The Progressive Era

Political, social, and economic reform create an “Age of Optimism”.

Causes of Social Ills

• Immigration • Urbanization • Industrialization • Laissez-faire economics • Unregulated market • Political machines

Roots of Progressivism

•

Muckrakers:

journalists who exposed waste, corruption, and scandal in the highly influential new medium of national magazines, such as

McClure's

. • Progressives believed in

science, technology, expertise

and

education

as grand solutions to society's ills. • Characteristics of progressivism included a

favorable attitude toward urban-industrial society, belief in mankind's ability to improve the environment and conditions of life, belief in obligation to intervene in economic and social affairs, and a belief in the ability of experts and in efficiency of government intervention

.

Progressive Ideals

• Improving working conditions, improving the way of life, exposing corruption, expanding democracy and making reforms were the main idea. • Marked with the arrival of three great presidents: Theodore Roosevelt William Howard Taft Woodrow Wilson

Working Towards Progressive Goals

•

Protecting Social Welfare

• •

Promoting Moral Improvement Creating Economic Reform

•

Fostering Efficiency

• • • • • •

Protecting Social Welfare

Social Gospel Movement

lives would improve.

hoped public health measures and enforced schooling to develop skills, the quality of their moral

Concerns

:

labor reforms, such as abolishing child labor, 12-hour day for workers at U.S. Steel, and regulating the hours of work by mothers.

Reformers opened settlement houses like the

Hull House

in Chicago by

Jane Addams

. Helped the poor/immigrants by offering services such as daycare, education, and health care The

YMCA

adjust to the city without losing their religion was created to help rural youth

Salvation Army’s

spiritual needs.

mission: to perform social/charitable work, bringing the Christian message to the poor, destitute and hungry by meeting their physical and

Promoting Moral Improvement

• Women’s Christian Temperance Movement – led crusade for Prohibition • Improve morals to help the poor • Started in Cleveland in 1874 Temperance Video

Creating Economic Reform

• Economic panic led to questions on capitalism • American Socialist Part – formed in opposition to the capitalist system (Eugene Debs) • Claimed uneven balance of Business/Gov’t vs. people • Questioned Differences, Machines and Corruption

Fostering Efficiency

• Scientific management techniques applied • Make workers more productive and efficient • Studies create assembly line/shorter shifts • Improved production Assembly Line