The Fourth Party System, the term used in political science for the period in American political history from about 1896 to 1932, is dominated by the Republican party, excepting the 1912 split in which Democrats seize power for eight years.

(Historians call it the Progressive Era and focus on different topics.)

The concept was introduced under the name, "System of 1896" by E.E.

Schattschneider in 1960, and the numbering scheme was added by political scientists in the mid 1960s.The period features a transformation from the issues of the Third Party System, which had focused on the American Civil War, Reconstruction, race and money.

The era begins in the severe depression of 1893 and the extraordinarily intense election of 1896.

It includes the Progressive Era, the First World War, and the start of the Great Depression.

The failure of the Republicans to deal with the Great Depression causes a realignment that produced the Fifth Party System, dominated by the Democratic New Deal Coalition until the 1960sThe central domestic issues concern government regulation of railroads and large corporations ("trusts"), the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the need for a new banking system, corruption in party politics, primary elections, direct election of senators, racial segregation, efficiency in government, women's suffrage, and control of immigration.

Foreign policy centers on the 1898 Spanish-American War, imperialism (and Banana Wars), Dollar Diplomacy, the Mexican Revolution, the First World War, and the creation of the League of Nations.

Dominant personalities include presidents William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.