Progressivism & Normalcy ((4 Credits))

Catalog description

The assassination of President William McKinley, and the ascension of Vice President Theodore Roosevelt to the Presidency ushered in an era of reform in American History known as the Progressive Era. From 1901 through the end of Wilson's Presidency, reform minded Presidents, Congressmen, Federal Judges, and State and Local officials attempted to bring "hope and change" to America. In a sense the era represented a Constitutional Crisis in American History. Reformers like Teddy Roosevelt believed Constitutional Reform was necessary. Some of the most important Amendments to the US. Constitution were ratified during this period, the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth amendments. Activist Judges broadly construed the Constitution to allow Federal and State governments to expand their powers in order to check the power and influence of Big business, and to conserve America's natural resources for future generations. Democratic President Woodrow Wilson even saw America's involvement in the Great War as an opportunity to reform the international order so that WWI would be "the war to end all wars," and the war that would "make the world safe for democracy." However, by 1920 the reform fever that had gripped the country had subsided. Warren G. Harding, the new Republican President, coined a new word. He described his presidency as "a return to normalcy." Normalcy meant the opposite of Progressivism, a return to business as usual. Calvin Coolidge, Harding's successor, contended that "the business of America was business." Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover restored Republican Hegemony over National politics. America's concern was prosperity. The roaring twenties were full swing. Still America was changing dramatically. For instance during the Nineteen Twenties the Culture Wars of began. America's old cultural guard combated the demons of modernity, urbanization, and immigration. America could never return to Normalcy. The Great Depression ensured that. By the end of Hoover's presidency desperate citizens were crying out for help from a new generation of reformers led by another politician named Roosevelt.