The Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society: a comparative study

Résumé du document

The Jeffersonian idea that liberty and equality would be best achieved by every man pursuing his own interest and a federal government with constrained powers, is often seen as America's traditional political philosophy. During the 20th century, three eras of government activism, particularly called to question this philosophy: the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and, the Great Society. During these three typical periods in American history, federal governement actively attempted to reform the US society with profund objectives like, winning social and economic justice, revitalizing public life and democracy, and unifying a divided society. Their priorities and achievements were different, mostly because they occurred in different social, economic and political circumstances.

Extraits

[...] Johnson actually went much further than its progressive and New Deal forebears had done in eradicating racial injustice in America. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation in civil society while the Immigration Act of 1965 dismantled the national origins system that had been in place since 1924. The Voting Rights Act insured that southerners could no longer manipulate state laws to prevent African Americans from voting. Such a period of major reforms against racial discrimination had had no precedent for one century and Gerstle called Lyndon Johnson's presidency the “Second Reconstruction”. [...]

[...] Yet, the founding of the Progressive Party was a crucial moment in the development of American liberalism, for it first proclaimed the government duty to help the disadvantaged in overcoming poverty and powerlessness that FDR would then embrace as his own creed. The New Deal was the inspiration for LBJ's Great Society in 1960s. Liberal transformation of American society from the early 20th century to the 1960s was a gradual process resulting from the successive and complementary contributions of the Progressive Era, New Deal and Great Society. Works Cited Dawley Alan. Changing the World. Princeton University Press Edsforth, Ronald. The New Deal: America's Response to the Great Depression. [...]

[...] Malden: Blackwell Publishers Gerstle Gary. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press Powell Jim, FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and his New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression. New York: Three River Press Schulman Bruce J. Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism: A brief Biography with Documents. Boston & New York: Bedford Books of ST. Martin's Press, 1995. [...]

[...] But there was great continuity between the Progressive Era, the New Deal and the “Great Society”, which this paper intends to demonstrate. During these periods of great transformation of American society, federal governments more or less successfully attempted to reduce poverty, to improve democracy, and to unify U.S. society by enabling ethnic minorities to be fully part of it. Progressives, New Dealers and advocates of the Great Society shared the same commitment to achieving social and economic justice. Progressives rejected the conservative idea that the poor were responsible for their conditions through individual moral failings. [...]

[...] Limits of their commitments to racial equality appeared clearly at the Progressive Party's convention in 1912 when T. Roosevelt refused to seat Southern Black delegates. During the Great Depression, social and economic problems temporarily overshadowed the racial issue. African Americans were certainly among the major victims of the Depression but not of the New Deal as Powell pretends (ix). Although it is truth that racial discrimination and segregation persisted, they were originated in local administration rather than from the policies of the New Dealers and important gains were nevertheless registered in the 1930s. [...]