GOVERNOR OF WISCONSIN, 1901-1905

U.S. SENATOR, 1906-1925

"Battlin' Bob."

With his election as governor of Wisconsin in 1900, Robert La Follette emerged as one of the most impassioned American progressives, battling the entrenched power of the corrupt political "machine" by putting into practice his "Wisconsin Idea" of entrusting his administration to non-partisan civil servants drawn largely from the University of Wisconsin faculty. Largely because of Lincoln Steffens's articles about his efforts in McClure's Magazine he was soon marked as a rising star in the nationwide progressive movement, earning him the nickname "Battlin' Bob."

Background.

La Follette was born into a poor but respectable farming family in pioneer Dane County, Wisconsin, on 14 June 1855. Despite their poverty, La Follette's family managed to scrape together enough money to send him to the University of...