The New Era
Robert Paulson History 17B Exam 2 The New Era The progressive movement might be seen as simply another part of the organizational revolution and the evolution of the middle class between 1880 and 1916. The progressive movement was another step that the United States was taking away from a semi isolated past. First we had been separated within our own country. Island communities set apart from one another left people less as Americans and more as just of a part of there small towns or cities. Change was inevitable and with the coming of the railroad and many other technological advances especially in the area of transportation the nation was becoming more and more unified. Local Governments controlling most of the power began to be less and less efficient. The power needed to be more centralized to regulate the workings of the country as a whole. Progressivism was the primary political movement at the beginning of the new century. An extremely optimistic idea, it was held upon the hopes and ambitions of the new middle class. People had come to believe that the world around them was no longer such a strange and mystifying place. Through a rapidly developed understanding of nature through newly realized applications of science. People suddenly felt as though they could predict the future and that their world was not only no longer so scary but understood and controllable. People felt an increased sense of new superiority and began to assume a higher level of morality. Reason and peace were more and more normal. Goals were now shifted to a belief that the possibility of an overall public good was possible and that it was no longer necessary to watch out for just yourself to survive but to help the good of the community as well. Conflict was suddenly seen as an unnecessary thing of the past that should be able to be solved, so it was a common view that war was soon to be a remnant of history. Urban Progressivism focused more on the rapidly changing and expanding areas in and around the cities. A basic belief that a smooth flow of business and the welfare of the citizens could all be controlled and basic prosperity should be a possibility to everyone. The two main kinds focused one, from the business community and two, from the stand point of humanitarianism.