Progressives attacked the problems of the city on many fronts. Settlement houses, which began in England, spread in the United States. By 1893, the needs of poor urban neighborhoods that had motivated Jane Addams led Lillian Wald to recruit several other nurses to move to New York City’s Lower East Side “to live in the neighborhood as nurses, identify ourselves with it socially, and . . .
Women, particularly college-
For their part, churches confronted urban social problems by enunciating a new social gospel, one that saw its mission as not simply to reform individuals but to reform society. The social gospel offered a powerful corrective to social Darwinism and the gospel of wealth, which fostered the belief that riches somehow signaled divine favor. Charles M. Sheldon’s popular book In His Steps (1898) called on men and women to Christianize capitalism by asking the question “What would Jesus do?”
Ministers also played an active role in the social purity movement, the campaign to attack vice. To end the “social evil,” as reformers delicately referred to prostitution, the social purity movement brought together ministers who wished to stamp out sin, doctors concerned about the spread of venereal disease, and women reformers. Advanced progressives linked prostitution to poverty and championed higher wages for women working in industrial or other jobs.
Attacks on alcohol went hand in hand with the push for social purity. The Anti-
An element of nativism (dislike of foreigners) ran through the movement for prohibition, as it did in a number of progressive reforms. The Irish, the Italians, and the Germans were among the groups stigmatized by temperance reformers for their drinking. Progressives campaigned to enforce the Sunday closing of taverns, stores, and other commercial establishments and pushed for state legislation to outlaw the sale of liquor. By 1912, seven states were “dry.”
Progressives’ efforts to civilize the city demonstrated their willingness to take action; their belief that environment, not heredity alone, determined human behavior; and their optimism that conditions could be corrected through government action without radically altering America’s economy or institutions. All of these attitudes characterized the progressive movement.