Progressivism, a loosely defined movement for social, political, and economic reform, gained political power and prestige during the first two decades of the 20th century. Progressives had a range of separate, even contradictory goals, which ranged from Prohibition, immigration restriction, and the eradication of CHIFD FABor to a complete overhaul of the political and social system. To add to its complexity, the umbrella of progressive reform sheltered conflicting ideologies used by men and women to justify their actions. Generally, they embraced new ideas of social justice and social order, but there were tendencies that united the group. Progressives focused on reforming America’s political, social, economic, and moral landscape. They had a seemingly unending faith in progress and believed that, through rational development, they could foster a society of unlimited potential.
The degree to which Progressives believed in participatory democracy is unclear. Some sought to empower those on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. While many believed in defending members of society whom they considered powerless and in need of support, few progressives challenged fundamental tenets of the capitalistic system. They sought to work within the system to create a more socially cohesive, rational, and just society. For some, their activism was a way to defend and improve the system. For others it was a way to uplift the downtrodden and provide social justice.
Progressive reformers championed democracy as more than an ideal political system. They believed that devotion to the tenets of democratic life produced desirable economic and social effects as well. As a result, they sought to promote their vision of democracy both at home and abroad. At home, they sought to reform the political system and sponsored political checks and balances such as initiative, referendum, and recall. They also called for the secret ballot, the direct efection of senators, and the direct primary. To further spread democracy, progressives supported the enfranchisement of women. These, along with hundreds of smaller measures, helped to revolutionize democracy at home. Progressives advocated the spread of democracy throughout the world, which culminated in WooDROW Wilson’s Fourteen Points during peace negotiations after World War I.
While few progressives dreamed of challenging the capitalistic system, many sought to make American capitalism more just and less costly in human terms. In an attempt to challenge the increasing power of the corporations, they sponsored legislation such as the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act. Through these laws and other like measures, progressives sought to challenge the power of the large corporations. For the most part, however, these legislative acts did little to challenge the corporations’ grasp on the political and economic reins of the American system. They often supported the status quo. Other forms of regulation such as the Federal Trade Commission Act were adopted in an effort to stem what was viewed as the uncontrollable growth of capitalistic enterprises.
As one wing of progressivism sought to regulate capitalist competition, another sought to develop the capitalistic model even more fully. Efficiency was the watchword. Progressives championed increased rationalization, and managers emerged to rationalize business and industry through scientieic management. Rationalization did not end at the corporation. Even cities underwent the transformation. In urban REEorm efforts, managers took on many of the roles that were previously reserved for elected officials. New laws that increased residency requirements for voting and instituted new election laws promoted selective democracy.
No aspect of the Progressive movement was more salient than the search for social order. Prohibition, which called for a ban on the production and sale of alcohol, was the grandest of the Progressives’ attempts at ushering in an era of social harmony. Prohibitionists were convinced that if they could stem the flow of alcoholic spirits, they could promote a society with unlimited potential. They believed that an amendment that made the production and distribution of alcoholic beverages illegal would eliminate pain, suffering, and poverty. In another attempt to eliminate urban poverty, progressives promoted public projects such as settlement houses, which integrated new social reforms in urban immigrant neighborhoods. Settlement workers were pioneers in developing new techniques of social work and proposed new programs to benefit the poor, such as mothers’ pensions and worker’s compensation.
Progressive reform was furthered through a new type of journalism. Professional journalists, known as muck-rakers, wrote exposes of social problems. They were nicknamed muckrakers due to their propensity to rake up the economic, political, and social muck that others chose to ignore. Jacob Riis began as a photojournalist in New
York. It was there that he first witnessed the torments of the city. Riis’s exposes told the story of “How the Other Half Lives.” Riis was one of the most renowned, but he was far from the only muckraker of the era. Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steeeens, Ida Tarbell, and others kept the social inadequacies of American urban life at the forefront of newspapers.
Progressivism had its darker side. In the search for social order, many turned to reforms that would restrict access to political rights, narrowly define citizenship, and regulate private behavior. Advocates of immigration reform helped write and pass such laws as the Immigration Act oe 1917, the Quota Act of 1921, and the National Origins Act of 1924, which greatly restricted the entry of new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. In seeking to rationalize American citizenship, Progressives implemented their own racial, ethnic, and gendered views of what constituted true American democracy.
Progressivism developed into a full-blown political movement. The first Progressive Party, known as the Bull Moose Party, was founded after a bitter fight for the Republican presidential nomination between the more moderate incumbent, President William H. Taet, and Theodore Roosevelt. At the Republican convention in June 1912, the nomination went to Taft. Unable to accept Taft’s conservatism, Roosevelt helped to form the Progressive Party, which nominated him for president and the California governor Hiram W. Johnson for vice president. Throughout the 1912 election, the tensions and divisions present in progressivism surfaced between Wilson’s New Freedom and Roosevelt’s New Nationalism. While the Progressive Party garnered more support than the Republicans in the election, the end result was a victory for the Democratic Party’s candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson’s election marked a shift to a new visibility for progressive reform. He came to embody many of the ideals of the Progressives. He called for a country and a world that was “Safe for Democracy.” In 1924 a liberal coalition, frustrated with conservatives in both major parties, formed the League for Progressive Political Action, also called the Progressive Party. The party nominated Senator Robert La Follette for president and Montana Democratic senator Burton K. Wheeler for vice president. The party drew considerable support from left-wing progressives, socialists, and Farmer-Labor advocates. Many of its most committed members were socialists. They argued for government ownership of public utilities and labor reforms such as the right to collective bargaining. Calvin Coolidge overwhelmingly defeated La Follette, who polled a respectable 4.8 million votes; he captured about 16.5 percent of the total ballots cast and 13 electoral votes.
This campaign was the final hurrah of the progressive movement. With the disenchantment that followed World
War I and the deficiencies in social policies such as Prohibition, many Americans abandoned the crusading ideals of progressivism. But its legacy lived on in the careers of progressive reformers and in the New Deal, which brought about many of the reforms progressives had sought.
See also Addams, Jane; criminal justice; education; Kelley, Florence; specific reforms.
Further reading: Alan Dawley, Struggles for Social Justice: Social Responsibility and the Liberal State (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991); Arthur S. Link and Richard L. McCormick, Progressivism (Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1983); A. D. Shannon, ed., Progressivism and Postwar Disillusion-rnent, 1898-1928 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966).
—Steve Freund
World History
