The progressive era

Abstract

Looking back over the three decades since she had founded Whittier House in Jersey City in 1893, Cornelia Bradford eulogized New Jersey's first social settlement house as an agency of democracy, "Th is was the basic stone." Yet allied to that institution's unceasing commitment to democracy was the paternalistic conviction "that as all are simply human, the strong should bear the infirmities of the weak."1 To fulfill the at times discordant objectives of democracy and paternalism, Whittier House had established Jersey City's first kindergarten, its only playground, a free dental clinic, a mothers' club, evening clubs and classes for working women, and even a pawnshop.2 Bradford's reminiscence provides an unwitting example of the complexities and tensions that historians have associated with the Progressive Era. For example, to free Jersey City's immigrant population from the predatory practices of loan sharks, the settlement's pawnshop offered to loan money to immigrants "without the obligation to pay high rates of interest." But the pawnshop would make no loan without an investigation of the personal habits of each applicant, and it rejected solicitations from "persons under the influence of spirituous liquors."3 The social services that Whittier House offered to improve the lives of and to empower Jersey City's impoverished immigrants were oft en accompanied by an effort to impose middle-class standards on them and reshape their behavior. The term "progressive" came into common usage in the United States around 1910, after first being employed to describe a wide-ranging and loosely defined political movement.4 Since then, historians have framed the broad reform movements of the early twentieth century as the Progressive Era. The lack of a generally accepted definition led some historians in the 1970s to recommend abandoning the term. Yet "progressive" was what many politicians and socially conscious activists earlier in the century had called themselves and their movement. Daniel Rodgers suggests that historians take a more pluralistic approach, one that identifies the rhetoric of anti-monopolism, an emphasis on social bonds, and a focus on efficiency as the three languages that fueled the efforts of politically active progressives. In contrast, Richard L. McCormick highlights the transformation of American politics and government that took place during the Progressive Era.5 In New Jersey, progressivism, political change, and economic and social reform oft en followed complementary trajectories in the decades before World War I.