The quote is referring to the 19th amendment being passed which gave women the right to vote
The progressives tried to help children by limitng maximum hours of labor and in establishing a minimum age for children to be allowed to work.
There were also mandatory laws in different states for children to attend school.
The Progressives believe that government should take an active participation to solve the problems in a society like poverty, education, woman and children rights, job opportunities and best conditions for living.
Economically it had a positive impact on the South, it allowed their economy not to be solely reliant on agriculture. However, as far as their society goes there wasn't a change in their belief system in their stance on African Americans. Many still considered them as second citizens until the Civil Rights Movement.
There was a recession when Nixon took office. He essentially came in and helped clean up the economy. To answer your question the condition, of the American economy, was poor.
The abolitionist movement was a movement in the United States and also in Europe that sought to abolish or end the slave trade and to free slaves. Two early abolitionists in the United States were Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, however, their positions were rather contradictory given that each was a slaveholder. Benjamin Franklin was a leading member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, a leading early abolitionist organization. Later in the 1800s the abolitionist movement in the North was led by social reformers such as William Lloyd Garrison founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Additionally writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Greenleaf Whittier were also active abolitionists. There were also many black abolitionist activists such as Frederick Douglass and Charles Henry Langston. The Emancipation Proclamation issued during the Civil War freed slaves in the confederate states, however, slavery was not officially ended until the 13th Amendment was passed in December 1865 which outlawed slavery.
