THE SEVERAL careers of Louis D. Brandeis spanned
a perilous transition in the life of the American people. In
the years between his birth and his death a rural society
became urban. Industry displaced agriculture as the basis of
the country's wealth. A massive wage labor force in manufac-
turing differed in character and in ethnic origin from the
farmers and artisans who had earlier composed the bulk of
the population. The effects of these developments rippled
outward to reorient municipal, state, and national politics,
and in a way of which few were conscious transformed the
practice of law.

The social, economic, and political issues raised by these
changes troubled many citizens. But men and women accus-
tomed to growth as a constant of their history did not surren-
der their traditional optimism. A firm belief in progress
persuaded them that humanity was capable of indefinite im-
provement, and a variety of movements took form to achieve
that end. After 1900, they became known collectively as pro-
gressives. Although the progressives never formed a
homogeneous party subscribing to a uniform platform, they
shared intellectual features. They insisted that policy had to
rest on knowledge and on the use of rational methods, and

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