The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam

Roughly speaking, the top 1 percent’s share of national income nearly doubled from less than 10 percent in 1870 to approaching 20 percent in 1913.25 Inequalities in income, wealth, and status were vast and seemed destined to grow in perpetuity. What followed instead was a surprisingly durable turn toward a halcyon period of roughly six decades during which economic inequalities were substantially reduced—what economic historians call the “Great Leveling” or “Great Convergence.”26 Dating this period is not an exact science, but the most recent and widely accepted account of US economic history, by Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson, dates it from roughly 1913 to roughly 1970.27