Progressive Ideals
One cold snowy morning in late December
1891, Florence Kelley and her three
children arrived on the front steps of Hull
House in Chicago. When she knocked on
the door, Jane Addams answered, “We
were welcomed as though we had been
invited,” Kelley later wrote. At Hull House,
Kelley not only found refuge but also
joined the growing movement for reform.
She went on to become one of the
country’s leading social reformers.
The Progressive Movement
• In the late 1800’s reformers, who became
known as progressives, began working to
improve society.
– Worked to fix problems such as crime, disease,
and poverty
– Focused on education, healthcare, and
government reforms
Muckrakers
• Journalists who helped to give life to the
progressive movement by writing about
corruption in business and politics
– Raked up and exposed the “muck”, or filth in
society.
– Focused on areas such as child labor, racial
discrimination, and slum housing
Sanitation
Crime
Poverty
Ida Tarbell
“Very often people who admit the facts,
who are willing to see that Mr. Rockefeller
has employed force and fraud to secure his
ends, justify him by declaring, “It’s
business.” That is, “It’s business” has come
to be a legitimate [acceptable] excuse for
hard dealing, sly tricks, and special
privelages.”
Reforming City and State Government
• Worked for greater
voter participation
• Sought more efficient
and responsive
governments to local
needs
City Planning
• In response to the poor
conditions of the
tenement buildings
• 1901 New York State
Tenement House Act
passed
• City planning and city
engineering
– Zoning laws, building
codes, public parks,
sanitation, etc.
Social Reforms
• John Dewey – key supporter of early
childhood education
– Progressives start kindergarten
– Children learn problem solving as opposed to
simply memorizing the teachers lesson
• Joseph McCormack –
– Led the American Medical Association to bring
local medical organizations together