An Obituary For The Progressive Movement Analysis

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The Progressive Movement The progressive movement of the early 20th century has proved to be an intricately confounded conundrum for American historians. Who participated in this movement? What did it accomplish, or fail to accomplish? Was it a movement at all? These are all significant questions that historians have been grappling with for the last 60 years, thus creating a historical dialogue where in their different interpretations interact with each other. The most commonly known, and consequently most watered down, version of the progressive movement argues that this era was simply an effort by the middle class to cure many of the social and political ills of American society that had developed during the rapid industrial …show more content…

Filene makes the bold yet practical statement that, in reference to the progressive movement, when “research has produced less rather than more conclusions…historians are asking a false question.” His main goal thus is to prove that the progressive movement itself “never existed.” He begins his argument by defining the word “movement” as “a collectivity acting with some continuity to promote or resist a change in society.” By creating this fundamental framework Filene then breaks down the progressive movement into four basic dimensions: program, values, membership, and supporters. He first attacks the basic progressive ideology. He cites disunity in the suffrage movement, tensions in how to deal with big business (big government or “toryism”), and the conflicts between “middle of the road” and “uncompromising” progressives. In his appraisal of how discontinuous progressive’s values were Filene specifically addresses Hofstadter’s claim that “certain general tendencies, certain widespread beliefs, outweigh the particulars.” Hofstadter argued that the progressives were commonly marked by a belief in moralism and progress. Filene refutes the point by explaining that those two values existed amongst the population as a whole and thus do not in any way distinguish progressives from anybody else. Filene further states that a heterogeneous fragmentation within the basic belief system of the progressives also contributed to its clear lack of continuity. Next, Filene attacks the irregular membership patterns of the progressive movement. He does capitulate that Hofstadter was correct in his evaluation of the profile of the average progressive, who was described as a uniformly middle class WASP. But, along the same line that he attacked progressive values, Filene claims that “the progressives resembled their opponents in terms of

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