Progressive Magazine

PROGRESSIVE MAGAZINE. Founded in 1909 as La Follette’s Weekly, The Progressive magazine owed its beginning to progressive activists Robert M. “Fighting Bob” La Follette and his wife, Belle Case La Follette, the first editor. It was created to call out abuses of power and give voice to the struggles of everyday people. On the banner of this magazine, the editors proudly proclaimed: “Ye Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Make You Free.”

Based in Madison, Wisconsin, and always operating on a shoestring budget, the publication went from being a weekly to a monthly in November 1914. Following Robert La Follette’s death in 1925, the magazine returned to weekly and was renamed The Progressive in December 1929, under the editorship of William T. Evjue, who had also founded The Capital Times, a liberal daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1948, the magazine once again became a monthly.

In April 1940, La Follette’s two sons, Phillip and Robert Jr., took control of the magazine in a dispute over editorial direction. They brought on as editor Morris Rubin, who served in that role until 1973, when Erwin Knoll, who for the previous five years had been the magazine’s Washington editor, moved to Madison to take the helm. Knoll died suddenly in 1994 and was succeeded by Matthew Rothschild, who had begun his career at The Progressive as associate editor. In 2013, Ruth Conniff became editor, and was succeeded in 2017 Bill Lueders (who started his journalism career as an intern at The Progressive in 1984).

Like most publishing projects, and particularly those on the left, The Progressive has at many instances been financially precarious. In October 1947 the magazine announced it would close, but readers came through with donations to keep it going, and it restarted in January 1948. In 2014 the magazine went to ten issues per year and in 2017 reduced its frequency to six. The Progressive continued to struggle financially, with a subscriber base that shrank a great deal since its heyday in the 1990s and early 2000s (particularly during the presidency of George W. Bush). Online readership increased dramatically, but The Progressive remained committed to producing a print edition as well. In March 2014, the magazine briefly merged with the Center for Media and Democracy, a Madison-based national watchdog organization that looked at the public relations industry, media spin, and rightwing funders like the Koch brothers. The merger only lasted six months, and the two groups separated again in September 2014.

The magazine always took an anti-war, anti-militarist, and anti-imperialist position. Fighting Bob opposed the US entry into World War I, in the pages of the magazine, and in the US Senate. The magazine took an anti-fascist position, but opposed entry into World War II until 1940. In recent years, the magazine opposed US military interventions in Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the first Gulf War in 1991, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq following September 11. The Progressive also spoke out in print and on its website against recent US interventions in Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere.

Throughout its history, The Progressive supported workers and labor rights, a preserved environment, freedom of speech, women’s rights, and civil rights. Since the beginning, the magazine has opposed political corruption and economic inequality. Some famous special issues or lead stories have included: Fighting Bob La Follette’s October 6, 1917 speech against entry into World War I; Coverage of the arrest and trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, from May 1921-Dec 1928; An article by Jane Addams on votes for women – April 6, 1912; Special issue in April 1954: McCarthy: A Documented Record; Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”; “The Crisis of Survival” a special issue in April 1970 for the first Earth Day; “Behind the Death Squads [in El Salvador]”: An investigative report by Allan Nairn in May 1984 (which ultimately led to a Senate investigation of U.S. government funding); “Four More Years?” A chronicle of the Trump presidency, in the October/November 2020 issue.

Famous writers for The Progressive have included: Howard Zinn, Eduardo Galeano, Molly Ivins, Nat Hentoff, Milton Mayer, Kate Clinton, Will Durst, Edwidge Danticat, Terry Tempest Williams, Barbara Ehrenreich, June Jordan, Bill McKibben, Frances Moore Lappe, and the Reverend William J. Barber II.

The Progressive branched out from print to other media. The magazine ran a weekly program on community radio stations, beginning in 1984, called “Second Opinion.” The magazine also sponsored a Facebook page and a website, progressive.org, along with two other projects — the Progressive Media Project, which was started in 1993 to diversify voices on the nation’s op-ed pages, and the Public School Shakedown, started in 2013 to confront efforts to privatize public education in the United States.

Barasmian, David. Louder Than Bombs: Interviews From The Progressive. Boston: South End Press 2004.

Lueders, Bill. An Enemy of the State: The Life of Erwin Knoll. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage 1996.

Morland, Howard. The Secret That Exploded. New York: Random House 1981.

Rothchild, Matthew, ed. Democracy in Print: The Best of The Progressive Magazine 1909-2009. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 2009.

The Progressive Website. https://progressive.org