What you need to know about this relatively brief reform period in US history from "Mugwups" to socialists in thirty minutes. The seventy-two year battle for woman's suffrage is a good example of the entrenched power of the bourbons that are still with us today and threaten to overwhelm our elected government. The video lavishes attention on the era's presidents at the expense of the popular movements which brought radical leaders to the forefront of American politics, see below. Civil rights for all citizens was never a priority with any of the Progressive Era presidents. In fact, Woodrow Wilson conspicuously did not support an anti-lynching law sought by negro citizens. Civil rights for all citizens would have to wait another half-century before it was addressed.
The following video production focuses on the first general strike in American history, the one that occurred in Seatlle in 1919. A general or sympathy strike is accepted as a legitimate tool to leverage social change by socialists and marks one bright line distinction from Progressives or Social Democrats. The reaction of the local press--"Seattle Shall Not Be Crucified" read one headline-- was important in mobilizing public opinion against the "un-American" strikers. Seattle's general strike failed to achieve its key goal, raising wages for shipyard workers, but is the progenitor of later civil disobedience, notably Occupy.