The Progressive Era The decades between 1890 and 1920 was a period of vital reform activity that historians have called, The Progressive Era. In this era millions of Americans organized in voluntary associations to come up with solutions to the many problems. Industrialization, with all its increase in productivity and the number of consumer goods, created unemployment and labor unrest, wasteful use of natural resources and abuses of corporate power. Growing cities added to the problems of poverty, disease, crime and corruption. The growing number of immigrants and the rise of the upper class, caused an upset to the normal class levels.