Progressive Era

Progressive Era

The Progressive Era was a period of time in the United State history in which there was an emergence of social activism and political form. The “progressives”, as they were called, where those who came together in the late 19th century to take a stand against the social problems that they believed were hurting America’s industrial and immigrant society. Progressives wanted the federal government to become involved in solving these social problems. Some progressives were called Muckrakers. These were the journalists who exposed the poor living and working conditions as well as political scandals that were going out throughout the country. Through their active involvement in communities and literary work’s fired by their passion for reform, the Muckrakers set out to catch the attention of Americans with the goal to transform society.
Though there were a fair amount of male Progressives and Muckrakers many were women. These women were fed up with the idea that women were only good for cooking and cleaning. One famous Muckraker was Jane Addams. She founded a settlement house called the Hull House in 1889 in Chicago. Settlement houses were basically community centers in immigrants/poor neighborhoods to help residents retain their cultural roots as well as adapt to a new society. They were taught work skills and ESL classes as well as starting social clubs. Jane Addams once wrote, “Hull House endeavors to make social intercourse express the growing sense of the economic unity of society” . By creating these settlement houses and showing what a positive impact they had on society Muckrakers were able the catch the attention of Americans and ultimately lead towards new government programs that helped fun these sort of things to help immigrants adapt to society.
Muckrakers and Progressives had a very big impact on American society. They forced the federal government and the citizens of the Unites States to recognize what had been going on for too long. Poor living...

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