The Progressive Era

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The Progressive Era was a time of social activism and political reform in the United States that grew from the 1890s to the 1920s. During the new century, middle class reformers addressed many of the problems that had helped the social revolution of the 1890s. Journalists and writers uncovered the unsafe conditions of factory workers including women and children and how they were treated by the corrupt factory owners. Many people questioned the leading role of a big company boss in the American Society. Political Reformers struggled to make the government respond to the owners. The people then started to take action to their efforts by forming the progressive movement. They wanted to bring back economic opportunities and fix the mistreatment…show more content…
Social Welfare reformers then worked hard to stop some of the hard working conditions they had to go through. During the 1800s, to help the cause of social welfare, many social gospels and settlement homes started to help the poor through community centers, churches, and social services. This continued during the Progressive Era and influenced even more reformer activities, for example Florence Kelly became an advocate for improving the lives of women and children. Her determination then lead to her being appointed to chief inspector for Illinois and eventually helped pass the Illinois Factory Act in 1893.The act would prohibit child labor and limit working hours for women and soon became an example for other states. Other reformers felt that the problem was morality, not the working conditions. They believed that to improve poor people’s lives they had to uplift their spirits by improving their personal behavior. They then banned alcoholic beverages by making a program called Prohibition. Prohibitionist groups were worried that alcoholic drinks were changing American morality, for example Carry Nation a reformer that was a part of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union would enter saloons that would sell alcohol and would sing and pray urging saloonkeepers to stop selling alcohol. She would then scold the customers and use her hatchet to destroy liquor…show more content…
But then again their efforts grew distrust of immigrants’ participation of politics. Natural disasters were also a key role in the reforms of city governments. A state that was almost destroyed by a natural disaster was being rebuilt so badly that the government had to appoint a five-member commission of experts to take over the reconstruction. Each expert took lead of a department of a city and soon the state was rebuilt. This made the government officially adopt the idea of five-member commission

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