Objectives Of The Progressive Movement

The Progressive Era was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States, from the 1890s to 1920s. The main objective of the Progressive movement was eliminating corruption in government. The movement primarily targeted political machines and their bosses. By taking down these corrupt representatives in office a further means of direct democracy would be established. They also sought regulation of monopolies and corporations through antitrust laws. These antitrust laws were seen as a way to promote equal competition for the advantage of consumers. Many progressives supported Prohibition in the United States in order to destroy the political power of local bosses based in saloons. Disturbed by the waste,
They were especially concerned with Prohibition, suffrage, school issues, and public health. Middle class women formed local clubs, which after 1890 were in turn coordinated by the General Federation of Women's Clubs. Historian Paige Meltzer argues that policies built on Progressive-era strategies of municipal housekeeping. During the Progressive era, female activists used traditional constructions of womanhood, which imagined all women as mothers and homemakers, to justify their entrance into community affairs. As municipal housekeepers, they would clean up politics, cities, and see after the health and wellbeing of their neighbors. Donning the mantle of motherhood, female activists methodically investigated their community's needs and used their maternal expertise to lobby, create, and secure a place for themselves in an emerging state welfare bureaucracy. As part of this tradition of maternal activism, the Progressive-era General Federation supported a range of causes from the pure food and drug administration to public health care for mothers and children to a ban on child labor, each of which looked to the state to help implement their vision of social