Women's Role In The Progressive Era

Even before the progressive era, women challenged their place and articulated new visions of social, political and economic equality. The progressive era was a turning point for women as organizations evolved fighting for equal rights. Woman began to become very involved in a variety of reform movements. Women began founding their own political organizations such as the National American

The Progressive Era, 1890-1920, accomplished great change in the Unites States of America. Many reformers and activits demanded for change in education, food and drug policies, and most importantly the govermenet. The goal for the movement was the purify the nation. One of the main activits during this time was Jane Addams. Jane Addams is often refered to as a social and political pioneer. She seperated herself from what society belived a women should do and created many radical changes for that time period. Many of her fellow friends, characterized as going crazy and too hopeful. But in the years later to come, Jane Addams would redefine what a women can and should do. She once said, “Old-fashioned ways which no longer apply to changed conditions are a snare in which the feet of women have always become readily entangled” (JaneAddams). With this, Jane Addams shaped the progressive era by limiting/abolishing the amount of work hours people

The Progressive Era was a time of change across America, a time when the country chose to reform into an industrialized urban country. Prosperity was widespread across America, so people turned to social issues to try to expand. Minorities in particular became a focus of this time period, and everyone tried to find a way to integrate them into society. The Progressive Era marked a turning point for women in America because it was when women took their values that they taught in the home and applied them to social, political, and labor issues.

The progressive era was a historical movement in time where extensive social activism and political reform were taking place all across America. If would be inadequate to say that one class of women, either the working class or the middle class, were affected more or less than the other by this era.

There have been many movements over time that has led America to where we are today. “The Antebellum reforms was a new, more radical anti-slavery movement that emerged by the early 1830s. Its program for ending slavery stood in stark contrast to the “colonizationist” position earlier advocated by some prominent Americans and embodied in the American Colonization Society (1816–1964)”. (Walters, 1995) This reforms were put into place to better everyone as well as their families. Women finally got the freedom to have a choice as well as options on things in their lives. “The best-remembered antebellum reforms was a women’s rights movement, its arrival signaled by a stirring “Declaration of Sentiments” issued in 1848 by a convention in Seneca

Between the 1890s and World War One, reform efforts started taking place by the progressives. The progressives were not a single unified group and even had some contradicting goals. They were middle class urban dwellers and some were women. The progressives wanted to end prostitution, Americanize immigrants, antitrust legislation created, women’s suffrage, and the start of prohibition. An example of a group of progressive women who wanted to start prohibition is The Women’s Christian Temperance Union. This group was lead by Francis Willard. The goals of the Women’s Christian Temperance union were to lobby for federal aid for education, free school lunches, unions for workers, an eight-hour workday, work relief for the poor, municipal sanitation and boards of health, national transportation, strong anti-rape laws, protections against child abuse and of course prohibition. The root of Willard 's argument for female suffrage was based on the platform of "Home Protection", which Willard described as "the movement...the object of which is to secure for all women above the age of twenty-one years the ballot as one means for the protection of their homes from the devastation caused by the legalized traffic in strong drink."[1] These "devastations" were the violent acts against women committed by

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States was experiencing a time of widespread reform. This movement brought great changes to multiple fields and areas in the United States. These reforms were ideas that improved the quality of life for working and normal citizens in the United States. Two such examples of these movements are found in reforms made within the working and living conditions across America.

The 1900s was a time period filled with political corruption, social inequality and injustice, discrimination, poor working and living conditions. The progressive movement resulted in response to these issues. Members and advocates of this movement were usually white (some blacks too), middle-class, Christian, college educated women (and men). They sought to achieve social justice through equality and enhance life in America for everyone. To further the nation’s democratic ideals, they hoped to incorporate reforms based on the expectations of the majority public. The Progressive Movement was a success because even though they lasted only for a short period of time, they achieved many things that today we are benefitting from, like for example

The progressive era was filled with political problems, fighting corruption, and harsh working conditions. There were some very important changes in this era. The nineteenth amendment gave women the right to vote. There were different presidents like Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and William H. Taft. Discrimination started to become a big problem. America became a more advanced and equal country during this time.

The popularity of the Progressive movement in the early 1900's was due to several social and cultural changes in the United States. In the wake of chaotic reorganizations of the country after industrialization and urbanization, as well as the influences of earlier ideological movements such as Populism and Pragmatism, the Progressives sought to bring order and progress to society through central planning, social reform, and even social control. The intellectuals were understood to have the best interests of the people in mind, and therefore had the responsibility to intervene in society through the means of the state. These areas of intervention included sanitation, inculcation of certain moral and behavioral habits, environmental conservation,

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.”

During the Progressive era women had to endure a lot of suffering due to poor living conditions, illness, earning wages no matter what age or race they were. Women activists decided it was time to start speaking out and protesting to receive more equality in society. Different groups of activists, made up of women, fought for women’s rights socially, economically, and politically. Some activists were better known for women’s sexuality. Jane Addams was one of the first women activists who fought for equal wages for women. From Jane Addams speech in 1908, “Possibly the first step towards restoration is publicity as to industrial affairs, for we are all able to see only those things to which we bring the informing mind." Jane Addams and Florence Kelly are two women who were for African American rights especially for voting.

During the Progressive era there was a lot of public reform. Women were affected and they also created change thought their movements in this era. Women began working in factories and going to school. They began to have less children and wanted to focus on themselves. “Divorce rates increased because some educated women shunned marriage and believe only remaining single could they play roles they envisioned in the public world (Brinkley, Pg. 481).” Women of the progressive era felt they were being left out from developing careers. “So some women enrolled in new women colleges, some middle class women had become physicians, lawyers, engineers, scientist and managers. But moreover women jobs that society felted were suitable for them such as

1900-1920, that was a time period to address the issues created during the Gilded Age. The Progressive Era addressed a lot of issues, some issues were about women 's voting rights,and civil rights, while other issues addressed things like food, drugs, child labor, etc. These issues needed to be addressed and a few people decided to stand up and address them, like Upton Sinclair, Susan B. Anthony, and a few others, these people saw an issue and decided they would confront it, some of them wrote books, went on strike, decided to protest, they all had something in common though, they all decided to fight for what they thought was the right choice. These people who addressed these issues, they changed the face of America, not only by addressing these issues, but by giving new opportunities to other people.

The late 1800’s and early 1900’s was an era of industrialization and progressive reform. The Progressive era was a time where the people gathered and not only demanded change, but worked for it. There was a great amount of corruption between buisness and politics; and the working conditions for the common man were ghastly and for all intents and purposes inhumane. In the end progressives made huge strides in redefining the meaning of equality and improving the social, political and economic problems in American society.