Progressive movement

The Progressive movement was a broad reform movement that arose from the political opposition to monopoly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its significance lay not only in its efforts to restrain powerful corporations, but in the way organized farmers and other critics could press an already pluralistic political system to regulate markets and widen public accountability.

Origins in Opposition to the Trusts

In the late nineteenth century, large trusts spread across the American economy. Some controlled more than 70 percent of their industries, and competition gave way to monopoly as wealth inequality increased. The victims of monopolistic practices, along with those alarmed by the trusts’ influence, began organizing first through the Populist movement and then through the Progressives.

The Populists’ roots included a long-running agrarian crisis in the Midwest. The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, or Grangers, formed in 1867 to mobilize farmers against unfair business practices. In 1873 and 1874, the Grangers won control of eleven Midwestern state legislatures. Their organizing helped build the opposition that culminated in the People’s Party, founded in 1892; it won 8.5 percent of the popular vote that year. In the next two presidential elections, Populists backed the unsuccessful Democratic campaigns of William Jennings Bryan, who adopted many of their issues. Though the movement subsequently declined, it had helped organize a grassroots challenge to the political influence of John D. Rockefeller and other business magnates.

Farmers remained a central force in the campaign against monopoly. Of the fifty-nine petitions concerning trusts sent to Congress before the Sherman Antitrust Act, nearly all came from farming states and from organizations including the Farmers’ Union, the Farmers’ Alliance, the Farmers’ Mutual Benefit Association, and the Patrons of Animal Husbandry. Their common interest in resisting monopolistic business practices helped turn dispersed grievances into sustained political pressure.

From Populist Decline to Progressive Reform

The Progressives emerged from the Populists’ decline as a varied reform movement concerned with many of the same problems. The movement initially gathered around Theodore Roosevelt, who became president after William McKinley’s assassination in 1901. Before reaching national office, Roosevelt had served as governor of New York, where he worked against political corruption and machine politics.

In his first address to Congress, Roosevelt acknowledged both the achievements of large businesses and the public concern that trusts could harm the general welfare. He argued that combinations of capital should not simply be prohibited, but supervised and kept within reasonable limits. He also called for a federal agency able to investigate large corporations. The reform argument therefore treated the problem not as the existence of business or markets, but as the unchecked concentration of economic and political power.

The reform movement helped change political attitudes and legislation. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 created the Interstate Commerce Commission and began the development of federal industry regulation. The Sherman Antitrust Act followed in 1890, providing a basis for later attacks on trusts. Roosevelt used the Sherman Act in 1902 to break up the Northern Securities Company, affecting the interests of J.P. Morgan. His administration also pursued cases against DuPont, the American Tobacco Company, and Standard Oil. The Hepburn Act of 1906 strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission, including by allowing it to inspect railway financial accounts and extending its authority.

The Progressive Presidency and Federal Action

Roosevelt’s successor, William Taft, pursued trust cases even more vigorously. The breakup of Standard Oil in 1911 was a high point of this campaign. Taft also promoted a federal income tax, which followed ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913. Together, these actions extended reform beyond criticism of corporate concentration toward a broader increase in federal regulatory and fiscal capacity.

The reform drive reached its peak under Woodrow Wilson, elected in 1912. Wilson argued that persistent monopoly would give monopolists control over government, and that they could not be expected to restrain themselves. In 1914, he secured passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act, which strengthened the Sherman Act, and created the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the new legislation.

Regulation also reached the financial sector. An investigation by the Pujo Committee, led by Louisiana congressman Arsene Pujo, examined the “money trust”—the spread of monopoly into finance. In 1913, Wilson created the Federal Reserve Board to regulate monopolistic activity in that sector. Across administrations, reform thus moved from mobilization and public criticism to antitrust actions and new federal institutions.

Markets, Power, and Political Pluralism

The Progressive campaign demonstrated that markets alone do not guarantee economic inclusion. A market dominated by a few firms can enable high prices, block more efficient competitors, and obstruct new technologies. Where concentrated business interests also wield political power, economic opportunity can narrow even while markets remain formally in place. The book’s account therefore distinguishes markets from inclusive markets, which must offer a level playing field and opportunities to a broad public.

At the same time, the response to monopoly illustrates the political possibilities created by pluralism. Farmers and other groups organized around shared grievances, pressed their concerns through political channels, and helped produce federal regulation. The movement’s importance was not that it eliminated conflict between concentrated wealth and the broader public, but that pluralistic institutions made it possible for organized opposition to contest corporate power and alter public policy.