American history has witnessed many points of transition and transformation. Among the most remarkable moments of change in the nation's modern past is that time known as the Progressive Era: those years from the late nineteenth century until the 1910s when Americans faced their brawling, industrializing nation with a clutch of laws and reforms meant to safeguard children, workers, or women; when professionalization came to a host of occupations and group activities flourished; when women became increasingly present in the public sphere. And in this issue of Utah Historical Quarterly—with its emphasis on twentieth-century professional associations, child-centered advocacy, and labor rights—we see the saplings of the Progressive Era bearing fruit.
Susan Rugh opens the issue with an analysis of three Utah men who tapped into the growing prosperity of postwar America by founding lodging chains. As she explains, the creation of these little empires was not simply a matter...
