A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920

Format: Paperback Language: English ISBN: 0195183657 ISBN13: 9780195183658 Release Date: July 2005 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Length: 416 Pages Weight: 1.35 lbs. Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.2" With America's current and ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor and the constant threat of the disappearance of the middle class, the Progressive Era stands out as a time when the middle class had enough influence on the country to start its own revolution. Before the Progressive Era most Americans lived on farms, working from before sunrise to after sundown every day except Sunday with tools that had changed very little for centuries. Just three decades later, America was utterly transformed into a diverse, urban, affluent, leisure-obsessed, teeming multitude. This explosive change was accompanied by extraordinary public-spiritedness as reformers--frightened by class conflict and the breakdown of gender relations--abandoned their traditional faith in