The Progressive Movement 1895-1920

1. The Progressive Movement 1895-1920 A Response to Modernity

2. What was the Progressive Movement? Urban crusaders “who waged war on many evils…monopoly, corruption, inefficiency, and social injustice” • Regulate the trusts • Rid cities and states of political corruption • Attack social ills: poverty, housing, health • Expand democracy • Improve moral behavior • Restrict immigration • Improve factory conditions • “use government as an agent of human welfare” “Fighting” Bob LaFollette

3. Who Were the Progressives? • It was an impulse, not an organized movement! • Urban • College educated • Middle class • Mostly women • Democrats or Republicans • Politicians • Social reformers

4. Progressives • Feared that trusts and corrupt government formed an unholy alliance to limit democratic institutions • Feared that urban problems, immigrants, and labor violence would overwhelm society and that socialism would replace capitalism

5. Progressive Action • Federal level: legislation, executive orders, Supreme Court cases • State and local levels: legislation and re-structuring • Private sector: • Investigative journalism • Social activism • Protests and demonstrations

6. Why at the beginning of 20th Century? • Populist movement had just died out in 1896, but ideas lived on • The Social Gospel movement had earlier attempted to address some social ills • A new optimism in 1900 • Economic recovery • Spanish-American War • Investigative Reporting: Muckrakers • Impact of TR

7. Progressive Presidents Wilson Roosevelt Taft

8. Essential Question "The Progressive movement from 1895 to 1917 was a triumph of conservatism rather than a victory for liberalism." Do you agree or disagree and why?