The Progressive Movement Essay example -- American History Essays

The Progressive MovementThe progressive style of the early twentieth century has proved to be an intricately confounded conundrum for Ameri seat historians. Who participated in this dejection? What did it accomplish, or fail to accomplish? Was it a movement at all? These are all significant questions that historians have been move with for the last 60 years, consequently creating a historical dialogue where in their different interpretations interact with each other. The al some commonly known, and consequently most watered down, version of the progressive movement argues that this era was simply an driving by the middle class to cure many of the social and governmental ills of American society that had developed during the rapid industrial growth in the last quarter of the 19th century. This explanation has proven to be a woefully inadequate in the face of the complexities that characterize these times. In Richard Hofstadters The Age of Reform, Peter Filenes An Obituar y for the Progressive Movement, Richard McCormicks The husking that Business Corrupts Politics, and Paula Bakers The Domestication of Politics each root asserts their own unique interpretations of the progressive movement. These distinct examinations each chart and thus manifest the fluidity of knowledge about this particular time menstruation and how it has been shaped reshaped by new analysis.Richard Hofstadter, the leftward leaning author of Age of Reform, in his appraisal of the progressive movement makes the central argument that the progressive movement was not catalyzed by economics or moral principal that instead by psychology. Hofstadter describes the progressives as primarily urban, middle class, and nation wide. He makes the case that t... ... an impact on the system as a whole. An enkindle comparison can be made between Hofstadters perspective revolution and Bakers suffrage movement. Both can be seen as psychologically operate movements that interacted duri ng the progressive era. Baker and Hofstadter also two cite a vast and complex struggle to improve the stead of a particular social group. Baker on one script describes womens fight for the right to be seen as equal to men, most definitely in a political sense if not in a social sense as well, while Hofstadter makes the case that the progressives were driven to action by the need to reclaim their former status of transcendence over the emerging newly rich industrialists. Although Baker does not appear to give the amount of attention to psychology that Hofstadter does an undeniable correlation can still be made between the arguments of both authors.