Aging in America - Lawrence R. Samuel

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shift in the social dynamics of age. “The authority of age began to be undermined, and at the same time the direction of age bias began to be reversed,” Fischer continued. The nation’s core values of democracy and independence had much to do with this leveling of a social hierarchy based on age, with economic class now the primary means of differentiation among Americans.11

      Through the nineteenth century, older Americans continued to lose social status as the cult of youth gained traction. “After the Civil War, new scientific and economic data and theories gradually undermined the comparatively favorable assessments of the aged’s worth,” wrote Achenbaum in Old Age in the New Land. Oldness in all forms was condemned in an increasingly modern society, and old people were considered a drag on the noble pursuit of progress. More people were living longer, making old age less special than it had been a century earlier. The heroes of the nineteenth century also tended to be young men filled with determination and energy, whether they were conquering the frontier, herding cattle, discovering gold, or fighting wars. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that old age homes became popular, a way to segregate people believed to be no longer capable of contributing to society. Forced retirement also became common in many occupations in the late part of the century, a reflection of Americans’ negative attitudes toward older people.12

      The “demotion” of older Americans became institutionalized in the twentieth century through a number of powerful forces that led to viewing older people these past hundred years or so primarily as a social problem. Gerontology emerged as a professional field about the time of World War I, with those involved in it dedicated to help solve the perceived challenges of the elderly.13 With older people generally no longer welcome in the workplace, the idea of providing pensions for them gained acceptance. At the same time, the average life span continued to increase, meaning there would be more years of retirement and more money required to pay old folks’ living expenses. The notion of saving for one’s later years had not yet caught on, and pension plans for both company employees and government workers remained rare. This changed between the world wars, however, as labor leaders and politicians led the way to provide support for older Americans, culminating in the Social Security Act of 1935.14

      In his 1991 book The New Aging, Fernando Torres-Gil of UCLA located the 1930s as the time in which attitudes toward older people began to become more negative than positive. Wisdom, and the simple act of exceeding longevity expectations, lost considerable worth during this decade, he argued, with a new kind of appreciation for values associated with youth. The 1920s had been a golden era for youth culture, of course, and the economic pressures of the Depression may have served to reward those exhibiting vitality and forward thinking. At the same time, older people were becoming increasingly defined as a segment of the population who were economically dependent on the government, a natural result of FDR’s New Deal policies, particularly the Social Security Act. Federally subsidized benefits were wonderful for many retirees, but they no doubt played a key role in creating the image of older Americans as unproductive people and a costly drain on society.15

      Aging became increasingly defined within the context of science and medicine after World War II, deepening the perception that getting old was not unlike contracting a disease, or at least warranting a well-deserved rest after one’s vital and productive years. The founding of AARP in 1958 was an important milestone in the history of aging in America, a result of the emergence of what was then considered a new life stage. “Retirement” was a reaction to what was commonly seen as the major social problem of older people in mid-century America, transforming what A. Barry Rand, current CEO of the organization, describes as a ‘“life in purgatory’ to a much desired destination.”16 While the creation of AARP was certainly a positive development from many respects, it could be argued that it also helped to brand older people as less than fully contributing members of society and more of a liability than an asset to the country.

      During the postwar era, Americans who were aged sixty-five or more increasingly became seen as a kind of special interest group separate from the rest of the population because of their “idleness” and dependence on government support. In his address to the White House Conference on Aging in 1961 (the first of a handful of such events held once a decade), Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel astutely captured the dilemma facing older Americans. In a society singing the praises of capitalism, he argued, the lives of those who were no longer working were considered meaningless, the reason why older people were often trivialized and belittled. “The moment the machine [for the making and spending of money] is out of order and beyond repair, one begins to feel like a ghost without a sense of reality,” he told the gathered audience, with retirement encouraging people to live “a pickled existence, preserved in brine with spices.” Despite the pleasures to be had in retirement, a life of leisure was seen as a wasted one in postwar America, contrary to the principles of free enterprise and upward mobility that so defined the times.17 That same year, Elaine Cumming and William E. Henry published Growing Old, which reinforced the idea that older people were no longer relevant. In fact, separating the elderly from the rest of society was mutually beneficial, according to their “disengagement theory,” making retirement a convenient mechanism to make them out of sight and mind.18 Some scholars, notably Robert Havighurst and Bernice Neugarten at the University of Chicago, strongly argued otherwise, however, maintaining that personality was a significantly more important variable in relative life satisfaction than level of engagement was.19

      Following the conference hosted by JFK, organizations dedicated to the interests of older people lobbied for more federal funding, leading to the Older Americans Act of 1965 under LBJ. Medicare and Medicaid programs began that same year, expanding the field of geriatric medicine and formalizing the aging “industry” that we have today. While the rise of gerontology and the various social policies put into place over the past one hundred years have unquestionably benefited older people financially and in terms of longevity, the deal that was made can be seen as a devil’s bargain. Both geriatric medicine (the treatment and prevention of disease in older persons) and gerontology (the study of the process of aging) helped to instill a negative view of older Americans by focusing on the problems of aging, transforming them into a group seen as requiring special care.20 “In our [twentieth] century, vastly improved medical and economic conditions for older people have been accompanied by cultural disenfranchisement,” wrote Thomas R. Cole in The Journey of Life, defining this marginalization as “a loss of meaning and vital social roles.” Since World War I, the later years of many if not most Americans have been “impoverished,” Cole believed, with an inverse relationship between the quantity and quality of the final third of life. Over time, old age became detached from the former, purposeful part of life, an epilogue to the main story.21

      Today, society generally views aging as a looming, sinister presence, threatening to bankrupt the national economy due to the anticipated health care costs of elderly baby boomers, and/or it spawns a generational war over how tax money should be spent. Their money, power, and influence notwithstanding, boomers are beginning to be considered unwanted guests as younger generations squeeze them out of the workplace and view them as socially over the hill. On an individual level, aging is typically ignored, with the prospect of physical and cognitive decline too painful to consider in our youth-obsessed culture. This book attempts to show how and why we got to this place, picking up the story in the mid-1960s when our current narrative of aging can be said to have begun.

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      Old in the Country of the Young

      America today faces a great paradox: It is an aging nation which worships the culture, values, and appearance of youth.

      —American Catholic Bishops, 1976

      In August 1976, just a month or so after the nation celebrated its bicentennial, the American Catholic bishops released a statement that revealed a key insight into one of the country’s most important issues. Rather than view aging as “an achievement and a natural stage of life with its own merits, wisdom, and beauty,” the religious organization’s statement read, Americans preferred to look to the

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