln Steffens, Irving Babbitt, Frances Benjamin Johnston, and Edward Stratemeyer.
Auto-Progressives were integral participants in Black-led civil rights coalitions, with Mary Church Terrell, Homer Plessy, and Mary White Ovington amongst them. Within the league of women’s suffragists, this cusp gave us Marion Hamilton Carter, Sophonisba Breckinridge, and Mary Emma Woolley. The youngest Wild West outlaws came from this cohort — including Butch Cassidy and “Texas Jack.”
Inventors who straddled the Aucto-Progressive cusp boasted the likes of George Washington Carver (peanut processing), Charles Martin Hall (aluminum smelting), Herbert Henry Dow (bromine extraction), Leo Baekeland (synthetic plastic), and Charles Steinmetz (electrical hysteresis). Scientists from this cohort elevated astronomy (Annie Jump Cannon and Antonia Maury), geology (Florence Bascom), pulmonology (Susan La Flesche Picotte), neurology (Charles Horace Mayo), clinical medicine (William Sydney Thayer), and hematology (George Washington Crile). Clearly, women in science made noticeable strides as the changing of the centuries approached.
Notable Aucto-Progressive actors included Minnie Fiske, George C. Pearce, Harry Davenport, Black Elk, William Surrey Hart, John Bunny, and Eva Thatcher. Musicians from their microgeneration leaned heavily into ragtime (Arthur Franis Collins, Ernest Hogan), piano (Henry Holden Huss, Carrie Jacobs-Bond), ballads (Gussie Davis), and spiritual music (Harry Burleigh).
Their microgeneration’s conception of visual art covered everything from comic strips (Richard F. Outcault) to the Old West (Charles Marion Russell) to American realism (Robert Henri) to pictorial photography (Alfred Stieglitz) to typeface printing (Frederic Goudy).
This cohort ventured into their sixties during the era of flappers and speakeasies. Hollywood movies hit their stride even amidst newfound controversies: higher import taxes from the Fordney-McCumber Tariff, oligarchical hubris of the Teapot Dome Scandal, anti-evolution propaganda arising from the Scopes Monkey Trial, and the U.S. Virgin Islands becoming an American-occupied territory.
By the mid-1920s, U.S./China relations had been strengthened, even as colorism eclipsed immigration policy through the Johnson-Reed Act. For the first time, descendants of Indigenous tribes were granted U.S. citizenship; yet, the Dawes Act had taken a divide-and-conquer approach to assimilating Tribal Nations. Wyoming’s Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected as America’s first female governor in a special election to succeed her late-husband.
A milestone for American economic catastrophe was about to hit. But, in the leadup to that, Aucto-Progressives revered many emblems for Americana: the Lincoln Memorial (courtesy of Aucto-Progressive sculptor Henry Bacon), The Jazz Singer, Babe Ruth, Amelia Earhart, “Steamboat Willie,” The Spirit of St. Louis, the Grand Ole Opry, The Great Gatsby, and George Eastman’s color motion-picture technology.
Their Golden Years
For more than a decade leading up to America’s involvement in World War II, Aucto-Progressives had attained elder status. They coped with the Great Depression and the “Dust Bowl” — as the New Deal found its legs. In order to stimulate the economy, Prohibition was ended. But puritanical ideals got a second wind through the Hays Code.
Americans themselves were divided between isolationists (supporting the Neutrality Acts) and internationalists (who’d ultimately sway public opinion in their favor following 1941’s Pearl Harbor attack). Hattie Caraway was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. Six years after surviving an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Zangara, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave the first televised presidential broadcast from the World’s Fair. Jesse Owens proved how athletes could transition into activism with credibility and powerful voices.
During the three years of U.S. involvement with World War II, consumers received a preview of color television. Americans of Japanese descent were held captive in the desert for no other reason than their racial identity. The Congress of Racial Equality and the 1943 Detroit Race Riot reinforced the need for a soon-to-arrive Civil Rights Movement. After FDR died while in office, President Harry Truman ended World War II by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
As more and more Aucto-Progressives died out, they watched some major milestones in the post-WWII decade: establishment of the United Nations, the Nuremberg Trials, independence for the Philippines, the formation of NATO, the rise of Chinese Maoism, the Korean War, erection of the Berlin Wall, the execution of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, Brown v. the Board of Education, and the murder of Emmet Till.
Truman promoted his Committee on Civil Rights and the Marshall Plan, narrowly getting reelected in 1948 (and surviving an assassination attempt from Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola in 1950). However, he failed to pass his proposed “Fair Deal,” and declined to take a stronger stance against McCarthyism in the face of burgeoning Cold War hysteria. President Dwight Eisenhower would continue such a mentality by putting forth his “domino theory.”
Born at the dawn of Reconstruction, Aucto-Progressives had survived two World Wars and a global depression. Those of them who’d lived the longest took their last gasps as a variety of prominent cultural symbols arose: Area 51, the Polaroid camera, Jackie Robinson, The Catcher in the Rye, Selective Service, rock ‘n roll music, James Dean, military desegregation, the Peanuts comic strip, McDonald’s, Disneyland, and the polio vaccine. American television entered its first “Golden Age” featuring programs as renowned and celebrated as I Love Lucy, See It Now, and The Today Show.
From the Civil War to the Cold War, this Aucto-Progressive cusp dealt with a perpetually-divided nation perhaps more than any cohort that had come before them. Their skills at refereeing global conflict would construct templates upon which future generations have continued to build.
Here are 10 prominent Americans from the Aucto-Progressive cohort:
Members of the previous microgenerations were named…
Colonial Zygotes | Turnip Squeezers | Starving Timers
Long Climbers | Rumpus Rebels | Emerald Knights
Royal Raiders | Pre-Continentals | Bottled Beacons
Primordial Founders | Aucto-Septennials | Public Liberators
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