Roots of the Movement
Looking Backward
The first page to Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward" in which people from the year 2,000 look back to 1887
The single greatest factor that fueled the progressive movement in America was urbanization. For years, educated, middle-class women had begun the work of reform in the nation's cities.
Jane Addams was a progressive before the movement had such a name. The settlement house movement embodied the very ideals of progressivism. Temperance was a progressive movement in its philosophy of improving family life. "Social gospel" preachers had already begun to address the needs of city dwellers.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/42a.asp
