Progressives

Question

The progressives were fascinated in “making people better.” What types of things were they fascinated in changing and who were they aiming their changes at?

Answer 1

Progressives were concerned about the masses below them as they were with powerful business interests. The industrial working class was vulnerable to revolutionary socialism, a threat equavalent to plutocracy. The urban hordes of immigrants from the southern and eastern Europe seemed to resist becoming good Americans. The immigrants could be at least educated. Progressives increased the funding of public schools in industrial states, creating what remained, for more than a century, the best public educational system in the world. Teachers in schools in which most pupils were children of immigrants were commissioned to teach American values-middle class values- as well as the three R’s, biology and typing.