What were the limits of progressive reform?

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Figure false: Booker T. Washington and Theodore Roosevelt Dine   at the White House
Figure false: Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to the White House in 1901, stirring up a hornet’s nest of controversy that continued into the election of 1904. This Republican campaign piece shows Roosevelt and a light-skinned Washington sitting under a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Democrats’ campaign buttons pictured Washington with darker skin and implied that Roosevelt had “painted the White House black” and favored “race mingling.” Collection of Janice L. and David J. Frent.

WHILE PROGRESSIVISM CALLED for a more active role for the liberal state, at heart it was a movement that sought reforms designed to preserve American institutions and stem the tide of more radical change. Its basic conservatism can be seen by comparing it with the more radical movements of socialism, radical labor, and birth control — and by looking at the groups progressive reform left behind, including women, Asians, and African Americans.

CHRONOLOGY

1896

  • – Plessy v. Ferguson.

1900

  • – Socialist Party is founded.

1905

  • – Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is founded.

1906

  • – Atlanta race riot.

1907

  • – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is formed.

1913

  • – Suffragists march in Washington, D.C.

1916

  • – Margaret Sanger opens first U.S. birth control clinic.