Progressive Era
By 1900, with no paved highways, a one-party government, regular epidemics of contagious diseases, endemic hookworm, routine lynchings, local affairs controlled by courthouse rings, widespread illiteracy, and few assets besides prime cotton land, Mississippi failed to attract much outside investment or European immigration.
The Progressive Era reached Mississippi. Governor Theodore Bilbo (1916–20) had the most successful administration of all the governors who served between 1877 and 1917, putting state finances in order and supporting such Progressive measures as passing a compulsory school attendance law, founding a new charity hospital, and establishing a board of bank examiners. However, Bilbo was also an avowed racist who openly defended segregation and was a member of the Klu Klux Klan.
A renewed surge of patriotism during World War I swept away most of the remaining bitterness from the Civil War and helped end Mississippi's physical and psychological isolation.
Read more about this topic: History Of Mississippi
Famous quotes containing the words progressive and/or era:
“A radical is one of whom people say “He goes too far.” A conservative, on the other hand, is one who “doesn’t go far enough.” Then there is the reactionary, “one who doesn’t go at all.” All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have coined the term “progressive.” I should say that a progressive is one who insists upon recognizing new facts as they present themselves—one who adjusts legislation to these new facts.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“It struck me that the movies had spent more than half a century saying, “They lived happily ever after” and the following quarter-century warning that they’ll be lucky to make it through the weekend. Possibly now we are now entering a third era in which the movies will be sounding a note of cautious optimism: You know it just might work.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)