The Progressives spent their childhood shell-shocked by sectionalism and the American Civil War. Overawed by older "bloody-shirt" veterans, they came of age cautiously, pursuing refinement and expertise more than power. In the shadow of Reconstruction, they earned their reputation as well-behaved professors and lawyers, calibrators and specialists, civil servants and administrators. In midlife, their mild commitment to social melioration was whipsawed by the passions of youth. They matured into America's genteel yet juvenating Rough Riders in the era of Sigmund Freud's "talking cure" and late-Victorian sentimentality. After busting trusts and achieving progressive procedural reforms, their elders continued to urge tolerance on less conciliatory juniors.
Altogether, there were about 22 million Americans born from 1843 to 1859. 27 percent of them were immigrants and 9 percent were slaves at any point in their lives.
The Progressives' typical grandparents were of the Compromise Generation. Their parents were of the Transcendental Generation and Gilded Generation. Their children were of the Missionary Generation and Lost Generation; their typical grandchildren were of the G.I. Generation.
A listing of sample Progressives includes the following, with birth and death dates as this generation is fully ancestral:
Prominent foreign-born peers of the Progressives include Vincent van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Sigmund Freud, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Henri Bergson.
Sample cultural endowments of the Progressives include the following: