America Reformed Progressives And Progressivisms 1890s – 1920s – Maureen A Flanagan

They also emphasized the “maternalist and feminist goals in their campaigns.” Quite possibly it was their influence that helped make California the leading state in passing legislation “advocated by main- stream women’s groups.””’ When socialist Estelle Lawton Lindsey ran for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in 1915, she made the specific point that she would bring “woman’s point of view .

. . the humanitarian point of view” into government. Another female socialist political candidate in Los Angeles, Mila Tupper Maynard, pointedly argued that the social issues that most con- cerned women were considered “side issues” by men, who had to be made to see that these social issues were indeed the important ones for government. Context made the difference in Kaneko’s losing bid for office and Lindsey’s successful one. No women won municipal office in Chicago that first year of municipal suffrage. Beyond that, however, although the program may have sounded the same, coming from the mouth of a firm socialist undoubtedly made women of the very middle-class ward from which she was running shy away from her.

Another difference was that Chicago’s Democratic Party had a strong labor base and a ward system that empowered members of the city council, so socialist candidates made little headway into the local political structure. This was not the situation in Los Angeles. There Lindsey drew sup- port from both labor and women, but she won election not running as a social- ist candidate but running as an independent.”

The SPA did make some inroads in the political system in the Progressive Era. Labor leader Eugene Debs was the party’s quadrennial presidential candi- date and socialist candidates were being elected on local levels in many parts of the country. Yet, threat of socialist political power was more feared than real. Much of organized labor was ambivalent about socialism. In the 1908 presi- dential campaign, Samuel Gompers led the AFL to support Democratic candi- date William Jennings Bryan, although he could not carry all organized labor for Bryan, who many workers suspected was more interested in farmers than laborers.

After the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt it was also plain to most Americans that both the Republican and Democratic parties were adopt- ing progressive reforms. For many in the working class, and a number of 21. Sherry Katz, “Redefining ‘the Political’: Socialist Women and Party Politics in California, 1900-1920,” in We Have Come to Stay: American Women and Political Parties, 1800-1960, Melanie Gustafson, Kristie Miller, and Elisabeth I. Perry, eds. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999), 23-32, quote 28.

22. Ibid., 28 and 29.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Flanagan, Maureen A., 1948— America reformed : Progressives and progressivisms, 1890s—1920s / Maureen A. Flanagan. .cm. dines bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-517220-1 (pbk.) 1. Progressivism (United States politics)— History. 2. United States—History—1865-1921. 3. United States—Politics and government—1865-1933. I. Title. E661.F58 2006 973.8—dc22 2006040048 Printing number:9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For my family, Chip, Jonah, Sarah, Eddie, and Madeline June BRERAGE aU S2— The Destination Was “Progressive” Society: The Roads and the Travelers Were Diverse ISTORIANS HAVE WRITTEN extensively trying to identify who were the Fleets and what was progressivism.

They have argued variously that the progressives were upper class, middle class, working class, or urban ethnic immigrants. They have considered whether women and African Amer- icans were progressives. They have identified progressivism on the national, state, and local—even international—levels. They have asked whether it was democratic or undemocratic; whether it was about social control or social wel- fare; whether it was reform from the top down or the bottom up. Some histori- ans have even argued that there was no such thing as the progressive era and that the changes that took place in those decades should not be viewed as “progress.”

Whether one wishes to see the reform movements that convulsed U.S. society from the 1890s through the 1920s as progress, it is clear that these movements produced fundamental changes to American society that altered both govern- ment and citizenship. First, this was a period in which all American institu- tions—political, economic, social—moyed decisively away_from the laissez-faire ideal that underlay earlier institutional development. By the 1920s, government on all levels had assumed responsibility for at least minimal regulation of the economy both to foster more secure economic development and to protect the public.

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