The Progressive is an American monthly magazine of politics and culture with a pronounced left-of-center perspective. It is known for its pacifism; its strong opposition to military interventions, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The magazine also devotes much coverage to civil rights, civil liberties, and environmentalism. It has opposed nuclear weapons from August 1945 to the present.
The Progressive was founded in January 9, 1909, by Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. It was first called La Follette's Weekly; in 1929, it name was changed to The Progressive.
Among the campaigns The Progressive has led was the fight to stay out of World War I, the Palmer Raids in the early 1920s, unemployment during the Depression, expose McCarthyism in the 50s, and US involvement in Indochina.
In the 1960s, it was a leading voice in civil rights movement, publishing the writing of Martin Luther King Jr five times.
In the 1970s, the magazine devoted attention to the emerging environmental movement, kicking it off with a special Earth Day issue in 1970 entitled The Crisis of Survival.
In 1979, The Progressive won national attention for its article The H-Bomb Secret: How we got it and why we're telling it, which the US government suppressed for six months.
But the magazine prevailed in a landmark First Amendment case.
In the 1980s, it published groundbreaking stories about U.S. support for death squads in Central America.
During the 1990s, The Progressive campaigned on behalf of immigrants, women on welfare, gays and lesbians, and prisoners. In recent years, it worked to end the economic sanctions on Iraq, to prevent US involvement in the Colombian civil war, to adopt a sane policy toward drugs, and to institute public funding of political campaigns.
Throughout the years, The Progressive has published leading social critics such as Jane Addams, Helen Keller, Jack London, Clarence Darrow, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Carl Sandburg, George Orwell, A.J. Muste, James Baldwin, I.F. Stone, June Jordan, Noam Chomsky, and Edward Said.
It has also published liberal politicians such as Adlai Stevenson, J. William Fulbright, George McGovern, Russ Feingold, Paul Wellstone, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders.
Currently the magazine's regular contributors include David Barsamian, Kate Clinton, Susan Douglas, Will Durst, Barbara Ehrenreich, Eduardo Galeano, Molly Ivins, Fred McKissack, John Nichols, Adolph L. Reed, Jr., and Howard Zinn.
The editor of The Progressive is Matthew Rothschild. Its editorial offices are in Madison, Wisconsin.Early years
Contributors
