Progressive Era v. New Deal

During the New Deal, many government planners and leaders drew inspiration for their policies from Progressive era reforms. New Dealers saw in the early twentieth century Progressive movement an innovative campaign to address the social and economic dislocations which were directly relevant to the crisis of the Great Depression. New Dealers also found in the Progressive movement an example of gradual reform through democratic institutions. In addition, the Progressives had insisted upon the need for government to promote social justice, to preserve democracy, and to provide security to Americans, all principles that New Dealers championed as well. But the New Deal was not simply a continuation of Progressivism. In several important ways, the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt set the United States on a course that diverged substantially from the vision of Progressivism. In particular, The New Deal accepted that the United States was a pluralist nation and moved away from the overbearing program of assimilation that had characterized the Progressive era solution to national identity. And the New Dealers did not revive the imperialist ambitions that had led the United States into intervention throughout the world during the Progressive era. In the end, the differences between the New Deal and Progressivism are no less important than the similarities. At the most basic level, economic depressions inspired both the Progressive movement and the New Deal. The severe economic dislocation that followed the Depression of 1893 called into question the prevailing belief in laissez faire government. With millions of Americans unemployed, calls from business leaders and politicians for Americans to patiently await the return of prosperity left many Americans frustrated. Motivated often by both a concern for the victims of the depression as well as by fears of violent social disorder, middle class reformers applied social planning and social science to tame the problems