Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vpsfw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T08:25:21.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Bases of Progressivism within the Major Parties

Evidence from the National Conventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Howard L. Reiter
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the early decades of the twentieth century, for the first time in American history, a movement based on a broad agenda of political reform arose to dominate the political discourse. It inspired the growth of the regulatory state, the doubling of the size of the electorate, many reforms that were aimed at weakening the grip of machine politics, and other changes too numerous to list here. According to influential studies, the period gave us a “new American state” (Skowronek 1982) combined with the “onward march of party decomposition” (Burnham 1970).

For both major parties, we are told, there were clear divisions associated with support for or opposition to the progressive movement. Within the Democratic Party, William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson held high the banner of progressivism, while Alton B. Parker, John W Davis, and other heirs of Grover Cleveland spoke for conservatives.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , Spring 1998 , pp. 83 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, H. W. (1961) “Geography and politics: Voting on reform issues in the United States Senate, 1911–1916.” Journal of Southern History 27: 216–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, H. W., Clausen, A. R., and Clubb, J. M. (1971) “Political reform and Negro rights in the Senate, 1909–1915.” Journal of Southern History 37:191–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, H. W., and Clubb, J. (1974) “Progressive reform and the political system.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 65:130–45.Google Scholar
Bagby, W. M. (1962) The Road to Normalcy: The Presidential Campaign and Election of 1920. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Bain, R. C. (1960) Convention Decisions and Voting Records. Washington: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Brady, D. W. (1973) Congressional Voting in a Partisan Era: A Study of the McKinley Houses and a Comparison to the Modern House of Representatives. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Brady, D. W., and Althoff, P. (1974) “Party voting in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1890–1910: Elements of a responsible party system.” Journal of Politics 36: 753–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, D. W., Cooper, J., and Hurley, P. A. (1979) “The decline of party in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1887–1968.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 4: 381–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broesamle, J. J. (1974) “The Democrats from Bryan to Wilson,” in Gould, L. L. (ed.) The Progressive Era. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press: 83–113.Google Scholar
Buenker, J. D. (1969) “The Progressive Era: A search for a synthesis.” Mid-America 51: 175–93.Google Scholar
Bureau of the Census (1919) Religious Bodies, 1916. Part 2. Washington: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Bureau of the Census (1923) Abstract of the Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Washington: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Burner, D. (1968) The Politics of Provincialism: The Democratic Party in Transition, 1918–1932. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Burnham, W. D. (1970) Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Casdorph, P. D. (1981) Republicans, Negroes, and Progressives in the South, 1912–1916. University: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Clubb, J. M., and Allen, H. W. (1967) “Party loyalty in the Progressive years: The Senate, 1909–1915.” Journal of Politics 29: 567–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clubb, J. M., and Traugott, S. A. (1977) “Partisan cleavage and cohesion in the House of Representatives, 1861–1974.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 7: 375–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coletta, P. E. (1973) “The Democratic Party, 1884–1910,” in Schlesinger, A. M. Jr. (ed.) History of U.S. Political Parties. Vol. 2. New York: Chelsea House: 985–1017.Google Scholar
Collie, M. P. (1989) “Electoral patterns and voting alignments in the U.S. House, 1886–1986.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 14:107–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, J. M. Jr. (1983) The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Costain, A. N. (1978) “An analysis of voting in American national nominating conventions, 1940–1976.” American Politics Quarterly 6: 95–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, D. B. (1992) After Wilson: The Struggle for the Democratic Party, 1920–1934. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Eagles, C. W. (1989) “Congressional voting in the 1920s: A test of urban-rural conflict.“ Journal of American History 76: 528–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenach, E. J. (1994) The Lost Promise of Progressivism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Elazar, D. J. (1972) American Federalism: The View from the States. 2d ed. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.Google Scholar
Farah, B. G. (1984) “Delegate polls: 1944 to 1984.” Public Opinion 7: 43–45.Google Scholar
Filene, P. G. (1970) “An obituary for ‘the Progressive movement.'” American Quarterly 52: 20–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, R. M. (1990) The National Party Chairmen and Committees: Factionalism at the Top. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Gould, L. L. (1974) “The Republicans under Roosevelt and Taft,” in Gould, L. L. (ed.) The Progressive Era. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press: 55–82.Google Scholar
Gould, L. L. (1978) Reform and Regulation: American Politics, 1900–1916. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Harbaugh, W. H. (1973) “The Republican Party, 1893–1932,” in Schlesinger, A. M. Jr. (ed.) History of U.S. Political Parties. Vol. 3. New York: Chelsea House: 2069–2125.Google Scholar
Hays, S. P. (1957) The Response to Industrialism: 1885–1914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, R. (1955) The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Holt, J. (1967) Congressional Insurgents and the Party System, 1909–1916. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hurley, P. A., and Wilson, R. K. (1989) “Partisan voting patterns in the U.S. Senate, 1877–1986.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 14: 225–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, S. C. (1995) “Building a Democratic majority: The Progressive Party vote and the Federal Trade Commission.” Studies in American Political Development 9: 331–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jillson, C. C. (1988) Constitution Making: Conflict and Consensus in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Agathon Press.Google Scholar
Key, V. O. Jr. (1964) Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups. 5th ed. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.Google Scholar
Link, A. S. (1959) “What happened to the Progressive movement in the 1920s?” American Historical Review 64: 833–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lisio, D. J. (1985) Hoover, Blacks, and Lily-Whites. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
McCormick, R. L. (1986) “Progressivism: A contemporary reassessment,” in McCormick, R. L., The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era. New York: Oxford University Press: 263–88.Google Scholar
McCormick, R. P. (1982) The Presidential Game: The Origins of American Presidential Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McDonagh, E. L. (1989) “Issues and constituencies in the Progressive Era: House roll call voting on the Nineteenth Amendment, 1913–1919.” Journal of Politics 51: 119–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonagh, E. L. (1993a) “Constituency influence on House roll-call votes in the Progressive Era, 1913–1915.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 18:185–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonagh, E. L. (1993b) “The ‘welfare rights state’ and the ‘civil rights state’: Policy paradox and state building in the Progressive Era.” Studies in American Political Development 7: 225–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonagh, E. L., and Price, H. D. (1985) “Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era: Patterns of support and opposition in referenda voting, 1910–1918.” American Political Science Review 79: 415–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merrill, H. S., and Merrill, M. G. (1971) The Republican Command, 1897–1913. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Morgan, H. W. (1966) “William McKinley as a political leader.” Review of Politics 28: 417–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mowry, G. E. (1946) Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Mowry, G. E. (1951) The California Progressives. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, R. K. (1976) The 103rd Ballot: Democrats and the Disaster in Madison Square Garden. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Nye, R. B. (1959) Midwestern Progressive Politics: A Historical Study of Its Origins and Development, 1870–1958. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.Google Scholar
Papers of the Republican Party (1986) Part 1: Meetings of the Republican National Committee, 1911–1980. Series A: 1911–1960. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America.Google Scholar
Pomper, G. M. (1971) “Factionalism in the 1968 national conventions.” Journal of Politics 33: 826–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiter, H. L. (1980) “Party factionalism: National conventions in the new era.” American Politics Quarterly 8: 303–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reiter, H. L. (1985) Selecting the President: The Nominating Process in Transition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Rodgers, D. T. (1982) “In search of progressivism.” Reviews in American History 10: 113–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogin, M. P. (1967) The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rogin, M. P., and J. L., Shover (1970) Political Change in California: Critical Elections and Social Movements, 1890–1966. Westport, CT: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Sarasohn, D. (1989) The Party of Reform: Democrats in the Progressive Era. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, A. M. Jr. (ed.) (1971) History of American Presidential Elections. 4 vols. New York: Chelsea House.Google Scholar
Sherman, R. B. (1973) The Republican Party and Black America from McKinley to Hoover, 1896–1933. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Sinclair, B. D. (1977) “Determinants of aggregate party cohesion in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1901–1956.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 2:155–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skowronek, S. (1982) Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundquist, J. L. (1983) Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States. Rev. ed. Washington: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Wilensky, N. M. (1965) Conservatives in the Progressive Era: The Taft Republicans of 1912. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.Google Scholar
Winch, R. F., and D. T., Campbell (1969) “Proof? No. Evidence? Yes.: The Significance of Tests of Significance.” American Sociologist 4: 140–43.Google Scholar
Wolman, P. (1992) Most Favored Nation: The Republican Revisionists and U.S. Tariff Policy, 1897–1912. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Wyman, R. E. (1974) “Middle-class voters and progressive reform: The conflict of class and culture.” American Political Science Review 68: 488–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zieger, R. H. (1969) Republicans and Labor, 1919–1929. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.Google Scholar