What ideas enabled progressives to extend opportunities to all citizens?

The primary idea that enabled Progressives to extend
opportunities to all was the notion that power comes from the bottom up.  Progressive
thinkers were really animated by the idea that power can be seen as something that
emerges from the smallest aspect of society and radiate through it.  They were not
thinkers that believed that power needed to be consolidated in the hands of the few, or
the select.  In this, the progressive thinkers believed that power could be shared and
distributed equally and as thoroughly as power.  This idea helped to bring forth the
idea that all citizens could have a part in the political process.  This translated into
extending political and social opportunities to women, people of color, as well as those
who were economically challenged.  It is here where the Progressive idea of wealth
sharing and reconfiguring political power to include more voices in the discourse helped
to mark it asd a significant reform movement.  In doing so, the Progressives made their
movement distinctive as one that sought to include more voices, towards a more equal
vision and away from one that believed that power should rest with an elite
few.