Because in addition to alternative modernities, suburbanization and the birth of the conservative coalition my dissertation is the story of the American Political Party in the Twentieth Century it behooves me to reference the Progressives, which you may recall from a particularly dry undergraduate lecture. (Or if you are an Americanist, from the surprisingly dull portion of your compressive exam reading list.)

Here is my take on the Progressive Era in a short excerpt from an actual dissertation chapter draft*:

Because Progressivism is situated along the political spectrum as a reform movement within both major political parties and between the Gilded Age and the Great Depression I think it is most helpful to think of it as a point of rupture with the nineteenth century political party system and as an experimental pre-curser to the "modern" political party system that existed roughly between the New Deal and the Clinton Era rather than as a "movement" with an agenda. In other words, the experimentation with form and the altered relationship between the individual and the government and between both and modernity is far more central to defining what shaped the "progressive era" than any laundry list of reformers or legislative accomplishments."

Disentangling Progressive Reformers and the Progressive Era from future coalitions and subsequent debates allows us to focus on what was in flux at that moment.

*I know, so exciting.