Robyn Muncy, U.S. historian from the University of Maryland, will analyze the Progressive Party of 1912 in relation to today’s politics.  In that first modern presidential election, progressive reformer Theodore Roosevelt and millions of other progressive activists called for more activist government that would humanize capitalism by balancing the power of corporations in the interest of workers and consumers.  Putting issues like child labor, working conditions for waged workers, and growing inequalities of wealth and power on the platform of a national political party for the first time, the Progressive Party energized reformers, who came out in droves to support Roosevelt’s presidential bid.  Progressives also attempted to create a new politics, less driven by partisanship and more motivated by an engaged democratic citizenship, which certainly has echoes in today’s election.   And the third party also urged the realignment of America’s political system into conservative and progressive parties.  Some observers might conclude that by 2008—nearly 100 years later—we are approximating that goal, but we want to consider whether more ideologically consistent parties has tended to favor the progressive policies that Roosevelt hoped for in the early twentieth century.