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The Progressive Era was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States, from the 1890s to 1920s .〔John D. Buenker, John C. Burnham, and Robert M. Crunden, ''Progressivism'' (1986) pp 3–21〕 The main objective of the Progressive movement was eliminating corruption in government. The movement primarily targeted political machines and their bosses. By taking down these corrupt representatives in office a further means of direct democracy would be established. They also sought regulation of monopolies (Trust Busting) and corporations through antitrust laws. These antitrust laws were seen as a way to promote equal competition for the advantage of legitimate competitors. Many progressives supported Prohibition in the United States in order to destroy the political power of local bosses based in saloons.〔James H. Timberlake, ''Prohibition and the progressive movement, 1900–1920'' (1970) pp 1–7〕 At the same time, women's suffrage was promoted to bring a "purer" female vote into the arena.〔On purification, see David W. Southern, ''The Malignant Heritage: Yankee Progressives and the Negro Question, 1900–1915,'' (1968); Southern, ''The Progressive Era And Race: Reaction And Reform 1900–1917'' (2005); Norman H. Clark, ''Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition'' (1976) p 170; and Aileen Kraditor, ''The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement: 1890–1920'' (1967). 134–36〕 A second theme was building an Efficiency Movement in every sector that could identify old ways that needed modernizing, and bring to bear scientific, medical and engineering solutions; a key part of the efficiency movement was scientific management, or "Taylorism". Many activists joined efforts to reform local government, public education, medicine, finance, insurance, industry, railroads, churches, and many other areas. Progressives transformed, professionalized and made "scientific" the social sciences, especially history,〔 economics,〔 and political science.〔 In academic fields the day of the amateur author gave way to the research professor who published in the new scholarly journals and presses. The national political leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and Charles Evans Hughes on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson and Al Smith on the Democratic side. Initially the movement operated chiefly at local levels; later, it expanded to state and national levels. Progressives drew support from the middle class, and supporters included many lawyers, teachers, physicians, ministers and business people.〔George Mowry, ''The California Progressives'' (1963) p 91.〕 The Progressives strongly supported scientific methods as applied to economics, government, industry, finance, medicine, schooling, theology, education, and even the family. They closely followed advances underway at the time in Western Europe〔Daniel T. Rodgers, ''Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age'' (1998)〕 and adopted numerous policies, such as a major transformation of the banking system by creating the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Reformers felt that old-fashioned ways meant waste and inefficiency, and eagerly sought out the "one best system".〔Lewis L. Gould, ''America in the Progressive Era, 1890–1914'' (2000)〕〔David B. Tyack, ''The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education'' (Harvard UP, 1974), p. 39〕 ==Political reform== Disturbed by the waste, inefficiency, stubbornness, corruption and injustices of the Gilded Age, the Progressives were committed to changing and reforming every aspect of the state, society and economy. Significant changes enacted at the national levels included the imposition of an income tax with the Sixteenth Amendment, direct election of Senators with the Seventeenth Amendment, Prohibition with the Eighteenth Amendment, and women's suffrage through the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.〔David E. Kyvig, ''Explicit and authentic acts: amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776–1995'' (Kansas UP, 1996) pp 208–14〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Progressive Era」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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