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From ABC-CLIO's American History website https://americanhistory2.abc-clio.com/

Progressive Era The Progressive Era encompassed the 20 or so years surrounding the turn of the 20th century generally identi�ed as the years 1890–1913. The era notably includes attempts of in�uential thinkers and activists to improve U.S. society—that is, to progress—through reforms, both legislative and social.

Foundation and Formation

While an American phenomenon, Progressivism had its roots in European social reform. German thinkers were especially in�uential in the transportation of reform ideals across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. This wide-ranging movement encompassed the e�orts of a variety of social groups. Primarily, though, the Progressives can be characterized as middle-class, white American men and women who shared a concern about threats to society. The source of those threats, they believed, was the change wrought by industrialization and urbanization.

Those forces altered the nature of life in the United States; by the turn of the 20th century, the nation had been utterly transformed. Since the end of the Civil War in 1865, the number of people living in urban centers increased exponentially, forever changing the demographic makeup of the previously rural nation. Additionally, the U.S. Industrial Revolution that had begun before the Civil War reached a crescendo during the years 1865– 1900, the period known as the Gilded Age.

Primary Concerns

As a result of those two trends, profound problems emerged that were previously unknown in the United States. In the developing urban centers, scores of people crowded into tenement houses, where sometimes several families lived in one or two small, overcrowded, and rodent-infested rooms. Local governments failed to adequately address such severe problems such as the lack of sewage removal and insu�cient—often nonexistent —public health care programs and facilities.

Further, the emerging factory system in which many of these people worked was highly dangerous, providing little or no protection to employees or the families of employees hurt, maimed, or killed on the job. The surge in European and Asian immigration reached its height at the same time further complicated the situation. The physical makeup of the nation, the way in which citizens lived and worked, and increased ethnic and racial tensions combined to make the United States a seemingly di�erent nation than it had been in early decades of the republic.

These changes led many Americans, particularly those educated in the country's new universities, to worry about the nation's social and moral fabric. Those reformers sought to rectify the problems both individually and in groups. They worked through voluntary organizations and state and federal governmental agencies. The most prominent Progressive reforms took place in the areas of labor protection, health care services, urban living, and environmental protection where activists were able to pressure governmental bodies to enact legislative protections.

Labor Protection

In the area of labor reform, the most prominent issues included child labor and workers' compensation. In the latter part of the 19th century, child labor became very common in the United States. By the early years of the 20th century, an estimated 4 million children aged 10 to 15 made up a substantial part of the nation's workforce. As the number of children in the workplace skyrocketed, so did the number of children injured or killed at work.

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Employers' exploitation of children angered reformers, who aggressively lobbied (urged) state legislatures and the federal government to limit the employers' access to children. They argued children should be spending time in school not at work. Employers forcefully resisted those e�orts, as did many parents who relied on the money earned by their children. The Progressives—or "child savers" as they were often labeled—persisted and eventually secured some restrictions on child

employment. The most famous law passed as a result, the Keating-Owen Act of 1916, did not last very long but was nonetheless an important �rst step in protecting children.

The issue of workers' compensation was equally important to Progressives, and on this issue, too, they were met with the opposition of employers and legislators who were openly pro-business. Despite the fact that the U.S. workplace by the 19th century's end was an extremely dangerous place, those powerful opponents maintained that government intervention in the economy—one of the central features of the Progressive agenda—was inappropriate.

In New York, however, reformers found early success with the 1911 passage of the nation's �rst workers' compensation law. The measure, which other state legislatures soon emulated, provided for the protection of employees through safety measures, stricter supervision and maintenance of machinery. It also created a system of bene�ts for those who were injured or maimed by machinery, and it provided some welfare for the families of victims of workplace fatalities. Prominent Progressives spearheaded those employee victories, but they were also made possible by the burgeoning (growing) labor movement. Union members, in the largest numbers yet, became more vocal in their demands that the U.S. government protect the nation's workforce from unfair yet powerful business interests.

Urban Life

By the turn of the 20th century, the number of Americans living in urban centers had swelled to nearly half of the country's total population. The speed with which that happened produced tremendous problems for those unfortunate enough to be living in new, poorly planned, and often �lthy cities. One approach the Progressives used to solve urban problems was the famous settlement house movement.

Perhaps the best-known proponent of the settlement house scheme was Jane Addams, who also serves as good representative of the Progressive spirit. Though born from privilege, her parents instilled in her a deep sense of social responsibility born from the era's termed social gospel movement or an organized movement that held the belief that the wealthy had a special obligation to improve society. That obligation also entailed spreading Christianity. These purposes characterized the settlement house movement. The �rst and most famous was Hull House, established in Chicago in 1889. The settlement houses were located in the heart of poor ethnic neighborhoods, which were often composed primarily of immigrants. In recent years, historians have criticized the settlement house workers for imposing white, middle-class, Anglo-Saxon values and cultural habits on immigrants. However, the services alleviated some of the su�ering urban poor endured. Today, the sentiments of the settlement house program continue through a non-pro�t organization called the United Neighborhood Centers of America with centers in almost half of U.S. states.

Roosevelt and Reform

The Progressives were generally at odds with state and local governments. That changed in 1901 with the assassination of President William McKinley and the transition of power to his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt. In Roosevelt, the Progressives found a powerful ally. Roosevelt, the former reformist governor of the state of New York, brought the Progressive agenda to the White House. Promising the American people a "Square Deal," Roosevelt proposed a number of legislative measures to protect the health and welfare of the public and the environment.

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Roosevelt's activist approach to governing permanently changed the relationship between the federal government and the public. The government under his leadership assumed a role of protector, and the public in subsequent generations came to expect the continuation of that role. The most stunning example came in the early months of Roosevelt's administration when he broke with the hands-o�, or laissez-faire, tradition of his predecessors. When coal miners went on strike in the west, Roosevelt intervened on their behalf, threatening to shut down the mining company if it did not negotiate with its employees. That novel action illustrated the Progressive ideals of government activism and labor protection.

In another groundbreaking move, Roosevelt proposed and secured the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. That legislation placed stringent regulations on the food and drug industries, furthering the role of the government. While Roosevelt played a critical part in those changes, Progressive journalists, or "muckrakers," as the president labeled them, were often the catalysts for reform. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, for example, highlighted in frightening detail the horrors of the meat packing industry, and Lincoln Ste�ens' The Shame of the Cities uncovered the predicaments of the urban poor. The junction of the reformist mood exempli�ed by the Progressives with the Roosevelt presidency provided a unique opportunity for meaningful and lasting change.

Another area in which Roosevelt and the Progressives achieved signi�cant reform was the environment. For generations, Americans had exploited the country's natural resources, and those calling for conservation measures met resistance or were ignored. Roosevelt, met with the famous environmentalist John Muir and began a national campaign to conserve the nation's resources and to preserve wilderness areas for future generations.

Roosevelt, a Republican, remained in o�ce until 1909. Three years later, he cofounded the Progressive Party, or Bull Moose Party, as it came to be known. In the 1912 presidential election, he ran on that third party's ticket against Democrat Woodrow Wilson, himself a Progressive. Wilson won the election, and his administration secured the passage of many of the ideals articulated by Roosevelt's Progressive Party.

Lasting Yet Limited Reform

Wilson achieved the Progressives' long-sought ideal of government regulation of the economy. He secured tari� reform and was instrumental in the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. The government gained greater control over the nation's economic course and took those matters out of the hands of powerful businessmen, such as the banker billionaire J. P. Morgan. Yet, Wilson's actions as president also displeased more activist Progressives. He refused, for example, to step in on behalf of laborers who had long been the targets of the courts. For decades, the judges had issued injunctions (bans) barring workers from striking, thus providing a very powerful source of support for employers.

Wilson's refusal illustrated the limits of the Progressive movement. While driven by a desire to make U.S. society safer and generate more equality, the movement never sought to completely alter the existing social and economic order. Rather, Progressives advocated government intervention on behalf of those who were powerless —either in the face of abusive employers, corrupt business practices, or unsanitary and unsafe conditions. As a result, the Progressive Era was characterized sometimes by incremental change and often by unsuccessful attempts at wide-ranging reform. Nonetheless, important changes were achieved, particularly the relationship between the government and the citizenry. In this way, the e�orts of activists during the Progressive Era laid the foundation for more fundamental change in later eras, especially during the New Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s.

ABC-CLIO Further Reading

Hofstadter, Richard, ed., The Progressive Movement, 1900-1915, 1986; Rodgers, Daniel T., Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age, 1998; Wiebe, Robert, The Search for Order, 1870-1920. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966.

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Image Credits

Progressive Party presidential candidate of 1912: Library of Congress

Child labor protest (ca. 1900): PhotoQuest/Getty Images

Democratic Party liberalism political cartoon (1916): Corbis

APA Citation Progressive Era. (2024). American History. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from https://americanhistory2.abc- clio.com/Search/Display/263258   http://americanhistory2.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/263258? sid=263258&cid=0&oid=0&subId=0&view=print&lang=&useConcept=False Entry ID: 263258

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