The Progressive Era: Society’s Struggle For Power

The Progressive Era showed an abundance of people’s true colors which changed how people viewed society. Citizens of America thought that it couldn’t get any worse than all the wars and slavery, but then America experiences the Progressive Era. The Progressive Era goes deeper than anyone will ever know. The question is, how deep does it go? People tend to hide their true selves in order to blend in, but once they have gained control or power in something as big as the government, then their real intentions start to show. The Progressive Era caused many lies to surface and society began to question what’s to come. At that point, people don’t know what to believe because they don’t know what’s true or not. Many people have tried to fix the issues within the Progressive Era but failed because they weren’t focusing on the main issue. The government has lost the trust within society by failing to do its part and correct the major issues. The worst aspects of the Progressive Era are discrimination and Government corruption.

For example, women aren’t treated equally when it comes to their rights. The progressive Era consists of voting discrimination against women. Historynet suggests that “Women suffrage was for the struggle of women right to vote”( Historynet.com). Women came together because they felt it was unfair that men had the right to vote. Women of America wanted to put an end to this unfairness. For instance, in 1888 the first international women’s rights organization was formed. Voting discrimination wasn’t the only thing women had issues with they also had issues with job discrimination against women. History emphasizes that men felt women were only meant for manual labor at home. Women have always adopted responsibility for household tasks and child-rearing. This assembly line had been passed down from millennium to millennium. For centuries men have always been considered to be more dominant than women are and will ever be. The women were paid unfair amounts because they were seen as the less dominant one.

Besides the fact that there is job discrimination and voting discrimination, the Progressive Era also consists of fraud and bribery. Government corruption affected societies choices. During this period of time, there was an excessive amount of bribery in politics. Bill Jackson suggested that “The politicians used political machines”(history.com). Representatives had establishments which gave welfare to people that would guarantee their vote. Politicians used political machines such as the Tammany Hall that William M. Boss Tweed invented to increase their chances of winning the election. That particular machine was one of the most popular political machines during the Progressive Era. Additionally, fraud was another way for mankind to seek their goals. Something else that Bill Jackson suggested was that the Tammany Hall provided social services in exchange for votes. William M. Boss Tweed used the political machine to withhold money from citizens without justification and gained a large sum of money. The government did nothing up until Thomas Nast had something to say about it. Political machines were no longer as important as they were in the late 1800s after the 1900s.

Given these points government corruption and discrimination against women overpowers any and everything else negative in the Progressive Era considering it is the worst thing humanly possible that could ever happen. Women have suffered a great deal throughout their life to even try to succeed in life. Thanks to the fact that men feel that women are inferior beings women have unequal rights when it comes to several things such as education, jobs, and politics. Women shouldn’t be treated differently from men just because they have less muscle or different body parts. They should be able to determine what they are willing and capable of doing themselves without someone breathing down their necks telling them what they can and can’t do because they are not male. Women are capable of doing anything they put their mind to and the Progressive Era showed it. On the other hand society during the Progressive Era shouldn’t have to deal with tricky from other citizens trying to get ahead of the game. Politicians using political machines to help to get votes from other people when they really should just test their own luck and see if they could reach their goals on their own. Even though Politicians were selfish and were cheating their fellow citizens the government should have stopped them the second it would be heard of. Instead, it took Thomas Nast to create a cartoon about William M. Boss Tweed to end the chaos. From the looks of it, the government did nothing to help its citizens seeing as though women decided on their own to start a women suffrage organization to get what belongs to them and Thomas Nast stood up to Tweed and put an end to the political machine taking money from mankind. Overall, society during the Progressive Era faced many economic, social, and political issues now all that is left is to hope that whatever comes next is any worse than the Progressive Era because honesty can mankind really take it?