Political Parties - Populists and Progressives?

Question

My group has to create a skit of this for our US History class and I have no idea what these are.

Can someone give me a general explanation on what populists and progressives are before I do a more depth research? (Like a background idea)

Answer 1

The Populists were The People's Party (historians call it the Populist Party now I assume because you can't have Peopleism, lol). It arose in the late 19th Century. They were mostly the farm people of the mid-West.

Progressivism was a movement in the early 20th Century which was about various reforms. The Progressive Party or Bull Moose Party was founded by Theodore Roosevelt when he decided to run against Taft. It was also called the Bull Moose parties. Some examples of progressivism are attacks on big business such as Ida Tarbell's expose of Standard Oil Co. and Upton Sinclair's books such as The Jungle.