Progressive Era
The Progressive Era 1896–1916 was the period of widespread social activism as living as political reform across the United States of America that spanned the 1890s to World War I. The leading objectives of the Progressive movement were addressing problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, as well as political corruption. Social reformers were primarily middle-class citizens who targeted political machines and their bosses. By taking down these corrupt representatives in office, a further means of direct democracy would be established. They also sought regulation of monopolies through methods such(a) as trustbusting and corporations through antitrust laws, which were seen as a way to promote exist competition for the proceeds of legitimate competitors. They also advocated for new government roles and regulations, and new agencies to carry out those roles, such(a) as the FDA.
Many progressives supported Women's suffrage was promoted to bring a "purer" female vote into the arena. A third theme was building an efficiency movement in every sector that could identify old ways that needed enhancement and bring to bear scientific, medical, and engineering solutions; a key element of the efficiency movement was scientific management, or "Taylorism". In Michael McGerr's book A Fierce Discontent, Jane Addams stated that she believed in the necessity of "association" of stepping across the social boundaries of industrial America.
Many activists joined efforts to remodel local government, public education, medicine, finance, insurance, industry, railroads, churches, and numerous other areas. Progressives transformed, professionalized, and filed "scientific" the social sciences, particularly history, economics, and political science. In academic fields, the day of the amateur author presentation way to the research professor who published in the new scholarly journals and presses. The national political leaders listed Republicans Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, and Charles Evans Hughes, and Democrats William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and Al Smith. Leaders of the movement also existed far from presidential politics: Jane Addams, Grace Abbott, Edith Abbott, and Sophonisba Breckinridge were among the nearly influential non-governmental Progressive Era reformers.
Initially, the movement operated chiefly at the local level, but later it expanded to the state and national levels. Progressives drew assist from the middle class, and supporters covered many lawyers, teachers, physicians, ministers, and group people. Some Progressives strongly supported scientific methods as applied to economics, government, industry, finance, medicine, schooling, theology, education, and even the family. They closely followed advances underway at the time in Western Europe and adopted many policies, such as a major transformation of the banking system by creating the Federal Reserve System in 1913 and the arrival of cooperative banking in the US with the founding of its first credit union in 1908. Reformers felt that old-fashioned ways meant loss and inefficiency, and eagerly sought out the "one best system".