Progressive Era

The Republicans who stayed with the Republican Party in 84 without becoming mugwumps turn the Republican Party essentially into the Cleveland Democratic Party.

in the progressive era, and that is quite literally in the person of Theodore Roosevelt.

He stays with the party in 84 and then is central to reforming the Republican Party, and that's how we get the progressive era.

So as you're watching these people start to jump ship, that's a sign that the mood of the country is changing.

It doesn't mean it's permanent and it doesn't mean we're going to win on Tuesday or any of those things.

Professor Pape sums up the problem in the phrase fractured legitimacy and calls for moderates to re-establish legitimacy.

I would explain the problem as a result of the ideological shift and expansion of big government beginning in the decades prior to the 1920s, the progressive era, and WWI.

The progressives shielded their agenda by constitutional amendment and prior state-level legislation.

Legitimacy.

Government that governs least governs best.

Bad anti-American ideologies have eroded this original ideology, the general consensus, and the legitimacy on which the government rests.

By any measure, the size, scope, and power of government, particularly the centralizing federal government, is much larger, encompassing, and commanding than before the Progressive Era and the Spanish-American War.

Indeed, it reaches deeper into the pocketbook and details of life than ever before, and it exercises more discretion and oversight while giving the impression of having almost no concern about representing their constituents or defending the Constitution and the rule of law.

So, with Foucault, we can now understand the state less as a monolithic force and more as a site of conflicting interests.

And indeed, going into the 20th century, into the period often called the Progressive Era in the U.S., an increasing number of reformers would seek to use the power of the state to mitigate the problems wrought by rapid industrialization.

Such efforts improve the lives of many, many people and also can be understood as examples of biopower.

And due to the limited success of such reforms, many of those within the radical scene of Chicago would begin to rethink their approach in the years after Haymarket.

But if men like George Schilling spent the rest of their career trying to harness state power, Lucy Parsons never stopped distrusting it.

And so, to bring this second season to an end, it feels fitting to return one final time to the words of Lucy Parsons.

For despite everything that had changed going into the 20th century and the progressive era, with the growth of reform, the expansion of the state, and the new possibilities for wielding political power for productive purposes, Lucy continued to warn against the dangers of using the state to achieve their goals.

Because for her, state power was fundamentally an instrument of class domination.

Can you give us a little context about what brings us to the moment of your organization being center stage at this time?

You know, I think what is interesting about the history of ballot measures and I think also of BISC is, you know, when they were created over 120 years ago during the progressive era, they were really to tackle corporate interests and that government wasn't serving the people.

And that isn't too different from where we are today.

And I think what we have seen for the last, decade, and certainly we're seeing it throughout this election cycle, is people want the material conditions of their lives to improve.

In the election of 1920, Americans handed a landslide victory to the Republicans and their presidential candidate, Warren G. Harding, giving them control of both Congress and the White House.

After the moralizing of the progressive era and the horrors of World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic that followed it, Americans looked forward to an era of normalcy.

Once in charge, Republicans rejected the progressive-era notion that the government should regulate business and protect workers and consumers.

Instead, they turned the government over to businessmen, believing that only men who had built businesses truly understood how to build the country.

But that comes later.

By the time the Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Era, Halloween started to look a little more like what we know and love today.

Thanks to the proliferation of magazines like Harper's Weekly, Halloween slowly transitioned into a night for fun rather than a time of somber reflection and observing of old world traditions.

Access to mass printed media that promoted things like parlor games, decorations, and recipes helped inspire Americans in the middle and upper classes to spend their Halloween nights engaged in masquerade balls where they could enjoy music and dancing.

All of this, of course, appeared in print.

Ida Tarbell helped usher in that age of political, economic, and industrial reform that would become known as the Progressive Era in the United States of America.

Not only did Ida Tarbell's history of the Standard Oil Company lead to the dissolution of the Standard Oil monopoly itself, the printed articles led to the creation of the Federal Trade Commission and the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. ultimately what happened to rockefeller's uh standard oil is that it was broken into baby standards i don't know how many of you um remember ma bell when ma bell got broken up into baby bells well that was the same thing that happened with standard oil it was broken up into baby standards which include exxon mobil and chevron today Now Rockefeller, even though he had engaged in dirty dealings, was also known as a great philanthropist.

And so Rockefeller, being a great philanthropist, was deeply stung by Tarbell's investigation.