Progressive Era
The Progressive Era was a period in the United States characterized by multiple social and political reform efforts. Reformers during this era, known as Progressives, sought to address issues they associated with rapid industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption, as well as the loss of competition in the market due to trusts and monopolies, and the great concentration of wealth among a very few individuals. Reformers expressed concern about slums, poverty, and labor conditions. Multiple overlapping movements pursued social, political, and economic reforms by advocating changes in governance, scientific methods, and professionalism; regulating business; protecting the natural environment; and seeking to improve urban living and working conditions.
Corrupt and undemocratic political machines and their bosses were a major target of progressive reformers. To revitalize democracy, progressives established direct primary elections, direct election of senators, initiatives and referendums, and women's suffrage. For many progressives, prohibition of alcoholic beverages was key to eliminating corruption in politics as well as improving social conditions.
Progressives also targeted monopolies, which they worked to regulate through trustbusting and antitrust laws with the goal of promoting fair competition, and advocated new government agencies focused on regulation of industry. Other goals were using scientific, medical, and engineering solutions to reform government and education, and fostering improvements in fields including medicine, finance, insurance, industry, railroads, and churches. Progressives aimed to professionalize the social sciences, especially history, economics, and political science, and improve efficiency with scientific management.
Initially, the movement operated chiefly at the local level, but later it expanded to the state and national levels. Progressive leaders were often from the educated middle class, and various progressive reform efforts drew support from lawyers, teachers, physicians, ministers, businesspeople, and the working class.
Originators of progressive ideals and efforts
Certain key groups of thinkers, writers, and activists played key roles in creating or building the movements and ideas that came to define the shape of the Progressive Era.Popular democracy: Initiative and referendum
Inspiration for the initiative movement was based on the Swiss experience. New Jersey labor activist James W. Sullivan visited Switzerland in 1888 and wrote a detailed book that became a template for reformers pushing the idea: Direct Legislation by the Citizenship Through the Initiative and Referendum. He suggested that using the initiative would give political power to the working class and reduce the need for strikes. Sullivan's book was first widely read on the left, as by labor activists, socialists and populists. William U'Ren was an early convert who used it to build the Oregon reform crusade. By 1900, middle-class "progressive" reformers everywhere were studying it.Muckraking: exposing corruption
Magazines experienced a boost in popularity in 1900, with some attaining circulations in the hundreds of thousands of subscribers. In the beginning of the age of mass media, the rapid expansion of national advertising led the cover price of popular magazines to fall sharply to about 10 cents, lessening the financial barrier to consume them. Another factor contributing to the dramatic upswing in magazine circulation was the prominent coverage of corruption in politics, local government, and big business, particularly by journalists and writers who became known as muckrakers. They wrote for popular magazines to expose social and political sins and shortcomings. Relying on their own investigative journalism, muckrakers often worked to expose social ills and corporate and political corruption. Muckraking magazines, notably McClure's, took on corporate monopolies and political machines while raising public awareness of chronic urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, and social issues like child labor. Most of the muckrakers wrote nonfiction, but fictional exposés often had a major impact as well, such as those by Upton Sinclair. In his 1906 novel The Jungle, Sinclair exposed the unsanitary and unsafe working conditions of the meatpacking industry in graphic detail hoping to arouse working class solidarity. He quipped, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident, I hit it in the stomach," as readers demanded and got the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.The journalists who specialized in exposing waste, corruption, and scandal operated at the state and local level, like Ray Stannard Baker, George Creel, and Brand Whitlock. Others such as Lincoln Steffens exposed political corruption in many large cities; Ida Tarbell is famed for her criticisms of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. In 1906, David Graham Phillips unleashed a blistering indictment of corruption in the US Senate. Roosevelt gave these journalists their nickname when he complained they were not being helpful by raking up too much muck.
Modernization
The progressives were avid modernizers, with a belief in science and technology as the grand solution to society's flaws. They looked to education as the key to bridging the gap between their present wasteful society and technologically enlightened future society. 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 an obligation to intervene in economic and social affairs, a belief in the ability of experts and in the efficiency of government intervention. Scientific management, as promulgated by Frederick Winslow Taylor, became a watchword for industrial efficiency and elimination of waste, with the stopwatch as its symbol.Philanthropy
The number of rich families climbed exponentially, from 100 or so millionaires in the 1870s to 4,000 in 1892 and 16,000 in 1916. Many subscribed to Andrew Carnegie's credo outlined in The Gospel of Wealth that said they owed a duty to society that called for philanthropic giving to colleges, hospitals, medical research, libraries, museums, religion, and social betterment.In the early 20th century, American philanthropy matured, with the development of very large, highly visible private foundations created by Rockefeller and Carnegie. The largest foundations fostered modern, efficient, business-oriented operations designed to better society rather than merely enhance the status of the giver. Close ties were built with the local business community, as in the "community chest" movement. The American Red Cross was reorganized and professionalized. Several major foundations aided the blacks in the South and were typically advised by Booker T. Washington. By contrast, Europe and Asia had few foundations. This allowed both Carnegie and Rockefeller to operate internationally with a powerful effect.
Middle-class values
A hallmark group of the Progressive Era, the middle class became the driving force behind much of the thought and reform that took place in this time. The middle class was characterized by their rejection of the individualistic philosophy of the Upper ten thousand. They had a rapidly growing interest in the communication and role between classes, those of which are generally referred to as the upper class, working class, farmers, and themselves. Along these lines, Jane Addams coined the term "association" as a counter to Individualism, with association referring to the search for a relationship between the classes. Additionally, the middle class began to move away from prior Victorian era domestic values. Divorce rates increased as women preferred to seek education and freedom from the home. Victorianism was thus pushed aside by the rise of progressivism.Leaders and activists
Democrats
of Nebraska dominated the Democratic Party. Apart from 1904, the anti-Bryan elements always got outmaneuvred. Bryan was its nominee for president in 1896, 1900, and 1908. In 1912 he selected Woodrow Wilson as the party candidate. Historian David Sarasohn evaluated the Democratic party in the Bryan era:Democrats an issue-oriented party and an emerging national coalition, most of whom shared a grudging but genuine admiration for their titular leader, William Jennings Bryan. Indeed, it is the Commoner whose spirit, vision, and yes, political sagacity, pervades the narrative.