Introduction
Progressivism is a term applied to a number of responses to economic, social and political problems resulting after a period of rapid industrialization in the United States. While the frontier had been conquered, great cities and businesses established, and an overseas empire developed, not all American citizens were enjoying a share of the newly created wealth, prestige, as well as optimism (Chambers, 2000). As such, religious groups, the press, together with radical political groups begun calling for reform mainly to the American capitalist economy and establishment of a socialist government in the United States.
Origin
The Progressive Movement emerged at a period of great and bewildering economic/ change in the United States. For the first time in America’s history, massive numbers of American citizens found themselves living in crowded, unsanitary, and mainly unsafe industrial boomtowns unlike their life on farms or small rural towns prior to industrialization and rapid economic growth (Jaycox, 2005). Similarly, the country experienced an influx of immigrants mainly of Eastern and Southern European origin looking for greener pastures in the United States. This considerably altered the nation’s ethnic landscape and introduce new political traditions that many natives found threatening (Chambers, 2000).
At the same time there had emerged a capitalist class that had amerced great amounts of fortunes often from the efforts of poor immigrant works. This tipped the conventional balance of economic and social power away from the conventional elites of American society i.e. the clergy, academic professionals, and lawyers to the emergent capitalist class. Many perceived this “plutocracy” of capitalists as a corrupting power in American life, especially in the political realm (Jaycox, 2005). There was a feeling for the need to immediately stop this so as to ensure that the traditional American values favoring individual achievement together with a Republican government would be inherited to future generations.
This led to the emergence of “Progressives” who aimed to save the nation from what they believed was its political, economic, and social disintegration. The movement attracted most of its leadership from the “old elite” which represented the clergymen concerned that their moral and economic prestige was fast diminishing due to increasing labor unrest and consumption (Jaycox, 2005). Also, progressive lawyers were opposed to the invasion of commercial interests into their historic independent profession because corporations were increasingly hiring lawyers. Academics expressed fear of the “predatory and immoral” capitalist who were aggressively finding their way onto school/college board of trustees. The foot soldiers of the movement included many native white urbanite from not only the Northeast but also upper Midwest cities.
The progressives were focused on restoring a sort of economic individualism order as well as political democracy believed to have been destroyed by a highly corrupt immigrant political machine and the large emergent industry (Cocks, 2009). Attaining this would restore the lost moral and civic purity and apply it to the emerging urban American landscape.
Successes of the Progressive Era
A number of major policy reforms were realized during the Progressive Era, particularly many new policies at all governmental levels. For instance, the federal government extended its regulation to interstate commerce, launched a central bank, and started applying its antitrust policies to the large-scale businesses (Chambers, 2000). Similarly. State governments expanded their regulations in labor and product markets in addition to establishing new systems of social insurance. On their part, local governments expanded not only ownership but also regulation of utilities and developed a wide range of public health facilities.
The Progressive solutions focused on the moral inadequacies of both city politicians/administrators and restructure of the city governments. This is because cities at the time were chartered by state governments, allowing them to have oversight over city affairs (Jaycox, 2005). Progressives pushed for reforms both locally and among state legislatures, achieving more independence for local bosses in their administration and fiscal affairs.
The Progressive Era also registered a rapid increase in parks, high schools, as well as new ways to help the unfortunate. Increased building of sewers and water treatment facilities together with introduction of public health departments accompanied with higher incomes substantially contributed to reductions in disease and death rates (Cocks, 2009). The regulation of public utilities in most states came under the responsibility of the states during the Progressive Era.
By the early 1900s, the Progressive Movement had grown into federal government and state governments. President Theodore Roosevelt, a supporter of the Movement, became a trust buster challenging mergers and pushing for the breakup of large firms e.g. Standard Oil and American Tobacco Company in 1911 (Jaycox, 2005). Similarly, President Woodrow Wilson would keep his campaign promise by enacting the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission in 1914, thus expanding antitrust enforcement to new avenues. Also, President Wilson would keep his promise or reducing tariffs with the signing into law the Underwood Act of 1913. The Progressive Movement’s efforts to grant the federal government the authority to monitor and promote quality of food culminated in the enactment of the Pure Food and Drug and Meat Inspection Acts of 1906.
As a way of placing part of the burdens of industrialization onto the wealthy and large corporations, Progressives championed for federal government’s introduction of the first peace-time income taxes, resulting in a 1909 tax of one percent on corporate profits more than $5,000 along with progressive tax on household incomes (Cocks, 2009). Their efforts also led to the formation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 as a maiden full-scale central bank.
The Progressive Era also led to changes in the legal relationships between workers and their employers by pushing many states to pass employer liability laws and introduce workers’ compensation supplemented by improvements in workplace safety regulations at mines and factories. Also, the federal government adopted safety legislation for government employees and railroads workers between 1908 and 1916. By 1920, federal employees were receipts of generous retirement benefits afforded by the Civil Service Act of 1920 (Jaycox, 2005).
Failures
A closer inspection of the resulting policies of the Progressive Era show that the reform legislation had differential impact especially for powerful interest groups. For instance, because child labor law often dovetails with the business practices of most leading businessmen, the reformers, workers, and the businessmen colluded to pass the legislation (Chambers, 2000). This translates that positive effect of the law on many child workers was often smaller than initially expected due to the fact that only few businesses were actually affected. Similarly, reform legislation was proposed, but other interest groups offered counterproposals resulting in compromise legislation that provided little in the way of reform. This was especially the case with most workplace safety legislation pushed for during the period by the progressives e.g the 1913 Clayton Bill that originally forbade such business activities as selling of contracts, interlocking boards of directors, or interlocking stock, but significantly watered down at the time of passage (Cocks, 2009).
Lastly, new legislation passed during the Progressive Era was often beneficial to one special interest but detrimental to another. For instance, the immigration restriction acts of 1916 and early 1920s served as classic examples of federal government’s discrimination against some ethnic groups to the benefit of native-born workers in the pretext of reducing competition for jobs among workers.
Legacy
According to Richard Hofstadter (1963), the Progressive movement stands out as Americans best “attempt to develop the moral will, the intellectual insight, and the political and administrative agencies to remedy the accumulated evils and negligence of a period of industrial growth” (Cocks, 2009). Therefore, the Progressive Era (1890-1912) was therefore a period in American history when social reformers rose up to react to widespread political and corporate abuses in the country at the turn of the 20th Century.
References:
Chambers, J. W. (2000). The tyranny of change: America in the Progressive Era, 1890 – 1920. New Brunswick, NJ [u.a.: Rutgers Univ. Press.
Cocks, C. (2009). The A to Z of the Progressive Era. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Pub. Group.
Jaycox, F. (2005). The progressive era. New York: Facts on file.
