A Brief Overview of Chapter 18 in Give Me Liberty, by Eric Foner
The focus of this chapter is Progressivism — America’s first nation-wide reform movement. What lessons can the Progressives teach us? Is reform truly reform just because one groups calls it so? As Socrates would say — “Define your terms.”
The Progressive period (1890-1917) is heralded as a time when economic and political freedoms expanded for many. For others, freedom contracted.
Foner starts the chapter by discussing the tragic 1911 fire at the TriangleShirtwaistCompany. This event demonstrated the prevailing feeling in America that the government should be more responsible for the well-being of the people. Did it indicate something more?
Foner next examines the trend of growing urbanization and immigration, the muckrakers’ responses to these forces, and the emergence of a consumer society that brought a new meaning to freedom — consumer freedom.
At the turn of the century, a group of hard-hitting crusading journalists examined what they considered the evils of the day, and, in periodicals like McClure’s Magazine, which featured articles such as this recording of Standard Oil’s predatory pricing tactics and political corruption in Minneapolis. Theodore Roosevelt tagged such writers “muckrakers” after John Bunyan’s man with a muckrake, who raked up “filth.” These exposés led to social and economic reforms during the Progressive Era.
Do we still have muckraking journalists today? Who? Where?
To read an excerpt from Ida Tarbell’s famous history of Standard Oil, click HERE (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm140.html).
With the growth of the consumer market, the power of the everyday buyer of goods was not far behind. As industry continued to flourish through Fordism and the principles of scientific management, the promise of abundance encouraged workers to fight for higher wages. With the Haymarket Affair, we saw an earlier chapter in this continuing battle for control of the workplace.
Freedom’s many meanings are explored next, looking specifically at the Socialist Party, labor unions such as the AFL and IndustrialWorkers of the World (IWW or Wobblies), and civil liberties. John Mitchell, the head of the United MineWorkers, discussed the “Workingman’s Conception of Industrial Liberty” in Voices of Freedom while Charlotte Perkins Gilman, representing the new feminism and believing that economic freedom was the key to true liberation, considered “Women and Economics” in Voices of Freedom. Their conceptions of freedom were new and, to many, radical.
Feminism took many forms at the turn of the century, in the U.S. and in Great Britain. Margaret Sanger was a prominent feminist whose legacy involved both “offering more choices” for women and the promotion of eugenics. (Yes, you heard that right — eugenics. Look up the meaning of the term if you don’t know what it means.)
To learn more about her role in history, click here: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/ to view the Margaret Sanger Papers Project.
Margaret Sanger: Voice of Freedom or Racism?
Rounding out this section on the varieties of Progressivism is a discussion of Native-American Progressivsim.
The next section explores the Politics of Progressivism. Like the reformers in our time, Progressives assumed that the modern era required a fundamental rethinking of the relations between the citizen and his or her political system. Out of this rethinking came the idea of effective freedom, not merely theoretical freedom. Enlarging democracy, governing by experts, and spearheading reform were all marks of the era.
Theo Roosevelt
Finally, the chapter ends by examining each of the Progressive presidents. Theodore Roosevelt identified “good” and “bad”trusts and began a federal conservation program. William Howard Taft expanded on Roosevelt’s policies, but lost his reelection campagin to Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Wilson continued the trend of increasing federal regulation over the economy (he pushed through the Federal Reserve System, much in the news lately) in the belief that this would improve the general welfare of the country. Note finally how Progressives flourished in both political parties. Did each party define Progressivism the same however?
“It seems to me that Wilson failed because he tried to apply American principles to the world; and the world did not want the American principles. He took a kind of American liberalism and essentially tried to create world institutions: self-determination, open trade, the things that Americans had evolved over three-hundred years and incidentally in the process of which we had killed six hundred thousand of each other in the Civil War because it hadn’t worked too well. The Europeans knew this. The Europeans knew that Wilson’s principles had problems.” Walter LaFeber, historian
Click HERE (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/) to visit the PBS site on Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson in Princeton Robe
About Those Key Terms
Note the boldfaced terms in our overview. Knowing these terms, as well as others in the textbook chapter, are essential for answering the Course Objective questions. You cannot claim to have read AND understood the chapter unless you know these terms.
