The Positive And Negative Impact Of The Progressive Movement

Although some may feel the Progressive Era not to be a very influential impact, it is what shaped this country. The Progressive Era has sought to be a spitting image of the Populists, just changing the name, well that’s how some see this movement. This Movement was a social, economical and political reform movement. This movement built an existing society through political improvement. Most of the population is becoming dependent on the governments like never before. Labor is a big problem due to the fact there is no set working wage for these factory workers, monopolies were controlling the nation and cooperation’s emerging together such as Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan. The problem was no competition so the businesses

could overprice their product and it would still be bought. Education was an issue as to what was the age limit for children to work in dangerous factories.
This was called the Gilded Age. The goals were to limit the power of big business, (which you can see having sympathy for the populists take place), expanding democracy, and strengthening social justice. As these are sought to be the same, there is a difference. We have already discussed the values of the Populist Movement in my last paper, so now we can examine the true difference. Progressives focused on the middle class as the populists focused on lower class and poverty. Another thing to understand is the Progressives were very educated and primarily from the East. As the Populists focused on farmers and rural areas Progressives dominated in the cities and urban areas of the country at this time.
Because of the education and the social status Progressives had, they were able to achieve much more than the Populists could not. In their similarities, they wanted Anti-Trust, Graduated income tax, control of money, and banks. Problems that were faced at this time were poverty, dirty cities, factory working conditions, child labor, alcohol, segregation, women’s suffrage, and corruption in business and politics. Books and articles came out educating the people about what is happening to these big businesses such as “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair and other muckrakers include Jacob Riis, Frank Norris, and Ida Tarbell. Tarbell is known for exposing Rockefellers oil company and it’s poorly treated workers. It’s also important to understand that many people who were progressives were the women who were middle class and had an education. A huge issue that has always been a social issue in the world is now being dealt with in this period and that is women’s rights. This social issue didn’t formally begin until 1848 and was resolved in 1920. It is natural that the civil rights movement would take place around this time because the women who were civil right leaders, were progressives. And in August 1920, the 19th amendment was passed which granted the women the right to vote. This unfortunately didn’t solve all of the problems of equality but it was a glorious start!
One of the reasons these values and movements got pushed is because a president on their side came in and did wonderful things for this country. This president is Theodore Roosevelt.
“He invented the modern presidency.” Theodore Roosevelt came into office on September 14th, 1901.

Roosevelt unlike the presidents before him, did not follow perhaps the big corporate quota, instead he sided with the people’s needs. He saw there was a corrupt government in hand and he wanted to fix that. As I have explained before, this was the first time in history that the people relied on their government to help them financially and economically. A good example of Roosevelt’s motives for the country occurred during the Anthracithe Coal Strike. Instead of sending troops to stop this rage, he made negotiations to peacefully resolve the laborers conflicts, as any president should. He was also a big advocate for protecting the environmental status of the country, such as the Grand Canyon. Women Progressive’s such as Jane Addams influenced Roosevelt to create and “endorse state minimum wage laws and mothers pensions.” Despite other presidents of our time who felt as if change was not necessary, Roosevelt promoted change as a necessity of moving American forward. Roosevelt wanted to change America by showing the people new ways to approach various situations in order to instill labor laws, women’s rights, monopolies, and other issues during the progressive era. Roosevelt influenced a government, corrupted by riches and wealth, to make decisions helping the people of America, rather than making decisions regarding the government’s intense grasp on American economic issues. If it wasn’t for Roosevelt’s impact on the presidency as well as the government our countries system may still be as corrupt as it was during the Progressive

Era.
Some do still feel that the Progressive Era was just a moment in time and had no influential impact on America. But without it, there would not be women’s rights, child labor laws, and the monopolies would still be ran today. Our world is not perfect and it never will be. Even when this movement passed, there were still economic issues. When the 19th Amendment was passed, issues still rose for women’s equality. Child labor still went on under loopholes, and maybe the big monopolies weren’t the only source but there was still corruption. Yes, bad things still happened, but the Progressive Era brought ideas and made laws against these issues. Another issue that was changed majorly in the era was black rights and equality. Economic slavery became harder to do when laws came about for African American citizens, as it should be. The Progressive Era did not change every problem in this country, but it did make a huge impact.