Industrial Age Progressivism: Women And The Social Gospel Movement

In the Industrial age Progressivism was a central idea (Schultz, 2013). It began with the idea to clean up the cities of the nation. It sought to make changes to reduce poverty, create labor reform and improve housing conditions. Two important groups to this were women and the Social Gospel movement. The Social Gospel movement fought to end poverty and prostitution. Women fought for water sanitation, garbage collection and education for the poor. They fought to end violence against African Americans and for female suffrage. The first target of reform in the cities was to create settlement houses. These were safe neighborhoods that were helping to improve living conditions. The Hull House was the most renowned and was made up mostly of women, The women lobbied government for better construction, for better safety laws and conditions. The problem some found with these were that they were said to try to “Americanize” people and get them to adopt middle-class American values …show more content…
The first change was to how senators were elected (Schultz, 2013). They proposed senators be elected by the people not by state legislators. This would, after years, become the Seventeenth Amendment. Progressives supported the creation of professional corps administration, where if you wanted a government job you had to go through competitive examinations. More reforms included the end of child labor and a higher workplace safety standards. In 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment passed and the women received the right to vote.
Progressive then took the next step, from state to national reform. Roosevelt started implementing and The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to try to break up monopolies. He also started the National Forest Service. Wilson established a regional banking system under the federal government with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, outlawed unfair practices in businesses and supported the creation of the Federal Trade