ABSTRACT
Contradictory trends characterized the period between Reconstruction and World War I – what historians called the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The end of Reconstruction meant the end of any national efforts to protect freed slaves from white oppression. Railroads proved a mixed blessing, opening up rural communities to outside goods but exposing farmers to the unforgiving realities of a global economic system. The advent of the Progressive Era, beginning in the 1890s, represented a third attempt to come to grips with the changing world of industrializing America. The Progressive Era also marked a coming of age for middle-class women, who played a large role in shaping and directing reform, especially social reforms such as public schools and the anti-saloon movement. Home and foreign missions attracted Protestant women as churches organized women's boards of missions. In the post-Civil War era, women became more active in missionary societies, women's clubs, and reform-minded organizations designed to protect the home.
