An Overview of the Women’s Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and Child Labor Movement in the Progressive Movement

The progressive movement represented a unified effort of groups that benefited

society in order to correct abuses and government. Some of the more popular movements consisted of voting rights for women, civil rights for African Americans, temperance, and child labor. Each of these movements ended up being successful or was able to start moving forward in a popular direction that would later benefit society. The progressive movement ended up being very beneficial and gave a great moral boost for the country. From the women’s movement, it proved to be successful overall as citizens became more aware of their problems. One of the most dedicated women to the women’s movement was Susan B. Anthony, and she wrote about her mission in the Arena Magazine. Her main idea of the movement was to not give up until women had earned the right to vote in elections. Anthony talked about how no one would know when this day would come but that men needed accept and recognize women as peers and as councils in the nation. In the end of the movement with all of the hard work that was put in, the nineteenth amendment would finally be added to the constitution. This amendment ratified in 1920 and guaranteed women’s right to vote in all elections including the local, state, and national levels. Thanks to Susan B. Anthony and other great independent women, the nineteenth was made possible by all of the hard work that they put in.

The civil rights movement for African Americans was also a successful movement

that came from the help of the progressive era in the US. There were an innumerable amount of leaders in that helped push the civil rights movement forward and one of them was W. E. B. Du Bois, who played a large role in the success of it. Some of the main principles from the Niagara Movement were to give African Americans sympathy, justice, and leadership. After being treated poorly all they wanted was to be treated

equally and Du Bois said that the nations would never stand justified before God until these things were changed. Though there would still be some time before the civil rights movement became completely successful, after urban migration, African Americans were able to improve economic conditions in the north, which was a start.

Lastly the child labor movement had begun in 1900 when some progress had been made in limiting the employment of young children especially in factories and mines throughout the United States. Florence Kelly was one of Jane Addams associates and co- leaders of the settlement house movement, and then began delivering reports concerning child abuse. This reports called for efforts to end abuses. Kelly thought that there were some big obstacles at the time towards child labor. This first was the general hypocrisy of Americans, and the second was the failure to make the work of enforcing the law desirable as a profession. Kelly’s plan to resolve this problem was to insist that child labor was a “national evil” and there must be a law that forbade it.

In conclusion, the progressive era was certainly represented as a unified effort to make society better as a whole. The most popular movements were women’s suffrage, civil rights of African Americas, and child labor. Though some of these movements did not cure the United States’ problems completely, the improved the quality of life for those living the in United States. It provided a bigger role for the people to be involved with democracy and institute a guide for the federal government to become more effective.