Croly, Herbert

Croly, Herbert (1869–1930), political philosopher and editor.Croly was born in New York City, the son of two prominent journalists. Entering Harvard College in 1886, he studied intermittently for fourteen years but eventually left without earning a degree. He worked for the Architectural Record, a New York trade journal, until 1906. A close and thoughtful observer of politics, he was moved by the early stirrings of American Progressivism to write his most important book, The Promise of American Life (1909). The work criticized the Jeffersonian ideal of a weak central government and advocated an expanded government role in social reform and business regulation. Theodore Roosevelt's praise of the book established Croly's reputation as an insightful analyst of American political culture. His second work of political commentary, Progressive Democracy, appeared in 1914.

Two wealthy admirers, Dorothy and Willard Straight, provided Croly with funds to found and edit the New Republic, a weekly magazine of political and cultural commentary. From 1914 until he suffered a debilitating stroke in 1928, Croly—together with a remarkable collection of editors and writers, including Walter Lippmann, John Dewey, and Randolph Bourne—produced a literate, highly influential journal of liberal opinion and commentary on foreign affairs, domestic policy, literature, art, politics, and religion.

Painfully bashful, reticent, and modest, Croly nevertheless gathered a circle of admiring friends who respected his intelligence, integrity, and seriousness of purpose. He was one of that group of American intellectuals who transformed American liberalism at the turn of the century.
See also Progressive Era.

Bibliography

David W. Levy , Herbert Croly of the New Republic: The Life and Thought of an American Progressive, 1985.
Edward A. Stettner , Shaping Modern Liberalism: Herbert Croly and Progressive Thought, 1993.

David W. Levy