17 Comments
Emily Muller
2/20/2014 08:20:49 am
The progressive movement believed that we should take care of immigrants and take care of the poor, therefore, when they were elected to office, they began passing laws for things like immigrant education and housing, and social reform. They also believed that alcohol was morally wrong, so they outlawed it. The movement was primarily a moral movement because they created those laws for moral reasons.
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Arjana Begzati
2/22/2014 05:37:35 am
I agree with you that the Progressive Movement wanted some reforms for a better society in the moral aspect. Though, do you believe that any movement in history (and today) can have only moral goals? In my opinion, the Progressive Movement also had a lot of economic and political interests, that did not necessarily have any moral value. By saying this, I do not mean to sound as if I find that this movement was a bad one. I only think that the world is shaped too much by interests for it to have any actions that are purely conducted for moral reasons.
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Keeya Marquez
2/22/2014 09:38:15 am
I know this isn't directed at me, but I want to give my thoughts. Personally I do think that any movement in history and today should only be moral goals. If it isn't moral and isn't going to help everyone in our country, then why should we do it? Also, I personally think that every attempt at reform that happened during this time had moral ideas behind it in some shape or form. Some just had more moral values than others.
Maddy Vogel
2/22/2014 12:29:59 pm
Arjana, your comment is very interesting. Nice job expressing your opinions! I, too, believe that not every decision made during any particular time is completely moral. Decisions based around economics and politics must exist because many decisions must ultimately step on someone's toes and cannot be moral from every standpoint. For example, the breakdown of monopolies could have financially hurt the owners of said monopolies. Obviously in this case someone will feel like a morally unjust thing has been done to them. Nice job!
McCall Etl
2/23/2014 06:42:29 am
I'm enjoying reading these comments and thoughts! I would have to agree with Maddy and Arjana that I don't think really any movement is primarily moral, although this one did have moral components to it.
Timmi Keisel
2/23/2014 07:19:11 am
McCall, after reading all of the comments, I was about to comment just about the same thing! I think there is almost always a moral aspect to any movement, but I don't think the Progressive movement was just primarily moral.
Luke Stewart
2/25/2014 02:28:27 am
I find it appealing that you said the movement was based on moral. I agree that people were leading this movement based on their moral code.
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Keeya Marquez
2/22/2014 09:44:09 am
The Progressive movement had many moral values behind it, and much of it was shown through the new political ideas. For instance, they fought to get rid of Urban Machines so not everyone controlled all the power. They also set into effect City-Manager plans to reduce corruption by politics. Finally, they tried to remove all corrupt officials from our government to make it better for everyone. I do believe that Progressive Movement was primarily based on moral ideas, nearly everything Progressives did was an attempt to try to make society better for nearly everyone.
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Timmi Keisel
2/23/2014 07:38:20 am
I agree with Keeya that everything the Progressivists did was to “make society better for nearly everyone,” but I don’t think all they did was for moral reasons. Like Maddie said in an earlier comment, the breaking up of monopolies happened during this time, but I believe this was more for economic benefits than moral ones. Also, the introduction of initiatives and referendums wasn’t (I don’t believe) a moral change during this time. It gave people more power in government and benefitted the country from a political standpoint. However, there were many things that were changed for moral reason. Coincidentally (or not, you decide), many of these things were campaigned for by women. Improving schools with hot lunches, nurses, and playgrounds, fighting to improve healthcare and sanitation, and working to protect and rehabilitate prostitutes was all for ethical reasons I believe. Many changes were made during the Progressive period and many of which were moral; however, I don’t believe this movement was primarily moral.
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Mr. C
2/23/2014 10:41:17 am
I like the way you are trying to think critically here, Timmi. Do you think morals intentions could have economic elements, such a breaking up monopolies. For example, monopolies drive prices up, which creates a hardship especially on working families and people living in poverty. Could a person have moral intentions, if he/she wants to bring the cost of living down so that more people afford to live?
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McCall Etl
2/23/2014 02:39:12 pm
The Progressive movement was, in my opinion, very beneficial and helpful to the United States and obviously still is today. I also believe that there were a lot of good moral components behind this progressive movement. Some were trying to expose the wrongs, scandals, corruption, and injustice of the days. They were referred to as muckrakers, and although they sound as though they weren't doing things for moral reasons, they eventually helped to look into issues such as child labor, immigrant ghettoes, prostitution, and family disorganization - all important issues of the time period. Women were looking to better society and did so by establishing libraries, implementing hot lunches, working for better sanitation, trying to prohibit alcohol consumption, helping to rehabilitate prostitutes, etc. In the political process, people were trying to take away the power of parties and the high-up bosses and the party centrality to make way for quality elected officials. This has some moral components, but I feel its more based upon better politics of the time. I think the Progressive movement did have a lot of moral components backing it, in way more areas and ways than I have listed, but I just don't think that the movement was primarily moral. Political and economical components can be factored in the movement also.
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Zane Boerner
2/23/2014 11:19:39 pm
It is hard to not have a lot of morals brought in to any major movement. The Muckrakers seemed to investigate topics that dealt directly with morals such as child labor, immigrant ghettos, prostitution, and family disorganization. They also looked into governments, labor unions, and corporations to find everything morally wrong with society at that time in order to bring it to light so that it could be fixed. At this time women were fighting for a lot such as the hot lunches, better sanitation, trying to help prostitutes, limit alcohol consumption, and for their right to vote. A few of these were morally based such as the prohibition of alcohol and the rehabilitation of prostitutes; however, gaining more political rights was more of a political movement than it was a moral one. I do believe that the Progressive movement was primarily moral, by trying to change everyone's lives for the better.
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Kirsten Comstock
2/24/2014 12:23:15 am
There were good morals behind the progressive movement. To me, it was overall a very beneficial thing to America. The Muckrakers were showing all the bad such as corruption, wrongs, and many other wrongs of that time. They eventually helped with child labor, immigrant ghettos, prostitution, and family disorganization even if at the beginning they didn't seem to be doing this for moral reasons they ended up helping a lot. During this time woman were fighting for a lot of things including hot lunches, better sanitation, limit alcohol consumption, trying to rehabilitate prostitutes, and many other things. In the political process people were attempting to take away the power of parties. This was more based on politics at the time than morals to me. Overall I think the progressive movement had a lot of moral components, but it was not just all moral. During that time there was a lot of political things that were also happening that can be taken into consideration.
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Rachel Frantz
2/24/2014 12:26:18 am
I think progressivism did have some moral components to it. I believe the Social Gospel to have had many moral elements behind it. The Social Gospel pushed to end social injustice. It wanted to end poverty and other degrading aspects of society. I think a lot of the work women did was led by morals. Women pushed for the betterment of others’ lives including children of the time. They fought to increase the laws regarding child labor. I think the movement’s effort to change the political process had more to do with obligation then morals. The political figures started to have this obligation to protect the views of the people and practice better politics. I do not think that progressivism was primarily moral because I tie morals to being more related to religion. I view progressivism as being less moral and more of a social obligation movement. During this time period people began to distinguish those who really needed help such as the poor or the prostitutes and realized they had an obligation to help them. I believe we still see the social obligation that was installed during this time. When you drive past a homeless person and you hand them food or money you do it out of a social obligation. I think people of the progressive time period felt it as their duty to help the poor, and in a sense I think the poor felt as if the rich were obligated to help them.
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Sabrina Lousberg
2/24/2014 01:34:22 am
I love how you stated that you tie morals back to religion and therefore felt the movement was a social obligation movement. I even used this as a reference in my answer. Great job!
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Megan Chintala
2/24/2014 01:25:42 am
Progressivism did have it's moral aspects to it. The Muckrakers and the Social Gospel both had their own morals to the case. The Muckrakers really focused on the problems of child labor, immigrant ghettos, prostitution, and family disorganization. These were all very important topics to the era. The Social Gospel put an end to what reformers called "social injustice." By 1900, the Social Gospel was offering help to the urban poor. They wanted society to be a better place. They wanted the poor to feel happy. Even ministers, priests, and rabbis joined in to help in the cities. The engagement of religion was a very powerful moral to this movement. Women also had morals. There were a ton of morals to be said and brought up during this time. With that, there were morals to the progressive movement but there was more to it than that. Political and economics played a major role as well.
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Sabrina Lousberg
2/24/2014 01:32:33 am
Progressivism did in fact have some moral components to it. The Social Gospel and the Muckrakers were two examples of groups during this period in time. The Social Gospel wanted to end social injustices such as poverty. They had many moral elements. The Muckrakers were in my eyes not very impressive to begin with considering all the corruptions and wrongs they were doing, but they eventually helped with child labor, immigrant ghetto, prostitution, and family disorganization. At the beginning it didn’t seem like they were helping for moral reasons but they did in fact help a ton of people. Women were also a huge influence during this time. They were pushing for hot lunches, better sanitation, a limit on alcohol consumption, and help to rehabilitate prostitutes. I believe progressivism consisted of some strong morals but that it wasn’t really a moral movement. I agree with what Rachel said above about morals coming from religion; therefore, the movement was less about morals and more about obligations. I believe the people of the time felt sorry for the poor people and prostitutes. I also believe they felt a need to help them as much as they could out of hope that someone would do the same for them if they were in that situation.
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