The Progressivism Movement In The 1870's

Progressivism was a movement that took hold in the early 1900’s; the roots of the movement can be seen in the Greenback Party in the 1870’s. The motivation of the progressivism movement was to bring the government back in to the economy so it could be fairly regulated. They believed that the economy would be more prosperous if the laissez faire policy was not incorporated, creating more structure and less drifting. These progressivists criticized the upper class and the large corporations that controlled the economy. There were many writers that wrote influential books and articles that struck at the rich. Henry Lloyd wrote Wealth Against Commonwealth which attacked the big Standard Oil Company, and Thorstein Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class, which spoke of “predatory wealth” people who made money just for the sake of making money. Although, many of these muckraking progressivists outlined the problems in society, none of them had any miracle ideas of how to cure the “broken” system. …show more content…
Oregon that said laws protecting female workers were constitutional. But at the same time it also hurt women in the workforce because it showed that women did indeed have a weaker frame which would keep them out of mainly “male” occupations. Women reformers did gain momentum after the Triangle Shirtwaist Company burnt down killing many young women, gaining much needed attention to the movement. These different events brought many great reforms to the workplace as well as the women suffragist movement. Progressivism was a reform movement that branched off in many different directions. It did indeed try to pull the government down into the economy for the sake of helping the middle class trying to gain more power, but it did increase the rights of all the people. The movement exploited the poor standards of society in order to achieve reforms and government