History Essay

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Part 2 Unit 2
Compare the Populist and Progressive movements. Critically analyze why the Progressive movement seemed to have more success. What were the limitations of the Populist movement?
The progressive movement was mainly focused on championing for political reforms. The urbanized middle class played a significant role in campaigning for the movement. They were also the primary players (Gerber 4). The support was abundant and initiated in the early years of the twentieth century. The initiation of the movement was to support the ideology of standing against the “powerful” people who were believed to cause the social decays such as corruption. Additionally, it focused on such topics as the biased legal system and inflation. On the other hand, the primary focus of the populist campaign was the reform of the economic system. The leaders of the movement were mainly farmers and other people associated with agriculture. The followers of this movement believed that industrialist and the banking system was against the farmers as they interfered with the practice of the government. They felt that both the bankers and industrialists wanted to diminish the farmers economically.
The progressive movement seemed to work as it contained the middle-class population that seemed to understand the fundamentals of the current state of the nation. The ideology of liberating the country from the elements of corruption, inflation, and broken judiciary systems was appealing to all.

Thus, the movement took the entire nation by a landslide making it appear more successful than the populist.
On the contrary, the populist failed since it did not meet the needs of all the involved parties. For instance, the farmers suggested policies that would increase the price of their products as well as places to store crop until the plan was enacted. The workers, on the other hand, could not support the system as they feared the increase in food prices and job loss (Creech 121).

Works cited
Creech, Joe. Righteous Indignation. University Of Illinois Press, 2010.
Gerber, Elisabeth R. The Populist Paradox. Princeton University Press, 2011.