Rogers M. Smith, The Civic Order of Progressive America: The Fitter Families Ideal and the Acquisition and Loss of U.S. Citizenship, 4 J. AM. CONST. HIST. 305 (2026).
In the first third of the twentieth century, American leaders affili-ated with both political parties and the broader Progressive movement restructured what I term the nation’s “legal civic order” to advance a Fitter Families ideal of American citizenship. The model American family was industrious and prosperous, conventionally religious, patri-otic, patriarchal, white, and prolifically fecund. This article analyzes American legislation and executive policies governing immigration, naturalization, denaturalization, and expatriation in the Progressive era to show how comprehensively they expressed this ideal, despite appar-ent anomalies. National policies sought to exclude persons thought incapable of conforming to Fitter Families standards and to subject In-digenous Americans, inhabitants of the insular territories, and most people of color in America to what Progressives viewed as beneficial “tutelary” forms of second-class citizenship designed to prepare them to approximate the Fitter Families ideal, if they proved capable of doing so. Some on the left of the Progressive movement joined in coalitions with representatives of allegedly “unfit” communities to contest these policies, but substantial changes would not come until succeeding eras in America’s civic development.
