A Gendered Legacy? The Progressive Reform Era Revisited

This article explores some of the impacts feminist scholarship has had on the understanding of the Progressive period and the development of the study of American bureaucracy. It first provides an overview of Progressive Era concepts of reform and efficiency in American bureaucracy. It then summarizes the contributions of feminist perspectives to the refinement of what is thought is known about the Progressive Era. Next, it describes the research implications of feminist theory applied to the study of American bureaucracy. Moreover, it discusses an often overlooked affinity of Progressive literature to the women-centered model's concern for engaged research, some promising unresolved historical questions for future research, and what this all means methodologically for the future of the study of American bureaucracy. Students of American bureaucracy pursue historical research for multiple reasons. A glaring lesson of the Progressive Era is that scholars do not always control how their ideas are disseminated.