Progressive Era Thesis

The Progressive Era The Progressive Era was a time of reform as the United States evolved into an industrialized world power. The country was coming into a new age of large scale corporations and factories. The country was changing and it was necessary for the government to find their place in business and in the welfare of the people. The industrialists, factory workers, immigrants, women, and politicians developed the history of the Progressive Era and forever affected the future of America. Industrialists escorted new inventions, factories, companies, and production methods into the twentieth century. They also employed cut-throat business practices and created big-business monopolies and trusts. Many big bosses bought their way
Without government regulations that were soon to come, there were not yet laws against 12 or more hour workdays, child labor or unsafe machinery. Factories and railroads brought in immigrants for cheaper labor. If someone were to protest they would be fired and replaced shortly thereafter. The jobs were plentiful but the conditions were terrible. The available work brought millions of people into the cities. Families lived in one room tenements. With the expansion of cities there was also a growth in crime, poverty and disease. There of course was a desire for reform in the factories but there was also a great fear of losing your job when your life and your families depend on that income. However, it should also be said that one worker could easily be canned but an entire factory unified and organized asking for better conditions is not so easily ignored. And that’s exactly what happened with the creation of unions. In 1866 the National Labor Union was one of the first unions to unify workers across the nation and in different trades (587). The Knights of labor began in 1869. Their slogan was “an injury to one is a concern of all” (588). The American Federation of Labor was an association of self-governing national unions. Each won many strikes and battles for improved safety codes, wages, and workday hours. Industrialization had expanded very quickly and it had been time for the workers and
Ida Tarbell targeted her efforts toward exposing the Standard Oil Company. Florence Kelly became Illinois’s “first chief factory inspector and one of the nation’s leading advocates for improved factory conditions” (710). Most women promoted for reform for moral issues. They focused on the settlement house movement, a place where women could be informed about current problems. Problems like child labor, temperance, low wages and long hours, airless tenements, and safe food (710). Women worked through the National Consumers League, Women’s Trade Union League, and the Children and Women’s Bureaus (712). In 1890, suffragists formed the National American Women Suffrage Association lead by Elizabeth Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt. For the first time women had a say in