Women's Achievements During The Progressive Era Essay

Women’s Achievements During The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era lasted from the 1890s to the 1920s. This time period is defined as being a time of progress and change. Many of the problems that occurred during the Gilded Age were fixed or began to get fixed in the Progressive Era. Women especially made a big impact during the Progressive Era. The achievements women made during this time were gaining women’s rights, creating a safe environment, and improving working conditions.

One of the major things that women achieved during the Progressive Era was earning rights both economically and politically. Prior to the Progressive Era, a woman’s main job was staying at home and taking care of the house and her family. As time went on more and

more women began to enter the workforce, but some people did not accept this change because it was not normal seeing women working anywhere other than the home. In Women and Economics, Charlotte Perkins Gilman talks about women being part of the workforce shows an “advantage of individual and race”(Foner 79). Women being part of the workforce can be an advantage of the individual and race because it allows the woman to be more independent and less economically dependent on her husband. Gilman also says that this also has no effect on the relationship between a husband and wife and it also does not have an effect on the way a woman raises her children, it simply just allows the woman to have more independence economically (Foner 79).
In addition to economic rights, women also began to gain political rights, more specifically the right to vote during the Progressive Era.

Before this point in history the only people who were allowed to vote were males, but during the Progressive Era, women started to fight for the right to vote, this was called the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Women were granted to right to vote in 1920 due to the passage of the nineteenth amendment, but before the nineteenth amendment was passed there were fifteen states that had already given women the right to vote. One of these states was Wyoming, which gave women rights in 1869 (King, Cornwall, and Dahlin 1213). When women earned the right to vote and more economic independence it marked a very important time in history because it was the first step towards equality to men and it also showed that women were gaining more standing in society. Earning these rights was incredibly significant for women, but these women also did a lot of things for the community as

well.
The environment was unsanitary as more and more people began to move into the cities.

In an effort to protect children, women started to come up with ways to provide a safer and cleaner environment. One of the ideas that these women came up with was developing parks. These parks provided a safe place for children to play and it also got them away from the city streets, theaters and bars that some women, such as Jane Adams, thought presented dangers for children (Blum 85-86). Women also thought that these parks were a way for children to experience nature, which was described as being “green, open spaces, and fresh air” (Blum 84). Although these parks were not the ideal way to experience nature and it was different from the nature that would be experienced in rural areas, but it was the closest thing to nature that city children could experience. In addition to women creating parks as a safe place for children to play, they also began to find ways to clean up the environment around the

home.
As women began to grasp more of an understanding of germs and dirt, they started to come up with ways to prevent their children from getting sick from these germs and dirt. One of the ways they accomplished this was better sanitation in the community through “better city services” (Blum 86). Some of these services could include garbage collection or even street cleaning. Another way that women helped prevent children from getting sick because of these germs, they started to take better care of the food and water supply (Blum 87). Women made a big impact on the conditions within the city, but they also had a big impact on working conditions during the Progressive Era.
Working conditions prior to the Progressive Era were very poor. They were “overworked and underpaid” and they worked with “dangerous and poorly maintained machinery” which really put them at risk for receiving an injury because of this machinery. These women were also “sexually harassed or physically abused by male supervisors, and those who dared to speak up were threatened or dismissed” (Burt 189). Frustrated with the way they were being treated compared to men, a group of workers who were mostly women went on strike in the New York garment district, this strike was called the “Uprising of Twenty Thousand” because of the number of workers who were on this strike. Some of the demands of the strike were “union shops, weekly instead of bi-weekly pay, a fifty-two-hour week, and the discontinuation of the practice of charging workers for electricity, needles, and materials. They also called for improved safety standards, including adequate fire escapes and unrestricted exits” (Burt 190). The demands of this strike were ignored for a few years until the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire and 146 women died. The fire brought attention of the poor working conditions and the government finally stepped in and met some of the demands that the strikers brought up a few years prior to the fire. In 1913 factory workers were given 52 hour work weeks and in 1915 safety codes were developed for factories so the tragedy that happened at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory never happened again (Burt 197).
The Progressive Era was a time for change and many of these changes were a result of women’s hard work a dedication to making things better in the United States. If it had not been for these women it may have taken much longer for them to be given the rights that the deserved. Children during this time were healthier because of women making cleaner environments for these children to live and play in and if it had not been for these women, it is possible that another tragedy such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire could have happened. These things were just the start of progress that has led the United States to where it is today.