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Abstract

Moral outrage, shame, guilt, and the need for social justice propelled thousands of individuals into political activism from the 1870s until the end of World War I.1 For them, reform, not self interest, was uppermost in their minds. In the United States, such men and women were recognized as belonging to a group called Progressives; in Britain, though they shared similar motives, the name had limited meaning outside Edwardian national politics and the London County Council.2 Yet some reformers in Britain did appropriate the name, and more important, thousands more deserved it.3

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Notes

  1. Another catalyst, fear of social disorder, upheaval, contamination by the poor, or national deterioration, seemed strongest in Britain. Arthur S. Link and Richard L. McCormick, Progressivism (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1983), 21;

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  4. The term Progressive originated in Britain in 1889 when Liberal, Fabian, and socialist members of the London County Council (LCC) were referred to collectively but awkwardly as progressists, which eventually became Progressive. Reformers unconnected with the LCC such as Clementina Black also used the term to describe themselves. In the Edwardian era, the term became associated with national politics, describing the New Liberals who promoted an alliance with the Labour Party. Fabians also adopted the nomenclature. In the postwar era, brewers who espoused the improved public house became self-described Progressives. Americans appropriated the term, which became fashionable in the United States in the 1910 elections; Sydney Nevile, The First Half-Century: A Review of the Developments of the Licensed Trade and the Improvement of the Public House during the Past Fifty Years (London: n.p., 1949);

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  13. For a discussion of the cult of the expert in national politics, see G.R. Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency: A Study in British Politics and British Political Thought, 1899–1914 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971), 80–86.

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  14. For American progressivism, I have relied primarily on the following sources: William L. O’Neill, The Progressive Years: America Comes of Age (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1975);

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  21. This was also true to some extent of high politics. The Rainbow Circle, key theorists, journalists, and politicians recognized by historians as intellectual heirs of the New Liberalism, were believers preeminently in “pragmatic collectivism.” Similar to H. W. Massingham (editor of the Daily Chronicle and later the Nation), Charles Masterman stressed his apolitical outlook (Clarke, Liberals and Social Democrats, 58; Alfred F. Havighurst, Radical Journalist: H.W. Massingham (1860–1924) [London: Cambridge University Press, 1974 ], 96, 175, 324–25;

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  41. I am completing an essay comparing muckrakers in Britain with their U.S. counterparts. Extracts from the writings of some British muckrakers—George R. Sims, Robert H. Sherard, Annie Besant, Edith Hogg, Mary Higgs, Andrew Mearns and Olive Christian Malvery—are reproduced in two studies: Keating, Unknown England, 65–111, 174–88, 273–84; Ellen Ross, Slum Travelers: Ladies and London Poverty, 1860–1920 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 45–51, 97–116, 136–47. Neither Keating nor Ross recognizes these authors as muckrakers.

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  78. Olive Malvery, Andrew Mearns, James Samuelson, Thomas C. Horsfall, William Beveridge, Charles Masterman in Britain and Albion Small and Edward A. Ross in the United States all cited guilt as a motivator of reform (Olive Christian Malvery, The Soul Market, with which is included “The Heart of Things” (London: Hutchinson, 1907), 68; Wohl, Eternal Slum, 214, “Bitter Cry,” 226;

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Gutzke, D.W. (2008). Progressivism in Britain and Abroad. In: Gutzke, D.W. (eds) Britain and Transnational Progressivism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230614970_3

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