Progressivism and the Changes It Brought to the United States

Progressivism and the Changes it brought to the United States

The progressive era in America brought about five significant changes to the country during its peak in the early 1900's. According to the text "America: A Narrative History" by Tindall and Shi, these changes were in the categories of Democracy, Efficiency, Regulation, Social Justice, Religion and Prohibition (Tindall & Shi, 2010).

Democracy

There is nothing more important in the country than democracy, and the progressive movement realized this and acted accordingly. The authors state" The most important reform that political progressives promoted to democratize government and encourage greater political participation was the direct primary, or the nomination of candidates by the vote of all party members rather than an inner circle of activists" (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p. 944). Before this, there was only a small group of voters were responsible for the elections that the country and this style of voting allowed political professionals to dominate the election. The authors go on to explain "In 1898, South Dakota became the first state to adopt the initiative and referendum process which allowed voters to enact laws directly" (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p. 944). The initiative is when a number of voters petition to have a certain measure put on the ballot, and the referendum is when the electorate votes yay or nay on said measure. It was only a short matter of time before voters were allowed to their state legislatures.

Efficiency

Efficiency was an important aspect of the progressive movement because there was so much redundancy and waste dealing with the labor process. Frederick W. Taylor, who was the original "efficiency expert", wrote the book The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), which "promised to reduce waste through the scientific analysis of labor processes" (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p. 945). The text goes on to explain that this efficiency movement also reached the government level to reduce the redundancy, and to "establish clear lines of authority, and to assign responsibility and accountability to specific officials" (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p. 945).

Regulation

This movement was the most difficult of the movements to put into fruition. The regulating of the giant corporations, as both parties worried that these corporations had too much economic power in the country. Trust busting was a difficult task which was more symbolic than actual. When the large companies were broken up, the leaders of these companies generally became in charge of the regulatory agencies that were started because of their knowledge of the business that was just broken up. The text states "regulation and stabilization won acceptance among business