("Progressives in Power," the California Historical Society, 2004) Next, the elected progressives enacted the first system of workers' compensation, which made employers liable for industrial accidents that harmed their workers. Employers had not been liable for this in the past. Before, injured workers were simply left to their own devices, so employers had no incentive to spend the money to help workers that their unsafe factories had maimed. The state legislature adopted an eight-hour workday for women in 1911, and, two years later, as the result of lobbying efforts by worker's rights progressive activist Katherine Philips Edson, the state legislature passed a law creating a minimum wage for women and child workers. ("Progressives in Power," the California Historical Society, 2004)

The progressive rule in California also changed the structure of the state government. For the first time, Californians could directly create laws or constitutional amendments through a motion known as initiatives....

The adoption of a system of referendums allowed voters to veto acts of the state legislature. Essentially, the newly elected progressives handed political power back to the people whom had elected them. The adoption of a state recall permitted voters to remove from office any elected official, a technique rather famously deployed in recent California history. Finally, long before the rest of the nation, California became the state in the nation to adopt female suffrage. ("Progressives in Power," the California Historical Society, 2004)
Although the Progressive moment in America eventually waned, in California the progressive state legislature enacted such sweeping changes created a more ethical and humane system of employment, and a more responsive government. The movement may have died, but its laws lived on.

Works Cited

Progressives in Power." The California Historical Association. 2004. [13 Oct 2006] http://www.californiahistory.net/8_pages/reform_progressives.htm