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Essay On The Progressive Era

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During the Progressive era many changes were made to the american society, especially when the United States entered WW1. The progressives saw the war “as a special opportunity for reform, a chance to promote their agenda at point after point” and “the nation would confront , not ignore social problems at home.”(282) Many of the the reforms the progressives enacted turned to be a deadly poison to the party, shifting the populous to the republican party. Many of these Changes including nationalism, wealth equality, and the increased cost of living helped to influence the demise of the progressive party and it’s era. As a way to help support the war effort the progressives passed “The Revenue Act of 1917” which “imposed taxes on incomes as low as a thousand dollars a year.”(303). This Law …show more content…

This along with promoting “meatless and wheatless days”(293). or that ads that state that “FOOD WILL WIN THE WAR-DON’T WASTE IT.”(292) increased the difficulty for the the middle class citizen to live a normal life. Every aspect of their freedom of wealth was being limited by higher costs, higher taxes, and limitation to luxury goods. Though the increased cost of living and the wealth dropped played a significant role in the fall of the progressives, the rise of nationalism finalized the their fall. The Progressives enacted a sense of nationalism to help the population sustain the war. The population “were less interested in assimilating immigrants and, especially in the case of German americans, more interested in obliterating their culture and guaranteeing their submission.”(292). The United states populus was focused on self interest of their culture and aimed its gun sights on one enemy, the germans. When they fell they turned to communists after the “ascendancy of the Bolsheviks in Russia Novembre Revolution... Americans faced a new regime that condemned

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