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President Woodrow Wilson riding as a passenger in a two seater car with his chauffeur, George Howard.

States’ Rights or Inalienable Rights?

Some early progressives may have been advocates of states’ rights, but they misunderstood the philosophy of the American Founding.
by Samuel Postell via Law & Liberty on November 13, 2024
Cartoon of a person squished upside-down in a city high-rise.

The Death and Life of Progressive Urbanism

Blue America lacks a Gov. Ron DeSantis: someone remaking a state or major city in the image of a well-articulated ideology.
by Ross Barkan via Compact on October 2, 2024
At the filling station and garage at Pie Town, New Mexico, in October 1940. Photo by Russell Lee, FSA/Library of Congress.

Cowboy Progressives

You likely think of the American West as deeply conservative and rural. Yet history shows this politics is very new indeed.
by Daniel J. Herman via Aeon on April 8, 2022
Illustrated man with a top hat, sitting next to headstones.

The Left Side of History

Historians have been too much the ideological allies of Progressivism to permit themselves to see its master flaw.
by Allen C. Guelzo via Claremont Review of Books on May 4, 2020

AOC and the American Founding

The problem with progressive intellectuals looking to the nation's founders for progressive models.
by William Hogeland via William Hogeland blog on January 30, 2019

The New Old Democrats

It’s not the 1990s anymore. People want the government to help solve big problems. Here’s how the Democrats must respond.
by Jake Sullivan via Democracy Journal on June 20, 2018

Fighting Words

No, “liberal” and “progressive” aren’t synonyms. They have completely different histories—and the differences matter.
by Sean Wilentz via Democracy Journal on March 20, 2018

A Billionaires’ Republic

A new book argues that the Constitution’s framers believed that vast concentrations of wealth were the enemy of democracy.
by Jedediah Britton-Purdy via The Nation on July 11, 2017
Collage of Edna Ferber, a still from the film "Giant," and symbols of Texas.

The Carpetbagger Who Saw Texas’s Future

The notion of political realignment in the Lone Star State is older than you think. It goes back to Giant, an acidic novel by Edna Ferber.
by Chris Vognar via The Atlantic on December 9, 2024
Governor Philip La Follette signing the old-age pension bill in Madison, Wisconsin in 1931.

The Golden Age of Wisconsin Socialism

At its peak in the 1920s and early ’30s, the Socialist Party in Wisconsin used confrontational tactics and nonsocialists alliances to make legislative advances.
by Joshua Kluever via Jacobin on September 12, 2024
Rep. Marcantonio in front of a mobile office trailer meeting neighborhood children.

Congressman Vito Marcantonio: A Utopian Vision for His Time and Ours

Vito Marcantonio fought racial, social, and economic injustices, promoting cross-cultural solidarity and progressive ideals amid McCarthyism and segregation.
by Sandhya Shukla via The Abusable Past on August 9, 2024
A Christian cross in an open field, with a sunset in the background.

Jesus Freaks: On the Free Spirited Evangelicals of the 1970s and 80s

Chronicling the emergence of a unique blend of counterculture and Christianity.
by Eliza Griswold via Literary Hub on August 8, 2024
Biden's hand waving goodbye as he gets into a car.

The Democrats’ Crisis Isn’t Over

Biden’s withdrawal won’t solve all of Democrats’ problems — but it gives them a chance.
by Michael Kazin via Politico Magazine on July 23, 2024
Illustration of a man typing on his laptop on a rollercoaster ride.

Work Sucks. What Could Salvage It?

New books examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it.
by Erik Baker via The New Yorker on May 1, 2024
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 presidential inauguration.

The First New Deal

Planning, market coordination, and the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933.
by Sanjukta Paul via Phenomenal World on March 28, 2024
Woodrow Wilson working at his desk on May 1, 1917.

Don’t Be So Quick to Laud Woodrow Wilson

An effort is underway to restore President Wilson’s reputation as a great reformer. His best reforms were won by a mass movement, often pushing against Wilson.
by Henry Snow via Jacobin on March 14, 2024
South Pacific.

You've Got to Be Carefully Taught

Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific shows the limits–and power–of mainstream entertainment in addressing weighty social topics.
by Stephen Akey via American Purpose on March 1, 2024
William Howard Taft, with the Supreme Court building under construction in the background.

The Architect of Our Divided Supreme Court

100 years ago, Chief Justice William Howard Taft made the Court more efficient and more powerful, marking a turning point whose effects are still being felt.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on January 22, 2024

Dangers and Enemies Everywhere

How Cold War liberalism abandoned the vocabulary of hope—and how we still live with the consequences.
by George Scialabba via Democracy Journal on September 14, 2023
President Theodore Roosevelt raising his hat to wave.

The Curse of Bigness

Until more Americans know what happened in periods such as the Gilded Age, they can’t protect themselves from those who abuse history to advance poor policy.
by Amity Shlaes via National Review on July 10, 2023
Map of Iowa and a drawing of a factory processing corn.

Searching for the Spirit of the Midwest

Was the nineteenth-century Midwest “the most advanced democratic society that the world had seen”?
by Phil Christman via The New Republic on February 22, 2023
Photograph of Felix Frankfurter opening a briefcase.

A Prisoner of His Own Restraint

Felix Frankfurter was renowned as a liberal lawyer and advocate. Why did he turn out to be such a conservative Supreme Court justice?
by Jed S. Rakoff via New York Review of Books on October 13, 2022
Black and white photo of Bessie Beatty

Woman on a Mission

For pioneering journalist Bessie Beatty, women’s suffrage and the plight of labor were linked inextricably.
by Jessica George via JSTOR Daily on September 21, 2022
Black and white side profile of Felix Frankfurter reading.

The Justice Who Wanted the Supreme Court to Get Out of the Way

Felix Frankfurter warned that politicians, not the courts, should make policy.
by John Fabian Witt via The New Republic on August 26, 2022
President Bill Clinton laughs after delivering remarks on welfare reform.

How the Democrats Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Market

In the 1990s, the New Democrats trusted corporations to do the right thing. The results were disastrous.
by Maia Silber via Jacobin on July 18, 2022
Picture of John Silber in a tuxedo.

Saving John Silber

What we can learn from the work of the university administrator who went toe to toe with Howard Zinn.
by Howard Husock via National Affairs on July 5, 2022
Booker T. Washington addressing a laughing crowd of African American men in Lakeland, Tennessee, during his campaign promoting African American education. Ca. 1900.

Market Solutions to Ancient Sins

Freedom and prosperity are the most effective cure for the scars of slavery and racism.
by Jason Jewell via Law & Liberty on June 28, 2022
Book cover for Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage," showing a photo of incarcerated men speaking to the media.

How Rikers Island Made New York

In “Captives,” former Rikers detainee Jarrod Shanahan traces the history of New York City’s sprawling jail complex, and its centrality to brutal class struggle.
by Jarrod Shanahan, Alana Mohamed via Hell Gate on May 16, 2022
Blue and red donkey logo of the Democratic Party.

Hope in the Desert: Democratic Party Blues

In 'What It Took to Win,' Michael Kazin traces the history over the past two centuries of what he calls ‘the oldest mass party in the world’.
by Eric Foner via London Review of Books on May 4, 2022
Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama walking together

How to Tell the History of the Democrats

What connection does the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson have to the party of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris?
by Michael Kazin, Timothy Shenk via Dissent on April 25, 2022
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