Is America on the verge of a new progressive era or a new gilded age, a new period of economic liberation or repression? The 2024 election might determine the answer.
It's scary what Russell Vought and the reactionary Christian nationalists are planning. Imagine rolling back the progressive income tax and repressing the entire progressive movement through minority rule. If Trump loses the popular vote but wins through the antiquated electoral college, this nightmare is quite possible.
The Progressive Era, from the 1890s to 1920 in the USA, was so embedded in American society that it is almost impossible to imagine a credible alternate history of America without it. A period of widespread social activism and political reform, it was sparked by industrialization, urbanization, corruption and the Gilded Age (1870s-1900). It had long-term consequences.
John Green of Crash Course explained (full text of video):
“In the late 19th and early 20th century in America, there was a sense that things could be improved upon. A sense that reforms should be enacted. A sense that progress should be made. As a result, we got the Progressive Era, which has very little to do with automobile insurance, but a little to do with automobiles.
“All this overlapped with the Gilded Age and is a little confusing, but here we have it. Basically, people were trying to solve some of the social problems that came with the benefits of industrial capitalism. To oversimplify, there was a competition between the corporations' desire to keep wages low and workers' desire to have a decent life. Improving food safety, reducing child labor, and unions were all on the agenda in the Progressive Era. While progress was being made, and people were becoming freer, these gains were not equally distributed. Jim Crow laws were put in place in the South, and immigrant rights were restricted as well. So once again on Crash Course, things aren't so simple.
The Progressive Era ended abruptly in 1920 with the election of Warren Harding, followed by Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, all believers in “laissez-faire” economic policies. But it made a comeback and evolved into Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier, and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.
The Progressive Movement was bipartisan, supported by both Democrats and Republicans.
It targeted exploitive, abusive, and unsafe working conditions, low wages, child labor; urban poverty; unsanitary food; mislabeled or unregulated drugs; political bosses and their machines; corporate monopolies; boom and bust economic cycles; vast income inequality, rigid class structures, and the dream of upward mobility. It championed women’s suffrage and Prohibition; efficient government and modern business practices; direct democracy, including the election of senators; and a progressive income tax. “Muckraking” journalists exposed social injustice and corruption in business and government. Citizens who accumulated wealth were summoned to become philanthropists, to tithe at least 10 percent of their earnings to causes greater than themselves that contributed to social betterment.
America would not be America without the progressive era. Republican Presidents William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson all supported at least some of the goals and policies of the progressive movement.
But suppose a repressive cabal empowered by minority rule — a president elected by a minority of the American people through the antiquated Electoral College, combined with a Congress selected by gerrymandered districts and restricted voting rights, empowered by a Supreme Court appointed by presidents who did not represent the majority will — suppose these forces conspired to:
condemn the free press and muckrakers who exposed corruption as “”fake news…enemies of the people” and for damaging the reputations of “honorable” American oligarchs and corporations.
strictly enforced defamation laws against public figures and corporations. Suppose a new Upton Sinclair was jailed for his “libel” of the meat-packing industry, Lincoln Stephens was jailed for libel of urban politicians, Ida Tarbell was jailed for her libel of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company and sent to the gulag, a prison or work farm in Arkansas. Suppose McLure’s magazine was shut down for presenting a negative image of America, and its corporate monopolies.
Suppose labor unions were outlawed.
Suppose corporate owners successfully bent the ears of politicians and bribed them so that they refused to consider legislation regulating working conditions, wages, child labor, foods, and drugs; refused to enact anti-trust laws; refused to regulate banks or create a federal reserve; refused to trust women with the vote, allow direct election of senators, or pass a progressive income tax?
Suppose monopoly capitalists increasingly controlled federal, state, and local governments. Class structures were rigid and income inequality grew to the point where upward mobility was impossible. What would be the long-term consequence?
It could still happen.
The first Progressive Movement did not meet all its goals — it was stymied by white supremacy, intolerance by nativists and the Klan, segregation, Woodrow Wilson’s racism, Wilson backing the bankers of the British Empire rather than Germany in WWI, the betrayal of Wilson’s 1916 pledge to keep us out of war, split in the movement over “the war to end all wars,” Wilson’s illness, failure of the League of Nations, suppression of civil liberties and anti-war efforts during and after WWI, the Russian Revolution and the first Red Scares in the US, 1919 anarchist bombings by foreigners, the Palmer Raids, crackdown on unions and socialists and minorities, the split over prohibition and its failure, the fight over science and evolution, and censorship of the media.
Several national leaders who had supported at least part of the Progressive Movement evolved into reactionaries: William Randolph Hearst, Herbert Hoover, Al Smith and Henry Ford.
The Progressive Movement faded but did not die in the 1920s. It focused on local and state-wide changes, particularly in the South. After the 1929 Stock Market crash, the movement gathered increasing steam, winning elections in 1930, and FDR to the presidency in 1932.
More from Crash Course: Hey teachers and students -
Check out CommonLit's free collection of reading passages and curriculum resources to learn more about the events of this episode. The Progressive Era was marked by rapid reactions to the Gilded Age: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/the-p...
Literature such as The Jungle revealed the horrifying conditions of factory industries, one of several which were overhauled with new progressive regulations: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/excer...
Progressive Presidents
Crash Course US History: “The presidents most associated with the Progressive Era are Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. During the times these guys held office, trusts were busted, national parks were founded, social programs were enacted, and tariffs were lowered. It wasn't all positive though, as their collective tenure also saw Latin America invaded A LOT, a split in the Republican party that resulted in a Bull Moose, all kinds of other international intervention, and the end of the Progressive Era saw the United States involved in World War. If all this isn't enough to entice, I will point out that two people get shot in this video. Violence sells, they say.” Transcript.
Hey teachers and students - Check out CommonLit's free collection of reading passages and curriculum resources to learn more about the events of this episode. The era of progressive presidents began with Teddy Roosevelt, who felt that conservation was a national duty: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/conse...
Teddy Roosevelt is remembered for fighting hard for his causes, as exemplified in his famous “Man in the Arena” Speech: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/the-m...