Episode Details

Neil Lanctot, author of The Approaching Storm: Roosevelt, Wilson, Addams, and Their Clash Over America's Future, introduces the three primary figures of the narrative in 1912: Jane Addams, Theodore Roosevelt (TR), and Woodrow Wilson. All three identified as progressives, though their interpretations of the movement differed significantly. Addams, a world-renowned social reformer and founder of Hull House, broke tradition by nominating TR for the presidency under the new Progressive Party. She viewed progressivism through the lens of social justice, suffrage, and labor reform. TR, at 53, had transformed into a "radical" progressive, advocating for aggressive corporate reform and women's suffrage to align with a changing nation. Meanwhile, Woodrow Wilson, the scholarly Governor of New Jersey, focused on economic progressivism and the Jeffersonian ideal of breaking up trusts. Despite their shared intellectual depth and elite educations, the three leaders possessed vastly different temperaments, ranging from Roosevelt's "freakish" photographic memory to Wilson's more labored academic style. (1)