Rise of the City

Following the years after the rise of the city, where crime, vice, and corruption broke out, Americans suddenly became over taken by a progressive zeal, many citizens became reformers over night and sought to purify the cities of its crime, sins, and immorality. This progressive movement transit to four levels--local, state, national, and international.

Starting from the local level, many reformers attacked the city's problems from many different perspective. There was no strict progressive laundry list one wold adhere to. Instead, it was a widespread mood that propel the reformers to civilize the city in many different ways. Reformers created settlement homes in the poverty-stricken slums as a way to help the poorer tenants suffering under the cruel hand of poverty and to help college-educated women find their place in meaningful work. Many reformers demanded higher wages for women because an alarming amount of them would sell their body. Many other efforts were made to clean up the streets such as cracking down on flogging, taking care of yellow fever, and using union laws.

On the state level, protective legislation were established to protected the working class. In Muller vs. Oregon, an Oregon law was passed that limited a woman's work day to 10 hrs. This was passed on the grounds of sociological jurisprudence. Florence Kelly gather scientific evidence that long hours were more detrimental on a woman's body than it is on a man. Because women bear the reproductive future of the United States, he justified, that by protecting the women, the US is protecting its future.

Another substantial state reform was the Wisconsin plan which establish