History of Progressive Movement
Incidentally, one of the 20th century's most well-known progressives was a republican. But there is little irony in this, since Theodore Roosevelt earned the progressive badge for the values driving his politics, not the party affiliation backing his name. Among his numerous accomplishments as president (1901 to 1909), he allocated some 230,000,000 acres of federal land for national parks, nature reserves and public monuments; fought to regulate the power of corporations; dismantled corrupt trusts; backed labor unions, railroad regulation, food and drug reform; and advocated national health insurance. On the national level, the history of the progressive movement----an ethos that nurtured environmentalism, worker and voter rights, women's suffrage and a concept of social justice still with us today----begins with Roosevelt in the first decade of the 20th century.
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The Progressive Era
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Progressive reformers, however, had been active at the local and state levels since the end of the Civil War. With the advances of industrialization and the concentration of corporate power at the legislative level, corruption was rife between 1890 and 1920. In cities especially, progressives fought to improve public services, establish municipal ownership of public utilities, provide welfare for the poor, implement tenement housing codes and publicize corrupt, or ideologically discriminatory, dealings in local business, politics and public administration.
Muckraking
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Investigative journalists between 1890 and 1914 took an active part in exposing such corruptions of power. Muckrakers like Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Stevens and Upton Sinclair, all of whom wrote for wide circulation magazines such as "McClure's" and "Cosmopolitan," focused public attention on political malfeasance, urban poverty, abominable factory conditions for the working classes and unfair power-mongering of monopolizing trusts. Arguably, the zealous efforts of these writers led to major reforms across the country (see resources).
Wilson and the Prohibition Years
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Following the defeat of Roosevelt's bid for a third term under the Bull-Moose Party in 1912 (the first Progressive Party in the United States), progressivism receded from the national scene. Even while Woodrow Wilson stood for many progressive values (he introduced, for instance, antitrust legislation, child labor laws and the 8-hour workday), entrance in the first world war considerably tamped down the ethos of reform evident in the previous decade. In 1924, progressivism emerged nominally in the rather lackluster run of Robert M. La Follette Sr. on the Progressive Party's ticket. For better or worse, the one cultural issue progressives clung to throughout the perceived excesses of 1920s was Prohibition.
The New Deal
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In response to the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt's welfare reforms put in place a government that favored social insurance, labor rights, public works projects and governmental provisions for social services. Among the many recovery plans and acts passed were the FDIC in 1933 (which insured the money of bank depositors); the NRA in 1933 (which introduced minimum wage laws and the 40-hour workweek); the Civilian Conversation Corps in 1933 (which provided thousands of young men housing and work); the Works Projects Administration in 1935 (which employed nearly 4 million skilled workers and artists on public projects); and Social Security in 1935 (which offered compensation to the unemployed and retirees).
Progressive Education
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Progressivism reared its head in the field of education as well. In works like "Experience and Education" (1938), John Dewey and associates promoted learning as a means through which children could engage actively with the democratic process. Opposed to the more rigid pedagogy of merit-based achievement, intelligence testing and vocational placement that was gaining credence in the 1920s and 1930s, progressive educators stressed hands-on intelligence, a pedagogy centered on the student's artistic, emotional and creative capacities in a noncompetitive environment. As UVM's John Dewey Project notes, "Open classrooms, schools without walls, cooperative learning, multiage approaches, whole language, the social curriculum, experiential education and numerous forms of alternative schools all have important philosophical roots in progressive education."
The Great Society
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Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society reforms passed into law the most progressive legislation since FDR (much of which expanded proposals and ideas initially developed by John F. Kennedy). He pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to bar discrimination based on race and gender; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to eliminate restrictions on voting registration; the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 to launch programs like Head Start and Job Corps; the Social Security Act of 1965 to institute Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid (1966) for low-income families. Johnson also passed numerous bills to safeguard consumer protections, educational funding and environmental conservation.
Progressivism Today
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With the election of Barack Obama in 2008, and with the growing variety of grass-roots organizations nationwide, the progressive agenda continues its mission to bring about a safer, fairer, more humane society.
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