The 1900s ushered in a new era of politics within American society. The United States found itself in a period of peace and relative prosperity. It is in this time period that a movement took center stage and ushered in an era where the nation focused on the political, social, and economic wellness within the confines of its boarders. The era is termed the Progressive Era, the remarkable period of reform when the American public and leadership softened its long-held belief that the government that governs least governs best. Within this frame of history Theodore Roosevelt established a “bully pulpit,” Roosevelt’s coined phrase defining the power that a president can wield to mobilize and galvanize the public mind. In her work Doris Goodwin attempts to analyze several “interwoven strands”: The story of Theodore …show more content…
Author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Goodwin focuses on great men of history, but she is the foremost exponent of a historiographic school that focuses on the armies of aides and administrators that enable such men to greatness. In this narrative work Goodwin continues her historiographic focus and commemorates President Teddy Roosevelt, his friend, administrator, and successor William Howard Taft, and the muckraker McClure’s Magazine. Both Taft and McClure’s Magazine functioned as the supporting arm of Roosevelt’s progressivism within the United States. Additionally, Goodwin provides a detailed account of the meteoric rise of Theodore Roosevelt from “sickly and timid boy” to big-city police commissioner to Rough Rider to U.S. president (34). It is also interwoven with the less known and spectacular ascension of William Howard Taft, from “Big Bill” at Yale University to Ohio magistrate to governor-general of the Philippines to Roosevelt’s secretary of war and eventually the hand-picked successor as president of the United States