How is the Progressive movement significant to history?
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From Ohio History Central Show
The Progressive Movement was a widespread reform effort to cure the many social and political ills in the United States after the advent of the Industrial Revolution. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States of America underwent tremendous change. One of the principal changes was the shift from a predominantly agricultural economy to a much more industrialized one. This change also brought stark social changes to the United States. Now millions of people in the U.S. relied on other people, such as business owners, for their livelihood. Oftentimes, the employers reinvested profits back into the company, rather than paying workers a fair wage. These business owners also had tremendous power within the federal government. Many in the U.S. believed that the business owners had undue influence over the government and that the employers had no desire to relinquish any power to the middle and working classes. By the 1890s, a group of reformers known as the Progressives emerged to combat some of the ill effects of these changes. Most Progressives came from middle-class backgrounds, and many of them were college educated. Progressives generally believed that industrialization was good for the United States, but they also contended that human greed had overcome industrialization's more positive effects. They hoped to instill in U.S. residents moral values based upon Protestant religious beliefs. The Progressives wanted employers to treat their workers as the bosses wanted to be treated. They also hoped that, if working conditions improved, people in the U.S. would not engage in immoral activities, like drinking and gambling, to forget the difficulties that they faced. Progressives sought better pay, safer working conditions, shorter hours, and increased benefits for workers. Believing that only education would allow people to lead successful lives, Progressives opposed child labor, wanting children to attend school rather than working in mines and factories. They supported Prohibition and succeeded in enacting a ban on the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol with the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919. Progressives also sought to reclaim government from the business owners and corrupt politicians partly by supporting the direct election of United States senators by the people. The Progressives succeeded in attaining this reform with the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913. Other reforms included Initiative, which allowed voters to pass legislation on their own, Referendum, which allowed voters to repeal laws that they did not support, and Recall, which allowed voters to remove elected officials from office. Many Progressives supported women's suffrage, helping women secure the right to vote through the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919. Progressives also battled against city bosses, including Cincinnati, Ohio's George Cox, by hiring city managers. While Progressives enacted numerous positive reforms, some of their goals were questionable. While they did seek to make the United States government more democratic and to protect U.S. workers, they also sought to force their social and political beliefs on others. Progressives opposed immigration and enacted several immigration restrictions during the 1920s. Progressives also tried to force immigrants to adopt Progressive moral beliefs. One way they tried to accomplish this was through settlement houses. Settlement houses existed in most major cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were places where immigrants could go to receive free food, clothing, job training, and educational classes. While all of these items greatly helped immigrants, Progressives also used the settlement houses to convince immigrants to adopt Progressive beliefs, causing the foreigners to forsake their own culture. During the 1920s, many Progressives also joined the Ku Klux Klan, a self-proclaimed religious group that was to enforce morality, based on Progressive beliefs, on other people. Due to the Progressives' support for Prohibition and immigration restrictions, many in the U.S. stopped supporting the Progressive Movement. While aspects of its beliefs remain today, as a functioning and clearly identifiable group, the Progressive Movement began to weaken by the late 1920s and the early 1930s. See AlsoWilliam Jennings Bryan (1860-1925),
the U.S. congressman from Nebraska, three-time presidential nominee and secretary of state, emerged near the end of the 19th century as a leading voice in the Democratic Party and the nation. A devout Protestant, his populist rhetoric and ...read more William Randolph HearstWilliam Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) launched his career by taking charge of his father’s struggling newspaper the San Francisco Examiner in 1887. By the 1930s, he had built the nation’s largest media empire, including more than two dozen newspapers in major cities nationwide, ...read more How Gilded Age Corruption Led to the Progressive EraPropelled by a Second Industrial Revolution, the United States arose from the ashes of the Civil War to become one of the world’s leading economic powers by the turn of the 20th century. Corporate titans such as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan amassed ...read more 7 Things You May Not Know About 'The Jungle'1. 'The Jungle' is a work of fiction. Sinclair is arguably the best known of the so-called muckrakers, the forerunners of today’s investigative journalists who in the early 1900s exposed widespread corporate and political malfeasance. Unlike most other muckrakers, such as Ida ...read more William Howard TaftThe Republican William Howard Taft worked as a judge in Ohio Superior Court and in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals before accepting a post as the first civilian governor of the Philippines in 1900. In 1904, Taft took on the role of secretary of war in the administration ...read more Why was the Progressive movement so important?The Progressive movement was a turn-of-the-century political movement interested in furthering social and political reform, curbing political corruption caused by political machines, and limiting the political influence of large corporations.
What was a significant impact of the Progressive movement?They improved the lives of individuals and communities. Regulations that progressive groups helped to enact still shape government and commerce today, including food safety requirements, child labor laws, and the normalization of the eight-hour workday.
What was the most important effect of the Progressive Era?During the Progressive Era, protections for workers and consumers were strengthened, and women finally achieved the right to vote.
What were some major accomplishments of the Progressive movement?The Progressive Era saw many important reforms, including legislation regulating working hours and conditions, improving urban living conditions, and protecting consumers. Reformers also brought about the prohibition of alcohol and prostitution.
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