Mrs. Worst
American History
27 October, 2017
Progressivism Essay
Progressives is support for advocacy, an activity by an individual or group that aims to make decisions based on economical, political, and social systems, of improvement of society by reform. Progressivism is a series of responses to problems in American society They sought to improve life in the United States with social, economical, and political reforms. Americans benefited from progressive reforms in multiple ways. They had political, social, and economical reforms.
There were many areas in America that had political reforms. There were two groups of progressives. The first group focused on making the government work better by using business ideas. The majority of this group agreed on two ideas. The first idea divided city government into several departments, this was known as the commision plan. The second idea was a council-manager system, where the city council would hire a manager to run the city. The second group of progressives focused on giving the public more of an opportunity to participate in the …show more content…
One of the most emotional progressive issues was the campaign against child labor saying that children under 14 are not allowed to work. Many adult workers also labored in difficult conditions, so some changes went into effect. Some of these changes included workers’ compensation laws, zoning laws, building and health codes, and the government regulation of business to protect workers. The temperance movement emerged from the concern that alcohol explained many of society's problems. This movement later pressed for prohibition. Many progressives thought that big businesses needed regulation. The Sherman Antitrust act and the Interstate Commerce Commision both helped with regulation. Some of the progressives even pushed for socialism. Socialism is the idea that the government should own and operate industry for the