Change In The Progressive Era example essay topic

The Progressive EraT he progressive era was a time of great change, the way people thought and what they did began to change quickly. Industry and business also changed a great deal in this era, with the many new inventions and strong businessmen things where rapidly changing. The progressive era lasted about 40 years, from 1879-1920. In 1879 Tomas Edison invented the electric light, I guess you could say he just lit the way for may other inventions that people made during this time period. The progressives where middle class people that where mostly composed of young people who wanted things to change, they believed that educating people was the best way to overcome a problem. They formed volunteer organizations that people would come to and they would educate them on what they thought the problem was with something.

Some of the organizations I found where: (American Bar Association, U. S Chamber of Commerce, National Association for the advancement of Colored People, and many others. I think that they did this to increase the awareness of a problem and try to fight that problem with strength in numbers and educations, both are very strong weapons when tackling a problem. Muckraking was another way people got their point across, they would find out all the information that they could on a person and they would basically, just drag their good name thought the mud, telling the people about, the things that they might not know, the corrupt things and bad deals and kickbacks those types of things. A well known muckraker would be Ida Tarbell, She dragged John D. Rockefellers name thought the mud, exposing bad trust and how he was a ruthless business man, Another muckraker was Upton Sinclair, He wrote a book, to show the American people how bad, the food was, and how disgusting it was, a famous quote of his was 'I aimed for the peoples hearts and I hit them right in the stomach', making reference to how gross the book really was. Teddy Roosevelt was a very strong influence during the progressive era; He used his power a president to get what he wanted as a progressive. He helped things like the pure food and drug act pass, and used the Sherman Antitrust act to dissolve Carnegie's Monopoly.

He was a very strong leader and was not about to be pushed around, so it was very good to have him as president during the Progressive era when some are fighting for the new and some are fighting for the old. The city and state reforms, where to stops powerful figures like boss Tweed who was very corrupt and, had everyone in the city in his back pocket. They Reformed so that their wouldn't be just a boss, (a person that made every decision), they made it so the people had to stand behind him on his decisions, their needed to be a vote on all laws that where passed, and all people could try to pass laws with enough peoples support. Also with the reform, workman's compensation became, now if people where hurt to the point they couldn't work, they would be compensated until they could come back. Education was a very big thing to the progressives; they believed that an educated person could handle any problem. They pushed for more women to go to college and for more children to start school.

The progressives believe that by putting large numbers of children in school they will soon have and enlightened population. Women's rights where fought for during the progressive era. Women began to hold steady jobs, Even though the jobs where the ones that where the least paying, and the ones with the least opportunity. Poor women also benefited from the progression, they could receive birth control pills for free to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Now I know this is not all that happened during this era but I think that I was about to show what the major points where and the things that effected us the most. People don't realize what was gone through to make the U. S what it is like today. What do you think that it would be like if we didn't have so much change in the progressive era? Do you think that you would still be like you are, living easy with many benefits I guess that we will never know? But it is good to appreciate how much the progressive era did for us and changed our lives.