As a kick off, I will use the Grangers to talk about farmers dissatisfaction with railroads and the economic consequences of industrialization and the Mugwumps to discuss dissatisfaction with party politics among the middle class. Then I?ll talk about Ann Douglass?s provocative argument that during the middle half of the nineteenth century a sentimentalized Protestantism propagated by middle class ?ministers and mothers? formed the culture of industrializing America, a culture attuned to patriarchical laissez-faire individualism and cries of horror at the ravages of slavery in the south and at the consequences of urban, industrial America. Progressivism, I will argue, grew out of all of these impulses.

The Geography of Progressivism: Regional Progressives and Transatlantic Progressives

I will contrast agrarian problems (drop in wheat & cotton prices from 187? to 189?, the failure of coops, rural isolation, the Farmer?s Alliances) with urban problems (immigration & migration, factory conditions, housing, water & sewage, Municipal reform

Having laid out the geographical differences and then complicated that difference with a discussion of Woodward and Hofstadter, I would then move on to explain the national political development of progressivism. Using the party platforms of the populists I would point out how some of the goals of populism are accepted as a matter of course (direct election senators, direct legislative reforms, income tax, public highways) while others (nativist fear of immigrant labor, free silver, outright government ownership of railroads, displacement of Indians) seem bizarre or terrible. I would also touch upon populist attempts at a farmer-labor coalition. I would then explain the decision that faced the populists in 1896 and Bryan?s rise to the democratic party leadership, and argue that a free silver Democrat represented an impossible choice for populist party managers. I would spend some time on the history or the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 189? making its interpretation by the courts the central thread of how the ?trust question? was resolved, then move on to the presidential elections of Roosevelt and Taft. Finally, I would contrast Roosevelt?s New N

Some common words found in the essay are:
Woodward Hofstadter, Ann Douglasss, Farmers Alliances, Debs Wilson, Pittsburgh Baltimore, American Culture, Hofstadter Woodward, Richard Ely, Whites Hofstadters, Transatlantic Progressives, reform movements, municipal reform, regional progressives, woodwards account, transatlantic progressivism, free silver, transatlantic progressives, middle class,
Approximate Word count = 778
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)