PROGRESSIVE NEW DEAL AND GREAT SOCIETY ERA REFORMS
This research paper compares and contrasts the approaches taken by reformers to civil rights and social welfare or income maintenance programs during the eras of the Progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society. The idea of using the power of government to benefit broader segments of society originated in the Progressive era; however, Progressivism was largely a middle class movement which did little to advance the interests of nonwhite groups or the poor. It did espouse the political equality of women. New Deal reformers established for the first time a social safety net of minimum subsistence standards. They viewed their role more as one of extending temporary relief than of permanently addressing the needs of the poor. The civil rights record of the New Deal was poor; but blacks and other minorities benefitted from the greater opportunities its social welfare programs opened for disadvantaged groups. Great Society reformers made much more significant advances in the field of civil rights for minorities. Less planned progress was made in the field of women's rights. The attempt of reformers in the late 1960s to address the fundamental causes of poverty through various income maintenance and other social welfare programs became bogged down in the conflicting priorities of the Vietnam War and confusion as to the goals and implementation of the war on poverty.
The Progressive Movement took place largely between 1900 and the period leading up to American intervention in World War I. In the presidential election of 1912, it garnered 70 percent of the vote (Bull Moose candidate Theodore Roosevelt plus Democrat Woodrow Wilson). According to Forcey, "the progressive crusade was staunchly middle class" (xvii). The middle class felt squeezed between the abuses of industrial capitalism and lower class anarchism, socialism and labor violence. Progressives placed their faith in demo...