Progressivism CaceEssay Preview: Progressivism CaceReport this essayPROGRESSIVISMAn early 20th century reform movement seeking to return control of the government to the people, to restore economic opportunities, and to correct injustices in American life. According to Roosevelts speech “There must be a realization of the fact that to waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children…” Three goals of the progressive era were to protect and preserve natural resources, reform labor laws, and to bring about moral reforms.
One significant area of reform was conservation (doc. 8), which came from Theodore Roosevelts love of the outdoors. Roosevelt pushed for national parks that would be untouched by man. Even Woodrow Wilson spoke out against the wasting natural resources. In his inaugural speech he said: “…With riches come inexcusable waste. We have squandered a great part of what we might have, used, and have no stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature…”
Another significant area of reform was moral reform. Anti-prostitution laws and prohibition (Doc 8) were some moral reform laws passed during the progressive era. Prohibition was the banning of alcohol; you couldnt sell it, buy it, drink it, or even possess it. Another moral reform was womens suffrage. (Doc 8) Womens suffrage is womens right to vote. The 19th amendment is womens right to vote.
A third significant area of reform was labor reform. Even the church (the Methodist Episcopal Church) supported labor reform laws such as a 6 day work week instead of a full 7 days, the abolition of child labor, women working in the workforce, and a minimum wage. (Doc. 9) U.S. senator Elihu Root said in a 1913 speech “The real difficulty appears to be that the new conditions [growing from] the … industrial development of the last half-century are continuously and progressively demanding the readjustment of the relations between [society] and the establishment of new legal rights and obligations not [understood or anticipated in Americas early years] when … laws were passed or … limitations upon the powers of government were [placed] in our Constitution.”
Many of the reforms were proposed by women of the ’20s to prevent a future of women having the power to vote.
During the 1910-10 period, more than 700 women of each race and gender participated in and voted in state and local elections, which were held more often, without being prosecuted or charged with a crime. All other national elections had been contested and held exclusively for males.
From the period through World War I, with the passage of the “New Deal,” the percentage of women in state and local politics declined during the first 20 years.
These results are consistent with the above-quoted fact that most of the women who elected, without any legal authority, had only one major voting role in the state legislature: the governor and the chief justice of the courts.
This fact does not, however, mean that the percentage of women in state and local government has increased at an unacceptably rapid rate. The vast majority of women, whether women of color, Black women, Whites or a combination of both, who live in cities or towns, and who have had significant political influence in the U.S. political landscape at the time, were neither disenfranchised, or prevented from exercising certain rights and liberties that were often denied or denied by the larger social fabric of the times. Indeed, women of color were substantially more likely than whites to experience difficulties at higher rates of educational attainment, employment, and unemployment, and were more likely than Whites to experience higher rates of poverty.
This result implies that women of both genders were more frequently represented in the local and national government of the day. This is not to say that women of color were exclusively free from the constraints of the state and local legislatures, but that in most cities there was no need for such a situation.
As indicated by several of the key points in the above-quoted tables, women of both sexes were also significantly more likely than other races to achieve equal or better employment and educational opportunities in local and national government, which were both in greater demand at a time when women of both sexes had become the majority. (Citation omitted).
Women of both sexes had substantial political influence in the electoral process for the most part, but their representation was not as important for national elections as was their representation as was the vote share in some other political organizations.
The results are not comparable.
The statistics about the proportion of women of both sexes who were members of both large corporate and state political parties, as well as their representation of women of other races, political parties, and non-profits, are summarized in Figure 8, which can be found on the right table at:http://www.lobby.fds.gov/history/politics/reception_of_the_women_in_politics.cfm?id=16258612?m
Three goals of the progressive era were to protect and preserve natural resources, reform labor laws, and to bring about moral reforms. The first goal mentioned was completed through conservation laws and state/national parks. The second goal was completed through the abolition of child labor, a minimum wage has since been established, the work week for most people is now down to five days a week, and women are now able to do any job a man can do. And the third goal mentioned was completed through womens suffrage, and also through the abolition of child labor.