Progressivism

During the end of the 19th century, the United States experienced dramatic growth in some major elements such as industrialization, immigration, and urban expansion. New and old problems and concerns about American lives accompanied this growth. A reform movement developed by the turn of the century, that included a wide range of groups and individual who shared a common goal to improve life in this industrial age. Progressivism wanted to build on the existing society and make moderate political changes and social improvement through government action. However, the Progressives did not cure all of America's problems.

The Progressive movement had its origins in states reforms of the early 1890s and then it began to pick up steam nationally at the turn of the century. The country was changing as it entered the new century and a once rural society was changing into an industrialized nation in growing cities. "For decades, middle class Americans had been alarmed by the rising power of big business, increasing the gap between rich and poor, the violent conflict between labor and capital, and the dominance of corrupt political machines in the cities."# African Americans were looking for equals rights and to break free from the Jim Crow laws that relegated them in the South. Also, women were protesting for reform and the right to vote.

The Progressive movement was a response to industrialization and urbanization. Although h the Progressives might have saw themselves as reformers, they were just continuing the early reform traditions of the Jeffersonians in the early 1800s, the Jacksonians in the 1830s, and the Populists in the 1890s but the Progressives "were committed to democratic values and shared in the belief that honest government and just laws could improve human condition."#

The Progressive movement was a more middle class driven movement. Most of the Progressive leaders were educated upper-class