Progressive Era programs improved quality of life in Boulder

The Progressive Era, 1890-1920, was vibrant with reforms and programs designed to create a more equitable and healthier society. The era followed the Gilded Age, when industrialists flaunted their wealth alongside the extreme poverty of others.

Many groups rallied to help our community become a better place to live during this time.

Literacy

Women’s groups started advocating for a library in the late 1800s. Several reading rooms were already established, but some required payment. The women of Boulder wanted a library that would be easy to access and also be free of charge. Reading for enrichment was a positive leisure activity that might attract young men away from the many saloons in town. The city applied for funds from Andrew Carnegie and received a $15,000 gift. Boulder’s Carnegie Library on Pine Street opened in 1906. Soon there was a children’s department and regular story times to promote early literacy.

A health resort

Improved public health was part of social reform. After receiving letters from a Boulder resident, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg agreed to establish a sanitarium in Boulder. Kellogg based his famous Battle Creek Sanitarium on the ideas of Seventh-day Adventists, who adhered to healing techniques that cared for the mind, body and spirit. They favored natural treatments like sunshine, exercise, rest and a nutritious natural diet. In 1893, the Boulder Sanitarium Boarding Home opened on University Hill, run by the Seventh-day Adventists. The home was for tuberculosis patients, but by 1896, they expanded to Fourth Street and Mapleton Avenue into a multistory health resort and hospital called the Boulder-Colorado Sanitarium.

Colorado Chautauqua

Chautauquas were at their peak during the Progressive Era. After the original retreat at Lake Chautauqua in New York, chautauquas evolved into a mass education movement. They offered classes, lectures, cultural programs and outdoor recreation for their communities as well as drawing in people from surrounding rural areas. Boulder’s Chautauqua was built in 1898, specifically for the enrichment of teachers.

Temperance

The movement against liquor, led by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, found a lot of support in Boulder. The Colorado chapter of the WCTU built its Rest Cottage at the Chautauqua in Boulder in 1900. The pro-family and anti-saloon group helped win Prohibition for Boulder in 1907, and for Colorado in 1916, well ahead of the rest of the country.

City Beautiful

The City Beautiful Movement occurred during this time as well, with goals to improve living conditions and public health in cities through good urban planning and creating spaces of natural beauty.

The Boulder City Improvement Association, a group of private citizens, hired landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. in 1908 to design a plan. Although the city didn’t implement all of Olmsted’s suggestions right away, his plan has been referenced by city planners for decades.

Meanwhile, the Woman’s Club of Boulder, founded in 1900, worked on numerous beautification projects including planting trees and flowers, installing park benches and funding public restrooms.

Social services

Members of the Woman’s Club were also active in philanthropy. As families struggled with husbands away during World War I and the influenza epidemic of 1918, they established the Boulder Day Nursery Association for quality, affordable child care.

The same year, the Social Service Child Welfare Association was created to help mothers and children with food, coal for heating and cooking, and other basic household needs. The group evolved into today’s Emergency Family Assistance Association.

Progressive Era programs benefited the whole community, and many have endured and continue to contribute to our quality of life.

Silvia Pettem and Carol Taylor alternate the In Retrospect column. Contact Pettem at silviapettem@gmail.com, and follow Taylor on Instagram @signsofboulderhistory.