2. The Progressive Era 1890-1920

3. Roots of Progressive Reform The Populist movement was the more rural predecessor to the more urban Progressive movement. Nativism, prohibition, purity crusades, electoral reform, charity reform, social gospel philosophy and settlement houses. Progressive reformers were reacting to era’s rapid industrialization, immigration, and urbanization. Progressives maintained that private industry could not do enough to improve the lives of the industrial poor.

4. Progressive Goals & Beliefs Not a single unified movement. Government should be accountable to its citizens. Government should curb the power and influence of wealthy interests. Government should be given expanded powers so that it could become more active in improving the lives of citizens. Governments should become more efficient and less corrupt so that they could completely handle an expanded role.

5. Progressives also believed that the government should Protect workers. Help the poor.

6. Henry George Believed poverty could be eliminated by eliminating land speculation. Opposed the fact that owners only had to pay tax on improvements to land. Wanted a single tax on the value of land to end land speculation.

7. Edward Bellamy Author of “Looking Backward” (1888) Novel in which a man undergoes hypnosis in 1887 and wakes up in the year 2000, to discover a Utopian society, where government runs companies with the goal of meeting human needs rather than making profits.

8. Muckrakers Journalists who worked at exposing political and business corruption. Although Roosevelt and other Progressives denounced them at first, their writings did motivate government to make many reforms.

9. Progressive Reform Organizations The Labor Movement (Unions) At first were limited in success because of injunctions. Socialists; Their numbers grew and they did form the Socialist Party of America in 1901, but most Americans wanted more moderate reforms. Women’s groups (e.g. National Consumers League) (Women’s groups addressed many problems but all knew they needed the vote.)

10. Florence Kelley Her efforts convinced many states to abolish child labor. Along with Jane Addams worked to reform local labor conditions.

11. Mother Jones Best known for Organizing unions in the mines of West Virginia and Colorado She helped found the International Workers of the World in 1905.

12. Progressive Reforms meet Resistance Some Americans resisted Progressive reforms because they did not approve of governmental control over their lives. Because Progressives sought increased government involvement in people’s lives they often met resistance, even from the very people they intended to help. The poor often opposed child labor laws because they needed the child’s income.