I only see three presidents as being part of the progressive era. TR, Taft and Wilson. McKinley was Guilded Age, Harding and Coolidge were Return to Normalicy and Hoover is part of the Depression Era. Thus the best would be Taft by a mile. Wilson was the worst.
The "Progressive Era" is typically measured by historians as being 1896-1932, an era that basically consisted of Republican domination of politics and a new type of political alignment--urban Republicans vs. agrarian Democrats.
Not really. The Progressive Era is typically considered the period between Teddy Roosevelt's ascension to the Presidency and the outbreak of WWI. The longest I've seen it is 1900 to 1920, but nothing I've seen includes the 1920s, which were decidedly not part of the same political era. The Progressive Era itself is just sort of a blip in the otherwise Long Gilded Age that starts in 1877 and ends in 1933.
Tell me these are part of the same party system:
Wikipedia on the 4th Party System:"Dominant personalities included presidents William McKinley (R), Theodore Roosevelt (R) and Woodrow Wilson (D), three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan (D), and Wisconsin's progressive Republican Robert M. LaFollette."
Wikipedia on the Progressive Era:"The national political leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Charles Evans Hughes and Herbert Hoover on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson and Al Smith on the Democratic side."
As well, both cite 1932 as the definitive end of either the system, or the era.
Wikipedia on the Progressive Era:"There is general agreement that that the era was over by 1932, especially since a majority of the remaining progressives opposed the New Deal."
Wikipedia on the 4th Party System:"It included the Progressive Era, World War I, and the start of the Great Depression. The Great Depression caused a realignment that produced the Fifth Party System, dominated by the Democratic New Deal Coalition until the 1960s."
The sub-article
Business Progressivism in the 1920's states:"What historians have identified as "business progressivism", with its emphasis on efficiency and typified by Henry Ford and Herbert Hoover reached an apogee in the 1920s. Wik, for example, argues that Ford's "views on technology and the mechanization of rural America were generally enlightened, progressive, and often far ahead of his times."
Tindall stresses the continuing importance of the Progressive movement in the South in the 1920s involving increased democracy, efficient government, corporate regulation, social justice, and governmental public service. William Link finds political progressivism dominant in most of the South in the 1920s. Likewise it was influential in Midwest.[81]
Historians of women and of youth emphasize the strength of the progressive impulse in the 1920s. Women consolidated their gains after the success of the suffrage movement, and moved into causes such as world peace, good government, maternal care (the Sheppard–Towner Act of 1921), and local support for education and public health. The work was not nearly as dramatic as the suffrage crusade, but women voted and operated quietly and effectively. Paul Fass, speaking of youth, says "Progressivism as an angle of vision, as an optimistic approach to social problems, was very much alive." The international influences which had sparked a great many reform ideas likewise continued into the 1920s, as American ideas of modernity began to influence Europe.
There is general agreement that that the era was over by 1932, especially since a majority of the remaining progressives opposed the New Deal."
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