ABSTRACT
Optimists in 1900 ignored the urban miseries of early industrialization, the attacks on African Americans and Asian Americans after Reconstruction and the new limitations placed on many women with the separation of paid work from home. There are, however, a number of reasons to speculate that the depth and range of optimism will not match that of the 19th century. The two biggest reasons to hypothesize a more muted diet of progressivism involve the new complexity of the world balance of power and the checkered experience of the 20th century itself. The decline of Western predominance does not prevent optimism of a more complex variety, optimism that extends to hope for various of the world's peoples amid new independence and greater opportunities for diverse cultural expressions. Enough vestigial optimism remains to prevent a clear American variant of fin de siecle. Western Europe, home of original fin de siecle, conditions are even less conducive to a mood of lassitude or anxiety.
