Progressive Era

The Progressive Era was probably the most important Era for advancement. It especially increased the rights of kids. The Progressives strongly opposed waste and corruption, seeking change in regard to workers' rights and protection of the ordinary citizen in general. Initially the movement was successful at local level, and then it progressed to state and gradually national. The reformers (and their opponents) were predominantly members of the middle class.

Most were well educated white Protestants who lived in the cities. Catholics, Jews and blacks had their own versions of the Progressive Movement, (some of them were more like responses to the movement than alternative versions) led by the likes of George Cardinal Mundelein and Booker T. Washington. The Progressives pushed for social justice, general equality and public safety, but there were contradictions within the movement, especially regarding race. Almost all major politicians, as declared some progressive measure. In politics the most prominent national figures were the Republican politicians Theodore Roosevelt and Robert Lafollette, Sr. and Democratic politicians William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson. Some notable progressers are W.E.B DuBois and Upton Sinclair.