The Progressive
Encyclopedia
The Progressive is an American monthly magazine of politics, culture and progressivism
with a pronounced liberal perspective on some issues. Known for its pacifism
, it has strongly opposed military interventions, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq
in 2003. The magazine also devotes much coverage to civil rights
, civil liberties
, and environmentalism
. It has opposed nuclear weapons from August 1945 to the present.
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
of Wisconsin
. First called La Follette's Weekly, its name was changed to The Progressive in 1929.
The campaigns The Progressive has led include the fight to stay out of World War I, opposition to the Palmer Raids
in the early 1920s, calling for action against unemployment during the Depression
, exposing McCarthyism
in the 1950s, and denouncing U.S. involvement in Indochina
.
In the 1960s, it was a leading voice in the American civil rights movement, publishing the writing of Martin Luther King Jr. five times, and publishing James Baldwin
's open letter
"My Dungeon Shook - Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation", the first section of The Fire Next Time
. In the 1970s, the magazine devoted attention to the emerging environmentalist movement, beginning with a special Earth Day
issue in 1970 entitled "The Crisis of Survival".
In 1979, The Progressive won national attention for its article by Howard Morland
, "The H-bomb
Secret: How we got it and why we're telling it", which the U.S. government suppressed for six months because it contained classified information. The magazine prevailed in a landmark First Amendment
case of prior restraint
, United States v. The Progressive
.
In the 1980s, it published stories about U.S. support for death squad
s in Central America. During the 1990s, The Progressive campaigned on behalf of immigrants
, women on welfare, LGBT social movements
, and prisoners
. In recent years, has it advocated the end of economic sanctions on Iraq
, the end of U.S. involvement in the Colombian civil war, adopting a more liberal policy toward drugs
, and instituting public funding of political campaigns.
WXXM-FM in Madison, Wisconsin
, an Air America Radio
affiliate, features a "Progressive Radio" show with Matthew Rothschild. The half-hour show is broadcast on terrestrial and Internet radio stations across the country, as is a daily audio editorial, The Progressive Point of View, which features Rothschild.
, Helen Keller
, Jack London
, Clarence Darrow
, Upton Sinclair
, Lincoln Steffens
, Carl Sandburg
, George Orwell
, Mike Males, A.J. Muste, James Baldwin
, I.F. Stone, June Jordan
, Noam Chomsky
, Edward Said
, Nat Hentoff
, Milton Mayer
, and Molly Ivins
. It has also published liberal politicians such as Adlai Stevenson, J. William Fulbright
, George McGovern
, Russ Feingold
, Paul Wellstone
, Dennis Kucinich
and Bernie Sanders
.
The magazine's regular contributors include David Barsamian
, Kate Clinton
, Susan Douglas, Will Durst
, Barbara Ehrenreich
, Eduardo Galeano
, Fred McKissack, John Nichols
, Adolph L. Reed, Jr.
, and Howard Zinn
.
The editor of The Progressive is Matthew Rothschild. Its editorial offices are in Madison
, Wisconsin.
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
with a pronounced liberal perspective on some issues. Known for its pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
, it has strongly opposed military interventions, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
in 2003. The magazine also devotes much coverage to civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
, civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
, and environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
. It has opposed nuclear weapons from August 1945 to the present.
History
The Progressive was founded on January 9, 1909, by U.S. SenatorUnited States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette, Sr. , was an American Republican politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was the Governor of Wisconsin, and was also a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin...
of Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
. First called La Follette's Weekly, its name was changed to The Progressive in 1929.
The campaigns The Progressive has led include the fight to stay out of World War I, opposition to the Palmer Raids
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. The raids and arrests occurred in November 1919 and January 1920 under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer...
in the early 1920s, calling for action against unemployment during the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, exposing McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
in the 1950s, and denouncing U.S. involvement in Indochina
Opposition to the Vietnam War
The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...
.
In the 1960s, it was a leading voice in the American civil rights movement, publishing the writing of Martin Luther King Jr. five times, and publishing James Baldwin
James Baldwin (writer)
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
's open letter
Open letter
An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....
"My Dungeon Shook - Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation", the first section of The Fire Next Time
The Fire Next Time
The Fire Next Time is a book by James Baldwin. It contains two essays: "My Dungeon Shook — Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation," and "Down At The Cross — Letter from a Region of My Mind." The first essay, written in the form of a letter to Baldwin's...
. In the 1970s, the magazine devoted attention to the emerging environmentalist movement, beginning with a special Earth Day
Earth Day
Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. The name and concept of Earth Day was allegedly pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. The first Proclamation of Earth Day was by San Francisco, the...
issue in 1970 entitled "The Crisis of Survival".
In 1979, The Progressive won national attention for its article by Howard Morland
Howard Morland
Howard Morland is a United States journalist and activist against nuclear weapons who in 1979 became famous for apparently discovering the "secret" of the hydrogen bomb and publishing it after a lengthy censorship attempt by the Department of Energy...
, "The H-bomb
Teller-Ulam design
The Teller–Ulam design is the nuclear weapon design concept used in most of the world's nuclear weapons. It is colloquially referred to as "the secret of the hydrogen bomb" because it employs hydrogen fusion, though in most applications the bulk of its destructive energy comes from uranium fission,...
Secret: How we got it and why we're telling it", which the U.S. government suppressed for six months because it contained classified information. The magazine prevailed in a landmark First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
case of prior restraint
Prior restraint
Prior restraint or prior censorship is censorship in which certain material may not be published or communicated, rather than not prohibiting publication but making the publisher answerable for what is made known...
, United States v. The Progressive
United States v. The Progressive
United States of America v. Progressive, Inc., Erwin Knoll, Samuel Day, Jr., and Howard Morland is the name of a lawsuit against the magazine The Progressive by the U.S. government in 1979...
.
In the 1980s, it published stories about U.S. support for death squad
Death squad
A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extrajudicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign...
s in Central America. During the 1990s, The Progressive campaigned on behalf of immigrants
Immigration to the United States
Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,...
, women on welfare, LGBT social movements
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
, and prisoners
Prisoners' rights
The rights of civil and military prisoners are governed by both national and international law. International conventions include: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the United Nations' Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and the European Committee for the...
. In recent years, has it advocated the end of economic sanctions on Iraq
Iraq sanctions
The Iraq sanctions were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the nation of Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 , and certain portions including reparations to Kuwait...
, the end of U.S. involvement in the Colombian civil war, adopting a more liberal policy toward drugs
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
, and instituting public funding of political campaigns.
WXXM-FM in Madison, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
, an Air America Radio
Air America Radio
Air America was an American radio network specializing in progressive talk programming...
affiliate, features a "Progressive Radio" show with Matthew Rothschild. The half-hour show is broadcast on terrestrial and Internet radio stations across the country, as is a daily audio editorial, The Progressive Point of View, which features Rothschild.
Circulation
Although circulation had fallen to the level of 27,000 subscribers in 1999, by April 2004, circulation reached 66,000.Contributors
Throughout the years, The Progressive has published leading social critics such as Jane AddamsJane Addams
Jane Addams was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace...
, Helen Keller
Helen Keller
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree....
, Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
, Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
, Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
, Lincoln Steffens
Lincoln Steffens
-Biography:Steffens was born April 6, 1866, in San Francisco. He grew up in a wealthy family and attended a military academy. He studied in France and Germany after graduating from the University of California....
, Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
, George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
, Mike Males, A.J. Muste, James Baldwin
James Baldwin (writer)
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
, I.F. Stone, June Jordan
June Jordan
June Millicent Jordan was a Caribbean American poet, novelist, journalist, biographer, dramatist, teacher and committed activist...
, Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, Edward Said
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
, Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff
Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
, Milton Mayer
Milton Mayer
Milton Sanford Mayer , a journalist and educator, was best known for his long-running column in The Progressive magazine, founded by Robert Marion LaFollette, Sr in Madison, Wisconsin.- Biography :...
, and Molly Ivins
Molly Ivins
Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins was an American newspaper columnist, populist, political commentator, humorist and author.-Early life and education:Ivins was born in Monterey, California, and raised in Houston, Texas...
. It has also published liberal politicians such as Adlai Stevenson, J. William Fulbright
J. William Fulbright
James William Fulbright was a United States Senator representing Arkansas from 1945 to 1975.Fulbright was a Southern Democrat and a staunch multilateralist who supported the creation of the United Nations and the longest serving chairman in the history of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...
, George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
, Russ Feingold
Russ Feingold
Russell Dana "Russ" Feingold is an American politician from the U.S. state of Wisconsin. He served as a Democratic party member of the U.S. Senate from 1993 to 2011. From 1983 to 1993, Feingold was a Wisconsin State Senator representing the 27th District.He is a recipient of the John F...
, Paul Wellstone
Paul Wellstone
Paul David Wellstone was a two-term U.S. Senator from the state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College...
, Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis John Kucinich is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997. He was furthermore a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections....
and Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders
Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He previously represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives...
.
The magazine's regular contributors include David Barsamian
David Barsamian
David Barsamian is an Armenian-American radio broadcaster, writer, and the founder and director of Alternative Radio, the Boulder, Colorado-based syndicated weekly talk program heard on some 125 radio stations in various countries....
, Kate Clinton
Kate Clinton
Kate Clinton is a American comedian specializing in political commentary from a gay/lesbian point of view.-Early life:...
, Susan Douglas, Will Durst
Will Durst
Will Durst is an American political satirist; he considers himself a modern mix of Mort Sahl and Will Rogers....
, Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich
-Early life:Ehrenreich was born Barbara Alexander to Isabelle Oxley and Ben Howes Alexander in Butte, Montana, which she describes as then being "a bustling, brawling, blue collar mining town."...
, Eduardo Galeano
Eduardo Galeano
Eduardo Hughes Galeano is a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist. His best known works are Memoria del fuego and Las venas abiertas de América Latina which have been translated into twenty languages and transcend orthodox genres: combining fiction, journalism, political analysis, and...
, Fred McKissack, John Nichols
John Nichols (journalist)
John Nichols is an American journalist and author. He is a political correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times. Books authored or co-authored by Nichols include: The Genius of Impeachment and The Death and Life of American Journalism.- Biography :Nichols holds a...
, Adolph L. Reed, Jr.
Adolph L. Reed, Jr.
Adolph L. Reed, Jr. is a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in race and American politics. A sometimes controversial academic, he taught at Yale, Northwestern and the New School for Social Research...
, and Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...
.
The editor of The Progressive is Matthew Rothschild. Its editorial offices are in Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
, Wisconsin.