Progressive Era Quotes

“Large cities from the days of Rome, Alexandria, and Byzantium have always been gathering points of diverse races, but New York is becoming a cloaca gentium, which will produce many amazing racial hybrids and some ethnic horrors that will be beyond the powers of the future anthropologists to unravel.”
― Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race or the Racial Basis of European History

“The question will arise and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine: Which shall rule — wealth or man? Which shall lead — money or intellect? Who shall fill public stations — educated and patriotic freemen or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?”
― Edward G. Ryan

“This is a nation of inconsistencies. The Puritans fleeing from oppression became oppressors. We fought England for our liberty and put chains on four million of blacks. We wiped out slavery and our tariff laws and national banks began a system of white wage slavery worse than the first. Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.”
― Mary Lease

“Liberty produces wealth, and wealth destroys liberty.”
― Henry Demarest Lloyd, Wealth Against Commonwealth

“When her husband recovered, it was to shout abusively at her…. Later, when she reflected on it throughout the tedious courtroom proceedings, she realized this was the moment she had irrevocably determined to divorce her husband.”
― Jean Elson, Gross Misbehavior and Wickedness: A Notorious Divorce in Early Twentieth-Century America

“Nina could scarcely believe a house could be as quiet as the one on Washington Street. Although there were moments when she missed her children, her main response to living apart from her husband was relief…[H]er current solitude was not just a respite, it was a time to contemplate her future options. Nina marveled that she had choices to consider.”
― Jean Elson, Gross Misbehavior and Wickedness: A Notorious Divorce in Early Twentieth-Century America

“Leaving James was not something Nina had thought possible, but if she could do so and still keep her children, it might be better for them, as well as for her.”
― Jean Elson, Gross Misbehavior and Wickedness: A Notorious Divorce in Early Twentieth-Century America

“If they could not prove adultery or extreme cruelty, Nina's attorneys had an alternate strategy available. Rhode Island was unique in allowing divorce based upon other, more ambiguous grounds, as well...[as] an omnibus clause in the state's legal code authorized divorce based upon..."gross misbehavior and wickedness in either of the parties repugnant to and inconsistent with the marriage contract"...the relative vagueness of the terms "gross misbehavior and wickedness" left room for interpretation by Rhode Island judges. Therefore, it was crucial NIna's attorneys prove she had legitimate standing to file for divorce in Rhode Island.”
― Jean Elson, Gross Misbehavior and Wickedness: A Notorious Divorce in Early Twentieth-Century America

“As a hedge against possible failure to prove adultery, this alleged “that for a period of time from 1901 and continuing thereafter he [had] kept up and continued an undue, improper, indecorous and licentious association and intimacy with a woman, named Mabel Cochrane, many years his junior, and of questionable character and immoral habits.”[i] Furthermore, Nina accused James of “bestowing upon and receiving marked and improper attention” beginning in the fall of 1901, “indulging in undue and improper familiarity and intimacy” with Mabel Cochrane.”
― Jean Elson, Gross Misbehavior and Wickedness: A Notorious Divorce in Early Twentieth-Century America

“Some women chose to embody this new form of physical empowerment & transformed their words into actions. Exhibition boxer Minnie Rosenblatt Besser had spent years training in the manly art of boxing. She promised to meet any willing opponent, male or female, in the ring. Besser specifically called out several famous male boxers but insisted that she was most anxious to meet Brooklyn boxer Eddie Avery, who had been arrested for wife-beating. Besser explained, 'Any man who will strike a helpless woman I believe to be a coward. Should Avery pluck up enough courage to meet me I think I will prove the truth of this proposition to the world at large.”
― Wendy L. Rouse

“Really to believe in human nature while striving to know the thousand forces that warp it from its ideal development, - to call for and expect much from men and women, and not to be disappointed and embittered if they fall short, - to try to do good with people rather than to them, - this is my religion on its human side”
― Randolph Bourne, Youth and life