The decade of the 1920s discouraged the progressive movement. It was a period that had an extraordinary reaction against idealism and reform. The goal was to restore a place of special privilege benefiting big business, industry, and finance. Traditions and ideals were forgotten, nationalism was prominent with a fear of communism, suppression of civil liberties, and a revival of nativism. Because of this, progressives withdrew from the political scene, becoming disorganized and lacking leaders, their movement now broken with their dreams of America crushed.

Progressivism was a broad based urban reform movement that attempted to control the evils of industrialization without destroying the benefits. It strived to insure the survival of democracy by the enlargement of government power to offset the power of private large corporations. Special interest groups or classes in search of greater political status and economic security did most of the progressive campaigns. The progressive movements were constituted mostly of the middle class. There was diversity within the mov

In the 1920s, the progressive movement was destroyed with a little hope of a potential movement. The progressives were having problems for a few reasons. First, the progressives could never create or gain control of a political organization in which to carry them into national office. Most all of the third party movement in the U.S. were doomed to failure except in times of large national disorder, which the 1920s were not. Secondly, the tensions that had originally wrecked the coalition of 1916 remained as grew in intensity and number. The lower and lower middle classes in the cities often opposed their only potential allies in the rural areas. Also, the relationship between the farm groups and organized labor all but ceased to exist in the 1920s. A third reason for the decline of progressivism in the 1920s is that the progressive groups could not agree on a program that would provide the basis for a revived coalition. Many progressive groups were fighting each other more fiercely than natural opponents, making it impossible to reach an agreement. A more psychological reason for the progressive problems was a

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Approximate Word count = 759
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)