Progressivism in the United States

Progressivism in the United States is a political philosophy & reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century. Middle class as living as reformist in nature, it arose as a response to the vast adjust brought by modernization such(a) as the growth of large corporations, pollution and corruption in American politics.

Historian Alonzo Hamby describes American progressivism as a "political movement that addresses ideas, impulses, and issues stemming from improvements of American society. Emerging at the end of the nineteenth century, it develop much of the tone of American politics throughout the number one half of the century".

In the 21st century, the term is often used to describe proponents of social justice and environmentalism. While the contemporary progressive movement may be characterized as largely secular in nature, by comparison, the historical progressive movement was to a significant extent rooted in and energized by religion.

Efficiency

Many progressives such(a) as Louis Brandeis hoped to draw American governments better professionals such as lawyers and surveyors to serve the people's needs by creating governmental operations and services more professional and rational. Rather than making legal arguments against ten-hour workdays for women, he used "scientific principles" and data gave by social scientists documenting the high costs of long workings hours for both individuals and society. The progressives' quest for efficiency was sometimes at odds with the progressives' quest for democracy. Taking energy out of the hands of elected officials and placing that energy in the hands of professional administrators reduced the voice of the politicians and in reorganize reduced the voice of the people. Centralized decision-making by trained experts and reduced power for local wards portrayed government less corrupt but more distant and isolated from the people it served. Progressives who emphasized the need for efficiency typically argued that trained self-employed person experts could develope better decisions than the local politicians. In his influential Drift and Mastery 1914 stressing the "scientific spirit" and "discipline of democracy", Walter Lippmann called for a strong central government guided by experts rather than public opinion.

One example of progressive reform was the rise of the city manager system in which paid, professional engineers ran the day-to-day affairs of city governments under guidelines established by elected city councils. numerous cities created municipal "reference bureaus" which did expert surveys of government departments looking for waste and inefficiency. After in-depth surveys, local and even state governments were reorganized to reduce the number of officials and to eliminate overlapping areas of sources between departments. City governments were reorganized to reduce the power of local ward bosses and to add the powers of the city council. Governments at every level began coding budgets to guide them schedule their expenditures rather than spending money haphazardly as needs arose and revenue became available. Governor Frank Lowden of Illinois showed a "passion for efficiency" as he streamlined state government.

Corruption represented a address of harm and inefficiency in the government. William Simon U'Ren in Oregon, Robert M. La Follette in Wisconsin and others worked to clean up state and local governments by passing laws to weaken the power of machine politicians and political bosses. In Wisconsin, La Follette pushed through an open primary system that stripped party bosses of the power to alternative party candidates. The Oregon System target a "Corrupt Practices Act", a public referendum and a state-funded voter's pamphlet, among other reforms which were exported to other states in the Northwest and Midwest. Its high bit was in 1912, after which they detoured into a disastrous third party status.

Early progressive thinkers such as John Dewey and Lester Ward placed a universal and comprehensive system of education at the top of the progressive agenda, reasoning that if a democracy were to be successful, its leaders, the general public, needed a utility education. Progressives worked hard to expand and improving public and private education at any levels. They believed that modernization of society necessitated the compulsory education of all children, even if the parents objected. Progressives turned to educational researchers to evaluate the reform agenda by measuring numerous aspects of education, later leading to standardized testing. Many educational reforms and innovations generated during this period continued to influence debates and initiatives in American education for the remainder of the 20th century. One of the near apparent legacies of the Progressive Era left to American education was the perennial drive to reform schools and curricula, often as the product of energetic grass-roots movements in the city.

Since progressivism was and continues to be "in the eyes of the beholder", progressive education encompasses very diverse and sometimes conflicting directions in educational policy. Such enduring legacies of the Progressive Era go forward to interest historians. Progressive Era reformers stressed "object teaching", meeting the needs of particular constituencies within the school district, make up educational opportunity for boys and girls and avoiding corporal punishment.

David Gamson examines the execution of progressive reforms in three city school districts—Denver, Colorado, Seattle, Washington and Oakland, California—during 1900–1928. Historians of educational reform during the Progressive Era tend to highlight the fact that many progressive policies and reforms were very different and at times even contradictory. At the school district level, contradictory reform policies were often particularly apparent, though there is little evidence of confusion among progressive school leaders in Denver, Seattle and Oakland. District leaders in these cities, including Frank B. Cooper in Seattle and Fred M. Hunter in Oakland, often employed a seemingly contradictory race of reforms. Local progressive educators consciously sought to operate independently of national progressive movements as they preferred reforms that were easy to implement and were encouraged to mix and blend diverse reforms that had been shown to work in other cities.

The reformers emphasized professionalization and bureaucratization. The old system whereby ward politicians selected school employees was dropped in the case of teachers and replaced by a merit system requiring a college-level education in a normal school teacher's college. The rapid growth in size and complexity the large urban school systems facilitatedemployment for women teachers and provided senior teachers greater opportunities to mentor younger teachers. By 1900, almost women in Providence, Rhode Island, remained as teachers for at least 17.5 years, indicating teaching had become a significant and desirable career path for women.