Progressivism is the name many historians and journalists have given to the social movement in the United States of America that took place between the late 1890s and World War I. The onset of Progressivism was largely stimulated by a general concern about society itself, as many Americans worried about the effects of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. It was the result of an era marked by extensive deficiency in social, political, and economic structure. Because these issues were so prevalent all throughout American society, progressivism was often acted out in situations of crisis and with the utmost exigency. The spirit of progressivism carried with it much hopefulness and confidence in mankind’s ability to meliorate the social …show more content…
Much of the dispute will occur when it comes to defining the intentions behind the Progressives’ actions, and the degree to which the effects of said actions fell short of fulfilling their corresponding intentions. Taking Sides editors Larry Madaras and James M. SoRelle summarize the professors’ stances on this issue as follows: Professor Abrams maintains that progressivism was a failure because it tried to impose a uniform set of middle-class Protestant moral values upon a nation that was growing more culturally diverse, and because the reformers supported movements that brought about no actual changes or only superficial ones at best, while the real inequalities in American society were never addressed. In contrast, Professors Link and McCormick view progressivism from the point of view of the reformers and rank it as a qualified success. They maintain that the Progressives made the first real attempts to change the destructive direction in which modern urban-industrial society was moving (Madaras …show more content…
He believes that progressivism attempted to preserve society’s former values and behavioral modes by educating the immigrants and the poor in a way that would expedite their assimilation into the Anglo-American mode of life. To accomplish this, progressives sought to establish antitrust legislation, and if they could not do that, they at least wanted to set regulations in place on corporate practices as a means to keep somewhat of a foundation on which small proprietary business projects could take place. The idea was to make laws that would accommodate a wage-earning class that was becoming more and more important to the economy. While this would have worked in theory, Abrams believes that the effects of this legislation were “not so impressive,” and that, overall, it contributed to the failure of