Historians debate the exact contours, but they generally date the
Progressive Era in response to the excesses of the
Gilded Age from the 1890s to either
World War I in 1917 or the onset of the
Great Depression in the United States in 1929. Many of the core principles of the progressive movement focused on the need for efficiency in all areas of society, and for greater democratic control over public policy. Purification to eliminate waste and corruption was a powerful element as well as the progressives' support of worker compensation, improved child labor laws, minimum wage legislation, a limited workweek, graduated income tax and allowing women the right to vote. For some Progressives, purification meant taking the vote away from blacks in the South.
Large corporations and monopolies: trust busting vs. regulation '', a cartoon by
Joseph Keppler depicting corporate interests—from
steel, copper,
oil, iron,
sugar, tin, and
coal to paper bags, envelopes and salt—as giant money bags looming powerfully over the tiny, weak U.S. Senators Most progressives hoped that by regulating large corporations they could liberate human energies from the restrictions imposed by industrial
capitalism. Nonetheless, the progressive movement was split over which of the following solutions should be used to regulate corporations. Many progressives argued that industrial monopolies were unnatural economic institutions which suppressed the competition which was necessary for progress and improvement.
United States antitrust law prohibits anti-competitive behavior (
monopoly) and
unfair business practices. Presidents such as
Theodore Roosevelt and
William Howard Taft supported
trust-busting. During their presidencies, the otherwise-conservative Taft brought down 90 trusts in four years while Roosevelt took down 44 in seven and a half years in office. Progressives, such as Benjamin Parke De Witt, argued that, in a modern economy, large corporations and even monopolies were both inevitable and desirable. He argued that with their massive resources and economies of scale, large corporations offered the United States advantages which smaller companies could not offer. However, these large corporations might abuse their great power. The federal government should allow these companies to exist, but otherwise regulate them for the public interest. President Roosevelt generally supported this idea and incorporated it as part of his "
New Nationalism".
Efficiency Many progressives such as
Louis Brandeis hoped to make American governments better able to serve the people's needs by making governmental operations and services more efficient and rational. Rather than making legal arguments against ten-hour workdays for women, he used "scientific principles" and data produced by social scientists documenting the high costs of long working hours for both individuals and society. The progressives' quest for efficiency was sometimes at odds with the progressives' quest for democracy. Taking power out of the hands of elected officials and placing that power in the hands of professional administrators reduced the voice of the politicians and in turn reduced the voice of the people. Centralized decision-making by trained experts and reduced power for local wards made government less corrupt but more distant and isolated from the people it served. Progressives who emphasized the need for efficiency typically argued that trained independent experts could make better decisions than the local politicians. In his influential
Drift and Mastery (1914) stressing the "scientific spirit" and "discipline of democracy",
Walter Lippmann called for a strong central government guided by experts rather than public opinion. One example of progressive reform was the rise of the
city manager system in which paid, professional engineers ran the day-to-day affairs of city governments under guidelines established by elected
city councils. Many cities created municipal "reference bureaus" which did expert surveys of government departments looking for waste and inefficiency. After in-depth surveys, local and even state governments were reorganized to reduce the number of officials and to eliminate overlapping areas of authority between departments. City governments were reorganized to reduce the power of local ward bosses and to increase the powers of the city council. Governments at every level began developing budgets to help them plan their expenditures rather than spending money haphazardly as needs arose and revenue became available. Governor
Frank O. Lowden of Illinois showed a "passion for efficiency" as he streamlined state government.
Anti-corruption Corruption represented a source of waste and inefficiency in the government.
William Simon U'Ren in Oregon,
Robert M. La Follette in Wisconsin and others worked to clean up state and local governments by passing laws to weaken the power of
machine politicians and political bosses. In Wisconsin, La Follette pushed through an
open primary system that stripped party bosses of the power to pick party candidates. The Oregon System included a "Corrupt Practices Act", a public referendum and a state-funded voter's pamphlet, among other reforms which were exported to other states in the Northwest and Midwest. Its high point was in 1912, after which they detoured into a disastrous third party status.
Education reform Early progressive thinkers such as
John Dewey and
Lester Frank Ward placed a universal and comprehensive system of education at the top of the progressive agenda, reasoning that if a democracy were to be successful, its leaders, the general public, needed a good education. Progressives worked hard to expand and improve public and private education at all levels. They believed that modernization of society necessitated the compulsory education of all children, even if the parents objected. Progressives turned to educational researchers to evaluate the reform agenda by measuring numerous aspects of education, later leading to
standardized testing. Many educational reforms and innovations generated during this period continued to influence debates and initiatives in American education for the remainder of the 20th century. One of the most apparent legacies of the Progressive Era left to American education was the perennial drive to reform schools and curricula, often as the product of energetic grass-roots movements in the city. Since progressivism was and continues to be "in the eyes of the beholder", progressive education encompasses very diverse and sometimes conflicting directions in educational policy. Such enduring legacies of the Progressive Era continue to interest historians. Progressive Era reformers stressed "object teaching", meeting the needs of particular constituencies within the school district, equal educational opportunity for boys and girls and avoiding corporal punishment. David Gamson examines the implementation of progressive reforms in three city school districts—
Denver, Colorado;
Seattle, Washington and
Oakland, California—during 1900–1928. Historians of educational reform during the Progressive Era tend to highlight the fact that many progressive policies and reforms were very different and at times even contradictory. At the school district level, contradictory reform policies were often especially apparent, though there is little evidence of confusion among progressive school leaders in Denver, Seattle and Oakland. District leaders in these cities, including
Frank B. Cooper in Seattle and Fred M. Hunter in Oakland, often employed a seemingly contradictory set of reforms. Local progressive educators consciously sought to operate independently of national progressive movements as they preferred reforms that were easy to implement and were encouraged to mix and blend diverse reforms that had been shown to work in other cities. The reformers emphasized professionalization and bureaucratization. The old system whereby ward politicians selected school employees was dropped in the case of teachers and replaced by a merit system requiring a college-level education in a
normal school (teacher's college). The rapid growth in size and complexity the large urban school systems facilitated stabilized employment for women teachers and provided senior teachers greater opportunities to mentor younger teachers. By 1900, most women in
Providence, Rhode Island, remained as teachers for at least 17.5 years, indicating teaching had become a significant and desirable career path for women.
Culture and social work 's
The Jungle exposed Americans to the horrors of the Chicago meatpacking plants. The foundation of the progressive tendency was indirectly linked to the unique philosophy of
pragmatism which was primarily developed by
John Dewey and
William James. Equally significant to progressive-era reform were the crusading journalists known as
muckrakers. These journalists publicized to middle class readers economic privilege, political corruption and social injustice. Their articles appeared in ''
McClure's Magazine and other reform periodicals. Some muckrakers focused on corporate abuses. Ida Tarbell exposed the activities of the Standard Oil Company. In The Shame of the Cities (1904), Lincoln Steffens dissected corruption in city government. In Following the Color Line'' (1908),
Ray Stannard Baker criticized race relations. Other muckrakers assailed the
Senate, railroad companies, insurance companies and fraud in
patent medicine. Novelists criticized corporate injustices.
Theodore Dreiser drew harsh portraits of a type of ruthless businessman in
The Financier (1912) and
The Titan (1914). In
The Jungle (1906), socialist
Upton Sinclair repelled readers with descriptions of Chicago's meatpacking plants and his work led to support for remedial food safety legislation. Leading intellectuals also shaped the progressive mentality. In
Dynamic Sociology (1883),
Lester Frank Ward laid out the philosophical foundations of the progressive movement and attacked the
laissez-faire policies advocated by
Herbert Spencer and
William Graham Sumner. In
The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899),
Thorstein Veblen attacked the "conspicuous consumption" of the wealthy. Educator
John Dewey emphasized a child-centered philosophy of pedagogy known as
progressive education which affected schoolrooms for three generations. Progressives set up training programs to ensure that welfare and charity work would be undertaken by trained professionals rather than warm-hearted amateurs.
Jane Addams of Chicago's
Hull House typified the leadership of residential, community centers operated by social workers and volunteers and located in inner city
slums. The purpose of the settlement houses was to raise the
standard of living of urbanites by providing adult education and cultural enrichment programs.
Anti-prostitution era poster against
prostitution During this era of massive reformation among all social aspects, elimination of prostitution was vital for the progressives, especially the women. The anti-prostitution movement involved three main groups: Christians, Progressive Era feminists, and physicians. Many individuals active in the anti-prostitution movement shared some of the same perspectives from each of these groups. Jane Addams, one of the most notable of early American social workers, wrote a book addressing prostitution. According to her argument in
A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, the reason why women resorted to prostitution was due to the inadequate salaries they received. However, she also mentions the absence of family oversight of female modesty, as young women migrated from rural to urban areas. Although most prostitutes were born in America, the public believed that women were being brought into the United States and later sold into prostitution. The opposition against prostitution could have been a reflection of concerns regarding the influx of immigrants, the growth of cities, the development of industries, and the erosion of established moral standards.
Enactment of child labor laws Child labor laws were designed to prevent the overuse of children in the newly emerging industries. The goal of these laws was to give
working class children the opportunity to go to school and mature more institutionally, thereby liberating the potential of humanity and encouraging the advancement of humanity. Factory owners generally did not want this progression because of lost workers. Parents relied on the income of children to keep the family solvent. Progressives enacted state and federal laws against child labor, but these were overturned by the US Supreme Court. A proposed constitutional amendment was opposed by business and Catholics; it passed Congress but was never ratified by enough states. Child labor was finally outlawed by the
New Deal in the 1930s.
Prohibition Most progressives, especially in rural areas, adopted the cause of
prohibition. They saw the saloon as political corruption incarnate and bewailed the damage done to women and children. They believed the consumption of
alcohol limited mankind's potential for advancement. Progressives achieved success first with state laws then with the enactment of the
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919. The golden day did not dawn as enforcement was lax, especially in the cities where the law had very limited popular support and where notorious criminal gangs such as the Chicago gang of
Al Capone made a crime spree based on illegal sales of liquor in speakeasies. The "experiment" (as President
Herbert Hoover called it) also cost the federal and local treasuries large sums of taxes. The 18th amendment was repealed by the
Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1933.
Support for organized labor Labor unions grew steadily until 1916, then expanded fast during the war. In 1919, a wave of major strikes alienated the middle class and the strikes were lost which alienated the workers. In the 1920s, the unions were in the doldrums. In 1924, they supported
Robert M. La Follette's
Progressive Party, but he only carried his base in Wisconsin. The
American Federation of Labor under
Samuel Gompers after 1907 began supporting the
Democrats, who promised more favorable judges as the
Republicans appointed pro-business judges.
Theodore Roosevelt and his third party also supported such goals as the
eight-hour work day, improved safety and health conditions in factories,
workers' compensation laws and
minimum wage laws for women. At the same time, the legacy of slavery created deep racial divisions within the American working class, unlike the more unified labor movements in other Western countries. This division led to a two-tiered workforce with differing political priorities, weakening class solidarity. Many white working-class Americans feared that welfare and similar policies would come at their expense, viewing economic redistribution as a zero-sum game, where benefits for Black Americans meant losses for themselves. This fear of losing economic ground pushed many white workers toward conservative, anti-socialist ideologies that promised to protect their interests and social status. As a result, this racial divide contributed to the absence of strong left-wing political movements and parties in the U.S.
Eugenics faction Some progressives sponsored
eugenics as a solution to excessively large or under-performing families, hoping that
birth control would enable parents to focus their resources on fewer, better children while others, like
Margaret Sanger advocated it. Progressives also advocated for
compulsory sterilization of those deemed "unfit". Progressive politician
William Jennings Bryan opposed eugenics on the grounds of his anti-evolution activism. In a paper titled "The Progressives: Racism and Public Law", American legal scholar
Herbert Hovenkamp (MA, PhD, JD) wrote: When examining the Progressives on race, it is critical to distinguish the views that they inherited from those that they developed. The rise of Progressivism coincided with the death of
scientific racism, which had been taught in American universities since the early nineteenth century and featured prominently in the scientific debate over Darwin’s theory of evolution. Eugenics, which attempted to use genetics and mathematics to validate many racist claims, was its last gasp. The most notable thing about the Progressives is that they were responsible for bringing scientific racism to an end.
Electoral changes Progressives repeatedly warned that illegal voting was corrupting the political system. They especially identified big-city bosses, working with
saloon keepers and precinct workers, as the culprits who stuffed the ballot boxes. The solution to purifying the vote included prohibition (designed to close down the saloons), voter registration requirements (designed to end multiple voting), and literacy tests (designed to minimize the number of ignorant voters). All of the
Southern states used devices to
disenfranchise black voters during the
Progressive Era. Typically, the progressive elements in those states pushed for disenfranchisement, often fighting against the conservatism of the Black Belt whites. A major reason given was that whites routinely purchased black votes to control elections, and it was easier to disenfranchise blacks than to go after powerful white men. In the
Northern states, progressives such as
Robert M. La Follette and
William Simon U'Ren argued that the average citizen should have more control over his government. The Oregon System of "
Initiative, Referendum, and Recall" was exported to many states, including Idaho, Washington and Wisconsin. Many progressives such as George M. Forbes, president of
Rochester's Board of Education, hoped to make government in the United States more responsive to the direct voice of the American people, arguing: [W]e are now intensely occupied in forging the tools of democracy, the direct primary, the initiative, the referendum, the recall, the short ballot, commission government. But in our enthusiasm we do not seem to be aware that these tools will be worthless unless they are used by those who are aflame with the sense of brotherhood. ... The idea [of the social centers movement is] to establish in each community an institution having a direct and vital relation to the welfare of the neighborhood, ward, or district, and also to the city as a whole. Philip J. Ethington seconds this high view of
direct democracy, saying that "initiatives, referendums, and recalls, along with direct primaries and the direct election of US Senators, were the core achievements of 'direct democracy' by the Progressive generation during the first two decades of the twentieth century". Progressives fought for
women's suffrage to purify the elections using supposedly purer female voters. Progressives in the South supported the elimination of supposedly corrupt black voters from the election booth. Historian Michael Perman says that in both Texas and Georgia "disfranchisement was the weapon as well as the rallying cry in the fight for reform". In Virginia, "the drive for disfranchisement had been initiated by men who saw themselves as reformers, even progressives". While the ultimate significance of the progressive movement on today's politics is still up for debate, Alonzo L. Hamby asks: What were the central themes that emerged from the cacophony [of progressivism]? Democracy or elitism? Social justice or social control? Small entrepreneurship or concentrated capitalism? And what was the impact of American foreign policy? Were the progressives isolationists or interventionists? Imperialists or advocates of national self-determination? And whatever they were, what was their motivation? Moralistic utopianism? Muddled relativistic pragmatism? Hegemonic capitalism? Not surprisingly many battered scholars began to shout 'no mas!' In 1970, Peter Filene declared that the term 'progressivism' had become meaningless.
Municipal administration The progressives typically concentrated on city and state government, looking for waste and better ways to provide services as the cities grew rapidly. These changes led to a more structured system, power that had been centralized within the legislature would now be more locally focused. The changes were made to the system to effectively make legal processes, market transactions, bureaucratic administration and democracy easier to manage, putting them under the classification of "Municipal Administration". There was also a change in authority for this system as it was believed that the authority that was not properly organized had now given authority to professionals, experts and bureaucrats for these services. These changes led to a more solid type of municipal administration compared to the old system that was underdeveloped and poorly constructed. The progressives mobilized concerned middle class voters as well as newspapers and magazines to identify problems and concentrate reform sentiment on specific problems. Many Protestants focused on the saloon as the power base for corruption as well as violence and family disruption, so they tried to get rid of the entire saloon system through prohibition. Others such as
Jane Addams in Chicago promoted
settlement houses. Early municipal reformers included
Hazen S. Pingree (mayor of Detroit in the 1890s) and
Tom L. Johnson in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1901, Johnson won election as mayor of Cleveland on a platform of just taxation, home rule for Ohio cities and a 3-cent streetcar fare. Columbia University President
Seth Low was elected mayor of New York City in 1901 on a reform ticket.
Conservation During the term of the progressive Republican President
Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) and influenced by the ideas of philosopher-scientists such as
George Perkins Marsh,
William John McGee,
John Muir,
John Wesley Powell and
Lester Frank Ward, the largest government-funded conservation-related projects in United States history were undertaken. On March 14, 1903, President Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system, on Pelican Island,
Florida. In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km2) of
United States National Forests, 53
National Wildlife Refuges and 18 areas of "special interest" such as the
Grand Canyon.
Reclamation In addition, Roosevelt approved the
Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 which gave subsidies for irrigation in 13 (eventually 20) Western states. Another conservation-oriented bill was the
Antiquities Act of 1906 that protected large areas of land by allowing the president to declare areas meriting protection to be
national monuments. The
Inland Waterways Commission was appointed by Roosevelt on March 14, 1907, to study the river systems of the United States, including the development of water power, flood control and land reclamation.
National politics In the early 20th century, politicians of the
Democratic and
Republican parties,
Lincoln–Roosevelt League Republicans (in California) and
Theodore Roosevelt's
Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party all pursued environmental, political and economic reforms. Chief among these aims was the pursuit of trust busting, the breaking up very large monopolies and support for labor unions, public health programs, decreased corruption in politics and environmental conservation. The progressive movement enlisted support from both major parties and from minor parties as well. One leader, the Democratic
William Jennings Bryan, had won both the Democratic Party and the
Populist Party nominations in 1896. At the time, the great majority of other major leaders had been opposed to populism. When Roosevelt left the Republican Party in 1912, he took with him many of the intellectual leaders of progressivism, but very few political leaders. The Republican Party then became notably more committed to business-oriented and efficiency-oriented progressivism, typified by
Herbert Hoover and
William Howard Taft. == New Deal consensus and increased influence of social liberalism ==