1) Was Progressivism an inspirational movement to further the nation's democratic ideals or was it an attempt at social control by self-important, moralist busybodies?

An inspirational movement to further the nation's democratic ideals.

Explanation:

Progressivism applied reforms aimed to strengthen the national government to stop the irresponsible concentration of wealth and the growing power of enormous trusts, which endangered the right of the common people to make a fair living.

It´s no surprise that wealthy people could see that as a threatening attempt to control them, but the most important thing at the time was to make the government provide a better response to economic, social, and political inequality.

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