Washington Gladden was a congregational pastor, an early
leader of the Social Gospel movement, a prolific writer with a great amount of
work counting poems, hymns, editorials and books. He supported the unionization
of the workforce, opposed racial segregation and was a leading member of the Progressive
Movement. A reform movement generally considered to be supportive of the middle
class that grew popular during the 20th century, progressivism militated, among
other things, for increased government regulation of the big business. It
firmly opposed the oppression of competition through the development of
monopolies.
