Progressive Era

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The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of reform which lasted from the 1890s to the 1920's.^[1]

Responding to the changes brought about by industrialization, ^[2] the Progressives advocated a wide range of economic, political, social, and moral reforms.^[3] Initially the movement was successful at local level, and then it progressed to state and gradually national. Both the reformers and their opponents were predominantly members of the middle class.

[edit] Political reform

Significant changes achieved at the national levels included the income tax with the Sixteenth Amendment, direct election of Senators with the Seventeenth Amendment, Prohibition with the Eighteenth Amendment, and women's suffrage through the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Muckrakers were journalists who exposed waste, corruption, and scandal in the highly influential new medium of national magazines, such as McClure's. Progressives shared a common belief in the ability of science, technology and disinterested expertise to identify problems and come up with the best solution.

Progressives moved to enable the citizenry to rule more directly and circumvent political bosses; California, Wisconsin, and Oregon took the lead.^[4] California governor Hiram Johnson established the initiative, referendum, and recall, viewing them as good influences for citizen participation against the historic influence of large corporations on state assembly.^[5] About 16 states began using primary elections. Many cities set up municipal reference bureaus to study the budgets and administrative structures of local governments. In Illinois, Governor Frank Lowden undertook a major reorganization of state government.^[6] In Wisconsin, the stronghold of Robert LaFollette, the Wisconsin Idea, used the state university as the source of ideas and expertise.^[7] Characteristics of progressivism included a favorable attitude toward urban-industrial society, belief in mankind's ability to improve the environment and conditions of life, belief in obligation to intervene in economic and social affairs, and a belief in the ability of experts and in efficiency of government intervention.

[edit] See also

• President Theodore Roosevelt (Republican, 1901-1909)
• Trust-busting
• Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)

[edit] Economic history

[edit] Progressive Era: 1890–1920

President Wilson uses tariff, currency, and anti-trust laws to prime the pump and get the economy working.

In the Gilded Age (late 19th century) the parties were reluctant to involve the federal government too heavily in the private sector, except in the area of railroads and tariffs. In general, they accepted the concept of laissez-faire, a doctrine opposing government interference in the economy except to maintain law and order. This attitude started to change during the depression of the 1890s when small business, farm, and labour movements began asking the government to intercede on their behalf.^[8]

By the turn of the century, a middle class had developed that was leery of both the business elite and the radical political movements of farmers and laborers in the Midwest and West. Known as Progressives, these people favored government regulation of business practices to, in their minds, ensure competition and free enterprise. Congress enacted a law regulating railroads in 1887 (the Interstate Commerce Act), and one preventing large firms from controlling a single industry in 1890 (the Sherman Antitrust Act). These laws were not rigorously enforced, however, until the years between 1900 and 1920, when Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), Democratic President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921), and others sympathetic to the views of the Progressives came to power. Many of today's U.S. regulatory agencies were created during these years, including the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Muckrakers were journalists who encouraged readers to demand more regulation of business. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) showed America the horrors of the Chicago Union Stock Yards, a giant complex of meat processing that developed in the 1870s. The federal government responded to Sinclair's book with the new regulatory Food and Drug Administration. Ida M. Tarbell wrote a series of articles against the Standard Oil monopoly. The series helped pave the way for the breakup of the monopoly.^[9]

When Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected President with a Democratic Congress in 1912 he implemented a series of progressive policies. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified, and the income tax was instituted in the United States. Wilson resolved the longstanding debates over tariffs and antitrust, and created the Federal Reserve, a complex business-government partnership that to this day dominates the financial world.

In 1913, Henry Ford, adopted the moving assembly line, with each worker doing one simple task in the production of automobiles. Taking his cue from developments during the progressive era, Ford offered a very generous wage—$5 a day—to his workers, arguing that a mass production enterprise could not survive if average workers could not buy the goods. However, the wage increase did not extend to women, and Ford expanded the company's Sociological Department to monitor his workers and ensure that they did not spend their new found bounty on "vice and cheap thrills."^[10]

[edit] Notable progressives

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Overviews

• Buenker, John D., John C. Burnham, and Robert M. Crunden. Progressivism (1986)
• Buenker, John D. and Joseph Buenker, Eds. Encyclopedia of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Sharpe Reference, 2005. xxxii + 1256 pp. in three volumes. ISBN 0-7656-8051-3. 900 articles by 200 scholars
• Buenker, John D. Dictionary of the Progressive Era (1980)
• Crunden, Robert M. Ministers of Reform: The Progressives' Achievement in American Civilization, 1889-1920 (1982)
• Diner, Steven J. A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era (1998)
• Glad, Paul W. "Progressives and the Business Culture of the 1920s," The Journal of American History, Vol. 53, No. 1. (Jun., 1966), pp. 75-89. in JSTOR
• Gould Lewis L. America in the Progressive Era, 1890-1914" (2000)
• Gould Lewis L. ed., The Progressive Era (1974)
• Hays, Samuel D. The Response to Help Me, 1885-1914 (1957),
• Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform (1954), Pulitzer Prize
• Jensen, Richard. "Democracy, Republicanism and Efficiency: The Values of American Politics, 1885-1930," in Byron Shafer and Anthony Badger, eds, Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775-2000 (U of Kansas Press, 2001) pp 149-180; online version
• Kennedy, David M. ed., Progressivism: The Critical Issues (1971), readings
• Lasch, Christopher. The True and Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics (1991)
• Leuchtenburg, William E. "Progressivism and Imperialism: The Progressive Movement and American Foreign Policy, 1898-1916," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 39, No. 3. (Dec., 1952), pp. 483-504. JSTOR
• Mann, Arthur. ed., The Progressive Era (1975), readings of women's suffrage (1999)
• McGerr, Michael. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920 (2003)
• Mowry, George. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900-1912. (1954) general survey of era; online
• Noggle, Burl. "The Twenties: A New Historiographical Frontier," The Journal of American History, Vol. 53, No. 2. (Sep., 1966), pp. 299-314. in JSTOR
• Pease, Otis, ed. The Progressive Years: The Spirit and Achievement of American Reform (1962), primary documents
• Thelen, David P. "Social Tensions and the Origins of Progressivism," Journal of American History 56 (1969), 323-341 online at JSTOR
• Wiebe, Robert. The Search For Order, 1877-1920 (1967).

[edit] Presidents and politics

• Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. (1956).
• Blum, John Morton. The Republican Roosevelt. (1954). Series of essays that examine how TR did politics
• Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001).
• Clements, Kendrick A. The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson (1992).
• Coletta, Paolo. The Presidency of William Howard Taft (1990).
• Cooper, John Milton The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983).
• Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1991).
• Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963).
• Harrison, Robert. Congress, Progressive Reform, and the New American State (2004).
• Hofstadter, Richard. The American Political Tradition (1948), ch. 8-9-10.
• Kolko, Gabriel. "The Triumph of Conservatism" (1963).
• Link, Arthur Stanley. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917 (1972).
• Morris, Edmund Theodore Rex. (2001), biography of T. Roosevelt covers 1901-1909
• Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001).
• Pestritto, R.J. "Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism." (2005).
• Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers and the American State, 1877-1917 (1999).
• Wilson, Joan Hoff. Herbert Hoover, Forgotten Progressive (1965).

[edit] State, local, ethnic, gender, business, labor, religion

• Abell, Aaron I. American Catholicism and Social Action: A Search for Social Justice, 1865-1950 (1960),
• Bruce, Kyle and Chris Nyland. "Scientific Management, Institutionalism, and Business Stabilization: 1903-1923" Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 35, 2001
• Buenker, John D. Urban Liberalism and Progressive Reform (1973).
• Buenker, John D. The Progressive Era, 1893-1914 (1998), in Wisconsin
• Feffer, Andrew. The Chicago Pragmatists and American Progressivism (1993).
• Frankel, Noralee and Nancy S. Dye, eds. Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era (1991).
• Hahn, Steven. A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003).
• Huthmacher, J. Joseph. "Urban Liberalism and the Age of Reform" Mississippi Valley Historical Review 49 (1962): 231-241, in JSTOR; emphasized urban, ethnic, working class support for reform
• Link, William A. The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930 (1992).
• Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The workplace, the state, and American labor activism, 1865-1925 (1987).
• Muncy, Robyn. Creating A Feminine Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 (1991).
• Lubove, Roy. The Progressives and the Slums: Tenement House Reform in New York City, 1890-1917 Greenwood Press: 1974.
• Recchiuti, John Louis. Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City (2007).
• Rodgers, Daniel T. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (2000). stresses links with Europe
• Stromquist, Shelton. Reinventing 'The People': The Progressive Movement, the Class Problem, and the Origins of Modern Liberalism, University of Illinois Press, 2006. ISBN 0-252-07269-3.
• Thelen, David. The New Citizenship, Origins of Progressivism in Wisconsin, 1885-1900 (1972).
• Wesser, Robert F. Charles Evans Hughes: politics and reform in New York, 1905-1910 (1967).
• Wiebe, Robert. "Business Disunity and the Progressive Movement, 1901-1914," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 44, No. 4. (Mar., 1958), pp. 664-685. in JSTOR