Progressives and the Industrial Movement.
The early progressives did not agree with Social Darwinism in which William Graham Sumner supported. The early progressives were people who believed that the problems that society faced (poverty, violence, greed, racism, class warfare) could be best addressed by providing good education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace. They believed that government could be tool for change, but most progressives thought of fixing social problems in different ways. .
William Graham Sumner believed that the industrial movement was a natural thing and that we as humans could have not done anything from preventing it, which is called Darwinism. Sumner states that the turmoil of heterogeneous and antagonistic social whims and speculations in which we live is due to the failure to understand what the industrial organization is and its all pervading control over human life, while the traditions of our school of philosophy lead us always to approach the industrial organization, not from the side of objective study, but from that of philosophical doctrine. He states that our society has made great achievements based on some great force and as we build an organization around these great forces we often adapt to them. He clearly states that we should not try and change anything because as humans we are part of the earth and earthly things are still going to happen in spite of what we do to change it. So, all of .
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our discoveries were not under our control, but under the control of the great force of the earth itself (natural).
The first progressive is Jacob Riis. Jacob Riis believed that the industrial movement brought forth terrible, poor tenement living. Riis argued that as business increased and the city grew with rapid strides, the necessities of the poor became the opportunity of their wealthier neighbors, and the stamp was set upon the old houses.
