Emil Capalla-Santos Mr. Wirjosemito US History Honors 13 May 2024

The Progressive Era: Fraudulence or Righteousness?

The Progressive Era was a time in American history when changes that improved the livelihood of the average women were made, hence the name “Progressive Era”. However, there is a glaring group of Americans that seem to have gotten the short end of the stick in this era, and that would be the African Americans. Economically, however, the country progressed extremely quickly, with businesses booming and small businesses growing. I believe that the Progressive Era did not effectively address the problems of the Gilded Age with the low success rate of the Homestead Act, the horrible state of the Native Americans, and the further decrease in …show more content…
Many African Americans could not afford to vote, eliminating a great number of African Americans from the ballots. Next was a literacy test, which targeted the fact that many African Americans at the time were illiterate. They protected illiterate whites from being unable to vote by implementing an “understanding clause”, which allowed people to vote as long as they could explain the meaning of the passage they were reading. This wasn’t the only way African Americans were discriminated against, the most recognizable way being the Jim Crow laws. African Americans were prohibited from living in the same neighborhoods as white Americans, and this was enforced for almost every establishment possible. There were white and black facilities for public pools, phone booths, hospitals, asylums, jails and residential homes for the elderly and handicapped. African Americans were discriminated against in court as they were given a different bible to swear on, they were forbidden to marry a white person, and public parks were off-limits for African Americans. Some people may argue that the Progressive Era was a complete success, and even though there were some successes, like the aforementioned economic growth, there were