The Progressive Reform Era

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Progressive Reform The Progressive Era or Progressive Reform was a period in time dating back to the early 1900s that brought about great change to the United States of America in terms of politics and social activism. During this time, a lot of citizens noticed an increase in the corruption of the government with nothing being done to combat or stop the corruption. Journalists, who were called muckrakers, were exposing the corruption and scandals that the government was involved in. Citizens also noticed an increase in monopolies in the business world and fought to develop antitrust laws, which would be able to help create equal competition for businesses, which in turn would help the consumer by saving them money and also giving them more options when it came time to purchase goods and services. Prohibition and the women’s suffrage movement also played a major part in the progressive reform of this time. Prohibition was aimed at destroying the power that saloons…show more content…
La Follette, Sr., and Charles Evans Hughes on the Republican side of the equation and William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson and Al Smith on the Democratic side. While these seem to be all national level leaders in government, change during the progressive reform era often started from the local level with social activism starting with the citizens of society during this time. The middle class people played a major role in the change that was taking place in the nation, as they were able to have the connections and financial resources needed in order to start a change. The people in this class and more importantly most people of the time, realized that there needed to be something done regarding the stagnant state of the nation and all of the corruption and scandals going on with the government and the businesses in the nation during this
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