Progressivism

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Progressivism

The Progressive Movement in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century presented quite a situation for historians to conquer. At the turn of the twentieth century political questioning was the norm. Practically every historian that writes about this time period has a different opinion of what made up “Progressive Movement,” some even going so far to beg the question if it was actually a movement or if it was more of an “era.” The two are interchanged so often that they have in many ways come to mean the same thing although according to some they are distinctly different.

The four works, Richard Hofstadter's The Age of Reform, Peter Filene's "An Obituary for the Progressive Movement," Richard McCormick's "The Discovery that Business Corrupts Politics," Paula Baker's "The Domestication of Politics" all discuss the Progressive “time period” in varying degrees of depth. The four historians all wrote after the 1950’s when the age in question was clearly over. Richard Hofstadter’s book discussed all facets of the age from the mid to late 1800’s to the early and middle 1900’s he touches on the politics, the economics and the social and societal conditions of the age.

The Age of Reform, specifically, covers the time period from the 1870’s to the 1940’s. He includes populism, progressivism and the New Deal as main topics in his book and it is mainly biographical in nature. He discusses which groups attempted certain reforms and the part of the era it occurred during. He attempts to explain why they attempted when they did and the political atmosphere. He even notes the geographic locations of specific “pushes” in some cases. Hofstadter, like most historians agrees that reform is the defining feature of th...

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...gument that there was no actual “movement.” Anyone with a political affiliation or any interest in politics at the time championed one of the ideas of the progressives. The progressives were the people seeking reforms in all agencies and aspects of life. With the changing time and with the wavering leaders and growing uncertainty of the party politics everyone was attempting to change what they could. The time period between the mid nineteenth century and the mid twentieth century did not house the progressive movement, it was the progressive era.

Sources:

Richard Hofstadter's The Age of Reform

Peter Filene's "An Obituary for the Progressive Movement" (Article 1)

Richard McCormick's "The Discovery that Business Corrupts Politics" (Article 2)

Paula Baker's "The Domestication of Politics" (Article 3)

*all three articles were taken off of the database JSTOR

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