Progressive Era - Liberal or Conservative?

There is no contention that the dawn of the twentieth century was a time of great social, political, and economic upheaval. The Progressive Era, as the time period from 1900 to 1917 had been dubbed, saw many changes enacted to curb the marriage between business and politics, improve the social condition of workers, and curtail economic corruption within the trusts. With the power and influence of ‘big business’ increasing at an unprecedented rate, many middle class Americans began to feel disfranchised from what they considered to be the keynote of the American experience, democracy. However, what on the outset might appear to be as simple as a liberal reaction by the new middle class agai...