The Natural Wonder of the Grand Canyon: A Progressive Speech

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Spanning from 1890 to 1920, the Progressive Era is notable period of transformation for the United States. Throughout this duration, not only is it expanding its role on the world stage, it is going through a transition into a modernist society, a society of consumerism and mass production; a bottom-line business based society symbolized by assembly lines and the use of “scientific management,” and represented by the shift from rural to city life. With such rapid development in a relatively short period, progressively minded individuals sought to “alleviate the dysfunction, or the corruption, or the economic injustice, or the human suffering that had accompanied America’s explosion of industrial growth, urbanization, and new ways of life.” “The Natural Wonder of the Grand Canyon” is a partial embodiment of the progressive era in the United States as portrayed by the ideologies of President Theodore Roosevelt and his square deal.

Undoubtedly one of the most influential proponents of the progressive era was Theodore Roosevelt. “Roosevelt was a serious, lifelong student of nature both physical and human, of the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition, and of the economic, psychological and political dimensions of human societies.” As president he urged the people to live better, believing that it was “individual character that set the course of history, not the not the economic systems.” It has been said that “Roosevelt made the progressive era possible” and his “politics of virtue” in many ways were “a challenge to be better, to be more, to be righteous.” These qualities mixed with an unsurpassed intelligence gave him the ability to not only want reform but to lead the way in a time where the country was confused ...

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... Theodore Roosevelt: preacher of righteousness. New Haven: Yale University Press pg. nr. xxi

Hawley. Theodore Roosevelt: preacher of righteousness. pg. nr. xvii

Hawley, Theodore Roosevelt: preacher of righteousness. pg. nr. xxi

Dover Thrift Editions, Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, page nr. 1

Dover Thrift Editions, Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, page nr. 2

Ibid.

Dover Thrift Editions, Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, page nr. 1

Ibid

Campbell, Robert. 2002. Newlands, old lands: Native american labor, agrarian ideology, and the progressive-era state in the making of the newlands reclamation project, 1902-1926. Pacific Historical Review 71, no. 2: 203-238, http://search.proquest.com/docview/212439944?accountid=26397.

Ibid

Dover Thrift Editions, Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, page nr. 2

Ibid.

Ibid.

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