The Age of Reform by Richard Hofstadter won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1956. The book was acclaimed because the author examined the political growth in America from the years 1890 to 1940, explaining the reform movement through several key figures, primarily William Jennings Bryan and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In summarizing the book, it can be noted that Hofstadter divides his discussion into seven chapters. By beginning with an analysis of what he calls "the Agrarian Myth" and moving on to the reasons for populism, the study is able to focus on Bryan as a personification of what was needed in America.
As a political leader, Bryan was President Wilson's Secretary of State from 1913 to 1915. During this time he helped in the passing of reform measures. This is how the agrarian issue fused with populism: "Populism and Bryanism were the last attempt to incorporate what I have called the 'soft' side of the farmer's dual character " (p. 95).
From this juncture, Hofstadter moves into a profound examination of the Mugwumps, especially in the first section of chapter IV, "The Plutocracy and the Mugwump Type." This slang term referred to the Republicans who deserted their party nominee, J.G. Blaine, in order to vote for Grover Cleveland, who was the Democratic nominee.
As Hofstadter allows, Progressivism ultimately won out over this breed of political animal. "The newly rich, the masters of the great corporations, were bypassing the men of the Mugwump type " (p. 137).
Through the Depression, the author is able to show how the United States needed a leader to give it a sense of solidarity. F.D.R. was such an individual, and he too was able to pull away Republican voters in the Mugwump tradition. F.D.R. and the New Deal are the subject of the final chapter, which itself ends with a trend that Hofstadter refers to as "the New Opportunism."
"Much of America still longs for a return of the older individualism...