Edwards, Progressive, CultureThe discussion throughout Tuesday\u2019s class offered a unique opportunity to hear everyone\u2019s unique definitions and made me question this preconceived notion of the Gilded and Progressive divide. With each point made, my opinions swayed regarding whether these eras should be reclassified, altered, or eliminated.\u00a0 By the time I exited class, I was vehemently persuaded by the arguments of corruption, economic change, political turmoil, and the distinction between Progressive Reform and Gilded Age failures.\u00a0 I left believing that the Gilded Age demanded the classification between 1877-1898.\u00a0 However after reading the works from Edwards, Schneirov, and Connolly, my thought process has taken another drastic turn, as now my belief generally concurs more with Edwards than Schneirov. This assigned reading offered an interesting mix of two contrasting opinions, in Edwards and Schneirov, and a third, in Connolly, that easily could be argued with either side.<\/p>\n

Let me begin with addressing Price\u2019s critique<\/a> of Edwards.\u00a0 Price raises some very valid points that Edward\u2019s is too positive, too reactionary, and that she generalizes much of her argument.\u00a0 It is true that much of political legislation passed in the Gilded Age (Sherman and Pendleton) does not effect change until the liberation of the Court at the turn of the century. However, I believe this is Edward\u2019s foundational argument.\u00a0 Changes enacted during the \u201cGilded Age\u201d often blend their way into the \u201cProgressive Era.\u201d\u00a0 The slow changes to law, social structure, and even the economy begin in the Gilded Age and do not rapidly accelerate with Roosevelt.\u00a0 Instead the changes made before the turn become more enforced and even expand after Roosevelt.\u00a0 Schneirov description on how the shift to capitalism should be the defining factor in the era split is too narrow-minded.\u00a0 The economic and political changes in the late 19^{th<\/sup> century are only two factors in the changing nation.\u00a0 One must look at the cultural changes, the changes in space (urbanization), and characterization of their citizens, as key era shifting measurements.<\/p>\n}

Edwards cunningly provides enough detail that undermines the generally accepted split in eras.\u00a0 Simply she suggests that there is no clear divide because progressive reform could be traced earlier than 1898.\u00a0 She is very accurate when mentioning that movements started in the \u201cGilded Age\u201d actually develop further in the \u201cProgressive Era.\u201d She mentions the Chinese Exclusion (p.466), Sherman (p.466) journals\/writings of the 1890\u2019s (p.467), Hull House movement (p.467), Women\u2019s movement (p.468), and political reform (p.468), as examples of progressive type reform that started before the 20^{th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 My only argument against her is that instead of labeling these as early Progressive reforms, she should classify them as steps towards change.\u00a0 Movements like unions, women\u2019s suffrage, and the temperance started in the last quarter of the 19th<\/sup> century and spanned through World War 1.\u00a0 America should not be defined by one specific category (as Schneirov seems to suggest with his capitalism argument) in shifting from one era to another.\u00a0 Instead eras shift through entire countries.\u00a0 Yes there was more economic reform pre-20th<\/sup> century, yet the religious, social, cultural, technological reform that started right after Reconstruction expands all the way until the Great Depression. I think Connolly\u2019s work on urbanization supports this theory for his article combines the two eras and implies that the unique development of each city spans from after the Civil War and has no definitive end.\u00a0 If Eras are complete changes, than I agree with Edwards than the Gilded and Progressive Eras must be combined because the entire country does not revolutionize until the New Deal. By having a combined era, historians could group the developments of the entire country and explain success and failures as a means for the entire progressive change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"}

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