Introduction
The Gilded Age brought extremes on both end of the economic, political and social spectrums. Businesses made monumental gains while labor struggled with limited success to achieve improvements. The nation's political participation set records, yet the government, which professed to be laissez faire, frequently supported, either directly or indirectly, big business over labor. The differences between the industrialists' life style, with their elaborate mansions and excessive spending, and the working class, who lived in filthy tenements and found it necessary for all family members to work in order to provide bare necessities, reflected the great disparity in nation's distribution of wealth.
The rapid changes to industrialization, immigration and urbanization in the United States led to problems many felt could permanently damage American democracy. In order to protect the nation, middle class Americans supported a new era of reform known as Progressivism.
Task
You job is to review primary and secondary sources to determine
a) What caused the problems that led people to seek reform?
b) Who were the reformers and what motivated them to action?
c) What role did the muckrakers play in this new reform movement and who were the key players?
d) Who were the political progressives, including the presidential progressives, and on what changes did each focus?
e) What changes took place?
f) Who were the Progressive Era Winners and Losers?