Partisans and progressives

At the turn of the twentieth century, Illinois was an expanding industrial giant and its urban center, Chicago, was peopled with competing ethnic and economic groups. Drawn to the city by the promise of factory jobs and social mobility, newcomers found instead the universal conditions of the working poor: cramped tenement flats, unclean food, unsafe streets and schools, and sweatshops.

Enter the progressives, including Jane Addams, John Dewey, Graham Taylor, and Charles Merriam. Dedicated to a new concept, "the public interest," they tried to implement a policy of justice and efficiency. Instead, the progressives fell prey to complex social divisions that were widened farther by such incendiary issues as the centralization of public schools, Chicago home rule, and the regulation of industry and saloons. The progressives' good intentions and concerted efforts failed to reform; in fact, their pursuit of governmental efficiency perpetuated injustice by solidifying the dominance of party machines in Illinois.

Thomas Pegram shows how progressives won certain battles even as they lost the war. The progressives popularized their various reform ideas but failed to control the all important process of shepherding these reforms through the legislative and bureaucratic systems. The largely unspoken irony of the progressive movement was that, in attempting to open up the political process, it fostered more economical and efficient forms of government. Eventually, this economy and efficiency led to the entrenchment of party bosses.

Pegram chronicles the development of fragile coalitions of intellectuals, settlement-house workers, and civic club leaders, all committed to promoting separate political agendas. Ultimately, these coalitions failed to produce a genuine democratic society, or even to promote the general welfare. Drawing on hitherto unexplored documents of the Progressive Era, Partisans and Progressives sheds new light on this pivotal period in American history.