Progressive Era
Introduction
The Progressive Era was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States, from the 1890s to 1920s. Progressivism is a term that encompasses a wide spectrum of social movements that include environmentalism, labor, anti-poverty, peace, anti-racism, civil rights, women’s rights, animal rights, social justice and political ideologies such as anarchism, communism, socialism, social democracy, and liberalism.
The Goals of Progressive Era
Protecting Social Welfare Social Gospel, settlement houses inspire other reform groups. Florence Kelley, political activist, advocate for women, children helps pass law prohibiting child labor, limiting women's hours. Valuing and protecting human life and well being. Changing the uneven balance of wealth between big business, government and ordinary people under capitalism. Journalists exposing unfair business practices, exploiting child labor, government corruption. Time and motion studies, improving efficiency. Improving the lives of the poor by improving their personal behavior. Reform governors push states to pass laws to regulate large businesses, Robert M. La Follette is 3-term governor, then senator of Wisconsin, attacks big business. Child workers get lower wages, small hands handle small parts better families need children's wages. National Child Labor Committee gathers evidence of harsh conditions. Labor unions argue children's wages lower all wages. Groups press government to ban child labor, cut hours. The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established the election of United States Senators by the people of the states.
Florence Kelly Florence Kelley (September 12, 1859 – February 17, 1932) was a social reformer and political activist who championed government regulation to protect working women and children. Kelley earned her law degree from Northwestern University in 1895. In 1899 Kelley became head of the National Consumer's League. In 1909 Kelley also helped organize the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1919 Kelley was a founding member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and for several years she served as vice president of the National American Women Suffrage Association. Many of Kelley's ideas were later incorporated into New Deal programs.
|
Urban Life
The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest bridges of either type in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of over 14 floors, mostly designed for office, commercial and residential uses. Electric transit, public transit that employs electricity for propulsion, such as trams, trolleybuses and other kinds of electric buses. Urban planning education is the practice of teaching and learning urban theory, studies, and professional practices. Airmail is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of being airborne. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be the only option for sending mail to some destinations, such as overseas, if the mail cannot wait the time it would take to arrive by ship, sometimes weeks.
Public Education
Children attend school at a younger age, to counteract generations of educational disadvantage and poor social skills. Growth of High Schools, after the revolution, an emphasis was put on education, especially in the northern states, which rapidly established public schools. Immigrants from Africa constitute a highly diverse and rapidly growing group in the United States. The largest numbers of African immigrants are found in California, New York, Texas, Maryland, and Virginia. The Niagara Movement was a black civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter.
W.E.B. Du BoisWilliam Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963)was one of the most important African-American activists during the first half of the 20th century. After graduating from Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics. He co-founded the National Associate for the Advancement of Colored People and supported Pan-Africanism in 1909. Du Bois rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. |