Civic organizations across America faded dramatically in the late twentieth century.
Evidence
The Charity League of Dallas had met every Friday morning for fifty-seven years to sew, knit, and visit, but on April 30, 1999, they held their last meeting; the average age of the group had risen to eighty, the last new member had joined two years earlier, and president Pat Dilbeck said ruefully, “I feel like this is a sinking ship.” Precisely three days later and 1,200 miles to the northeast, the Vassar alumnae of Washington, D.C., closed down their fifty-first— and last—annual book sale. Even though they aimed to sell more than one hundred thousand books to benefit college scholarships in the 1999 event, co-chair Alix Myerson explained, the volunteers who ran the program “are in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. They’re dying, and they’re not replaceable.” Meanwhile, as Tewksbury Memorial High School (TMHS), just north of Boston, opened in the fall of 1999, forty brand-new royal blue uniforms newly purchased for the marching band remained in storage, since only four students signed up to play. Roger Whittlesey, TMHS band director, recalled that twenty years earlier the band numbered more than eighty, but participation had waned ever since. Somehow in the last several decades of the twentieth century all these community groups and tens of thousands like them across America began to fade. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 22
Categorization
- XREF: Anchors the empirical baseline of Putnam’s social-capital decline thesis that this whole book documents. — connects to: American civil society vibrancy has notably declined over recent decades — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining…, 6; Different civic activities declined through different generational and society-wide mechanisms — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 915; American mass associations collapsed across the board in the 1980s-1990s — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization…, 93 (+12 more)
Broader Connections
- American civil society vibrancy has notably declined over recent decades
#corroborates(0.95) — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone, 6 - Different civic activities declined through different generational and society-wide mechanisms
#expands(0.85) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 915 - American mass associations collapsed across the board in the 1980s-1990s
#expands(0.85) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 93 - Generational succession explains roughly half of America’s civic decline since the 1970s
#expands(0.85) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 981 - Civic community thinning in America predated the commercial internet
#expands(0.85) - The civic decline’s roots predate sixties upheavals and divorce revolution
#expands(0.85) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 919 - Civic membership declines even as public agitation intensifies in America.
#expands(0.80) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 22 - By the late 1990s US participation and associational life had collapsed while parties converged
#corroborates(0.80) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 10 - Generational replacement, not work patterns or media, drove most of the civic decline
#expands(0.80) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 96 - American civic engagement rose for two-thirds of the century then sharply reversed.
#qualifies(0.80) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 68 - US group life collapsed in the 1970s even as issue variety grew
#corroborates(0.80) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 132 - At 1990s decline rates, American clubs faced extinction within twenty years
#expands(0.80) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 197 - Americans widely perceived community bonds weakening by the 1990s.
#corroborates(0.75) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 59 - America’s postwar civic engagement peaked despite widespread discrimination and inequality.
#qualifies(0.75) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 29 - Membership stagnates even though more Americans are positioned to join groups.
#qualifies(0.75) — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone, 50