History of the United States II / Unit 18 USH2 2575 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Who Progressivism Was For
The idea
Entry 0791 answers whether Progressivism was broad democratic reform or middle-class management with both halves. The democratic half is real: senators elected by the people, women's suffrage, safety and child labour laws. So is the restrictive half: disfranchisement and segregation spreading in the South and in the federal government, and reforms that lessened immigrants' political influence. The Yawp records southern Democrats presenting disfranchisement as progressive reform.
In practice
The same movement widening democracy for some Americans and narrowing it for others.
Where people slip
For theme seven the lesson is that the tradition the course follows began with a contradiction it never lets go of: who counts as a worthy citizen. Entry 0791 records critics who called Progressives moralistic, undemocratic and elitist. The later labels, liberal and conservative, cannot be read backward onto this era without losing one of its two halves.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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