In the late 1800s and early 1900s, progressives began to sprout and were reformers that sought out any experts on problems around the country to help them solve the growing issues produced by industry, growth of cities and lassiez faire. The progressives were white Protestants, which meant that religion was partly involved in this movement. They were also some people in the middle class and native born, those who had some kind of college education, so they understood of things that went on in politics and the government. They were not helpless people who just blamed whoever was around for their problems. Lastly, they were also scholars and politicians. But the main type of people who had the most influence in the movement was writers. The progressive movement began in the 1870s by farmers that assembled to form an organization to talk about their problems, find a way to solve their problems and show that they cannot be taken for granted by the major industries. At the local level the farmers called themselves The Grange. When the farmers found out that at the local level they didn’t have much power and couldn’t solve anything for themselves they started to join up with other local grange and formed The Farmer’s Alliance in 1876. Later all of The Farmer’s Alliance banned together and created a political part called the Populists Party. This meant that they would have a chance to share their concerns with the entire nation including the wealthy population. Although the populist were not exactly the progressive, they did give them a base that could be built into a set of attitudes as well as a definable movement. The progressives adopted the ideas of the populist and had more success in fulfilling their goal. Limiting the power of the political bosses, cleaning up the cities and improving working conditions for the poor and immigrants were some of the ideas that came from the populist. The progressives had four main areas to reform; these areas were social justice, where they hoped to improve the working conditions for all, political democracy, wanting to change the government and give it back to the people instead of being controlled by the bosses, and economic equality, where they can show that the government is not being run by the major industry.

One of the areas that the progressives wanted to reform in was social justice. They wanted to add laws that would help the working women in their pay and limiting their hours of work. Also, they wanted to add child labor laws that will put kids in schools and out of dangerous place. The progressives in this area were social workers that created “homes” for people who needed help in any need. Jane Addams was social worker who started the settlement house movement with the first Hull House in Chicago. The Hull House and other organizations were more involve with individual cases rather than trying to solve the problem as a whole. The progressives were willing to be involve in other people lives and confident that they could help. The progressives wanted to fight for all the rights that should be given to each and every worker (Document 3). In the movement, they gradually attracted local, state and later federal officials which helped them address child labor, women’s suffrage and other issues (Document 8). The movement had influence on child labor laws on the state level. On the federal level, they were able to establish national child labor laws and working with the women’s suffrage. Other people had influenced on the social justice like John Spargo. He was a muckraker, who wrote to exploit the abuses of wealth and power. His book, The Bitter Cry of the Children, made the nation realize the horrors of dangerous work that their children encounter in work. With this being acknowledge to the public, many children went back to school and no longer worked. John Spargo wanted to use his writing to find the good left in the nation that will help the progressive battle in changing the cooperation (Document 4).

Politically, the progressives wanted to transform the cities, state and nation into an efficient unified one. They wanted to make the people to have direct involvement in the local and state government. At the national level, the progressives hope to help out the women’s suffrage and change the way of the elections. The cities were reformed gradually, the cities started to hire a commissioner for each aspect of the cities. With many different people running the place the bosses of the cities can no longer run the commissioner job in the back because there are too many of them to push around. Another way to cut down the power of bosses was the City Manager Plan, which called for a person to be hired by the city council to run each department of the city. The progressives wanted to stop the corruption in all of the elections. They didn’t like the bosses being able to watch over a person who voted for someone that the boss didn’t want winning. Secret ballot and direct primary were some state reforms that the progressive achieved to have. The secret ballot gave each voter a confident when voting because they didn’t have to look out for anyone telling their boss which candidate they voted for. The voter was no longer pressured to go with the manager. The progressives like the idea of direct primary because it gave the voters a choice to choose who runs for an office rather than the bosses. The progressives were very successful in their goal of reforming the elections (Document 8). The progressive at the national level granted the women’s suffrage their wish. The 19^th amendment established in 1920 gave women the right to vote.

The American people were being run by the bosses of the nation and the progressives wanted to put an end to it by having economic equality. The progressive goal was to achieve fairness and equal opportunity for all in the working world. Frank Norris wrote The Octopus in 1901 to exploit the monopoly that is the railroad company. President Roosevelt became involve in the progressive movement by going up against railroad companies that were giving rebates to certain Oil Corporation and exposing them. Thus, allowing the Hepburn Act of 1906 to pass and strengthening Interstate Commerce Commission, this kept a fix rate on the maximum railroad rates. The act also added to the ICC jurisdiction to include oil pipeline express, and sleeping car companies. Roosevelt thought that the government should be involved in businesses because of trust. There were good and bad trust and he should be able to protect all of the enterprises while helping out the individual companies. He asked Congress to create a Department of Commerce and Labor to direct the corporation when they engage in interstate commerce. The progressives had to go about the law and do things in certain manners that were within boundary (Document 1). They tried to humanize all aspects of life and regulate it for the benefit of all. After reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Roosevelt went off to find ways to regulate the food and drug industry. The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 made more sanitation laws and involve the government in businesses for better quality. The Pure Food and Drug Act also helped tightened the regulation of drugs in the market and help prevent any merchandise that can be harmful to the public. Now with the government involve they are no longer forgetting about the poor and middle class; the progressives were successful in purifying the industry with their laws (Document 2).

The progressives were successful in all their attempt of reform. Progressivism touched the whole nation; given each aspect of life was somehow affect by them. They were hard working and reasonable people (Document 7). The progressive made way for many changes in America that became a critical part of the nation into moving forward.