The Progressive Era In The 1920's

Rose Hernandez

Professor Flowers

History 106

15 October 2015

The Progressive Era

In the 1920s, America entered a new movement that dealt with finding solutions to society’s problems. Fair wages for the working class, better living standards for the working and poor, and rights for women were hot button issues that Progressives tried to fix. During that time, books such as Bellamy’s Looking Backward and Riis’s How the Other Half Lives exposed what they considered was the main problem that caused America’s social problems. Both authors wanted to shed light on what they have witnessed and give out solutions to repair the damage society suffered from. The Progressive Era was all about change, and Bellamy and Riis wanted to change the minds of

In Bellamy’s book, crimes rarely happened in the twentieth century due to everyone having a job they were proud of having. As the poor suffered, the upper class continued to live a life of luxury and sought ways to take advantage of the poor by either paying them less when it came to work or charging them more when it came to paying for rent. Political conditions in both books showed how countries weren’t getting along due to World War I and people who worked in the government didn’t listen nor cared to what the citizens needed. In Bellamy’s book, nations were in peace with each other, there was no more need of state government, and America’s government only goal is to give wealth and good health to its citizen in the century Julian was in. In Riis’ book, he mentioned how the Board of Health weren’t very active with the housing condition problem. The B.O.H. were aware of the problems but they couldn’t find ways, until towards the end of

Economic conditions at the time were also terrible. The poverty level was at a whole time high and wages were very low. Workers were still on strikes demanding unions and higher wages; meanwhile the poor were suffering from starvation, sickness, and poor living conditions due to either no jobs or wages not being enough to live on. The salaries people were getting paid with were not enough to sustain on. In Bellamy’s book, he mentioned how wages weren’t unfair and only the educated or rich had well paid jobs, but in twentieth century, everyone had jobs with fair hours, capital was nationally owned, goods and products were made by the nation as well as only sold in big stores, no more business competition, and America’s wealth was shared equally among the citizens. In Riis’s book, the immigrants were under paid and were forced to work longer hours, and children were forced drop out of school to work along the side adults. Cultural conditions were hard when it come to women and immigrants. Women had lower salaries