The Progressive Movement And New Deal

Throughout history, American society has changed immensely. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, American society saw a huge change. These changes were caused by industrialization and urbanization and ultimately generated a series of massive reform movements. These movements, in turn, brought about changes of their own with varying degrees of success. When analyzing both the Progressive Movement and the New Deal, I believe that each reform movement had a greater number of successes than it did failures. In the late 19th century, American society dramatically shifted from a rural agrarian society to a more complex industrialized nation. This change was pushed along by technological innovations that eventually turned into …show more content…
During industrialization, big businesses simply got too big. Companies integrated and merged into monopolies which dominated the market and took control of everything they could get their hands on. When President Theodore Roosevelt was elected, he became known as “the trust-buster President from 1901 until 1909” (2/15Lec). Roosevelt effectively broke up the Northern Securities Company in 1904 that was trying to monopolize the railroad industry. During the Progressive Movement, not only were businesses attacked externally, but internally in the form of their employees as well. In 1914 with Woodrow Wilson as the President of the United States, “the Clayton Antitrust Act which extended the Sherman Antitrust Act protected the rights of unions to strike” (2/15Lec). This was a huge success as it allowed workers to do something they were previously not allowed to do. In the past for example, workers striking at the McCormick Reaper Works factory were met with police who “fired into the crowd, killing several workers” (AF, 78). In my eyes, the biggest success of the Progressive Movement was the passage of the 17th Amendment. In 1913, the 17th Amendment was adopted which allowed for Senators to be directly elected by the people. This helped to rectify the machine politics that were going on that allowed “wealthy men to turn city politics into a puppet show” (2/15Lec). Finally, one of the longest going reform movements, immigration reform, was a big slap in the face to non-white people in my opinion. For example, in 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed which barred Chinese from America unless they were a student or diplomat (2/15Lec). Then in 1907, the Gentleman’s Agreement was passed which barred Japanese immigrants from the United States (2/15Lec). Finally in 1924, the triumph of immigration restriction, the