Progressive Era

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the United States, the Progressive Era was a period of reform which lasted from the 1890s to the 1920s.[1]

Progressives strongly opposed waste and corruption, seeking change in regard to workers' rights and protection of the ordinary citizen in general. Initially the movement was successful at local level, and then it progressed to state and gradually national.[2] The reformers (and their opponents) were predominantly members of the middle class. Most were well educated white Protestants who lived in the cities. Catholics, Jews and blacks had their own versions of the Progressive Movement, (some of them were more like responses to the movement than alternative versions) led by the likes of George Cardinal Mundelein and Booker T. Washington. The Progressives pushed for social justice, general equality and public safety, but there were contradictions within the movement, especially regarding race.[1]

Almost all major politicians declared their adherence to some progressive measure. In politics the most prominent national figures were the Republican politicians Theodore Roosevelt and Robert LaFollette, Sr. and Democratic politicians William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson.[3]


Contents

[edit] Criticism of Progressive Era achievements

The progressive philosophy and the Progressive Era actions taken by government have critics as well. The changes during this era that political figures (with the help of industry figures) implemented to bring about "progress" have affected (some believe negatively) the following areas: birthing and family, schooling, law, journalism, food production and distribution, and many other areas of life.

A few critics:

Murray Rothbard: (family[4])

Faith Gibson: (birthing[5])

John Taylor Gatto: (schooling[6])

Janice Rogers Brown: (law[7])

William L. Anderson: (journalism[8])

Gary D. Libecap: (food[9])

[edit] Issues at the federal level


[edit] Notable Progressive intellectuals, writers, advocates

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Overviews

  • Bailey, Thomas A.; Kennedy, David M. & Cohen, Lizabeth (1998), The American Pageant (11th ed.), Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0669397288 
  • 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] National politics

  • Howard K. Beale|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 covers 1901-1909
  • Mowry, George E. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. (2001).
  • Pestritto, R.J. "Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism." (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005).
  • Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers and the American State, 1877-1917 (1999).
  • Wilson, Joan Hoff. Herbert Hoover, Forgotten Progressive (1965).
  • Bert,Antwon. "Progressive action" (1998)

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

  • 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 (1997).
  • 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 (Harvard University Press; New Ed. 2000). stresses links with Europe
  • Rosenzweig, Roy. Eight Hours For What We Will: Workers & Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (1983).
  • 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 N.Y. 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