what if the Progressive Era never happened?

Answer 1

if the progresive era never existed, then meat would be crap, there would be no national parks, and the environment would be screwed up.

Answer 2

Many great things would have never happened.
First, we should establish that Progressives wanted to 1) reform government and its effectiveness, 2) reform laws to benefit the people (social justice), and 3) instill society with moral values.

If we had never had the progressive era, we would not have had a lot of influential legislation, for one,

1. Upton Sinclair would have never published "The Jungle" (1905) which sprung up the Clean Food and Drug Act of 1906. Now, imagine if that kind of legislation had never passed...food products would probably be dangerous.

2. New ways to access policymakers would have never come to exist! For one, it was during this period of time that the whole initiative, referendum, and recall system came to be used. The people could now start laws and propose bills to Congress and Congress could communicate directly wtih the people through the process of a referendum (where people vote on a specific law the state legislature or congress has passed)
If the progressive era had never happened, our government would not be as responsive to our needs as it is today.

3. At the beginning, Presidential Candidates were chosen, not through primaries or caucuses, but through meetings with party bosses. This gave way to plenty of corruption where party bosses nominated politics like in Chicago and New York. However, the Progressive Era gave way to the primaries. Political Parties had a new just way to select candidates.

4. States and cities became more dependent on the use of experts. Towns actually hired trained professionals to take care of town affairs. Experts were called in for information, as well as local colleges for research purposes. Robert Lafollete from Wisconsin pioneered "The Wisconsin Idea" which allowed states and cities to utilize universities' knowledge to help the people. Perhaps if we had never had the Progressive Era, no one would have relied on real expertise to solve problems.

5. Important reforms include: women's suffrage (women were finally allowed to vote!) through the 19th Amendement as well as the Income Tax with the 16th Amendment (yes, people now had to pay taxes, which is a good or a bad thing, depending on how you see it, mostly good!). Progressives also achieved the direct election of Senatores with the 17th Amendement.

6. Muckrackers, or journalists who seeked to expose the dirties aspects of life, were booming in this period of time. This paved the way for the investigative journalism we all know of today and that changed the world with Watergate.

7. Businesses used new managing techniques to become more efficient and consequently, produced more.