Give Me Liberty!

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Chapter 18
Norton Media Library
Give Me Liberty! An American History Second
EditionVolume 2
by Eric Foner
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I. Introduction

• Progressive era
• Surge in production, consumption, urban growth
• Persistence of social problems
• Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
• Progressivism
• Broad-based elements
• Loosely-defined meanings
• Varied and contradictory character
• New notions of American freedom

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II. Urban age

• Early-twentieth-century economic explosion
• Golden age for agriculture
• Growth in number and size of cities
• Start contrasts of opulence and poverty
• Popular attention to dynamism and ills of the
  city
• Painters and photographers
• Muckrakers
• Lewis Hines photography
• Lincoln Steffens The Shame of the Cities
• Ida Tarbells History of the Standard Oil Company
• Novelists
• Theodore Dreisers Sister Carrie
• Upton Sinclairs The Jungle

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II. Urban age (contd)

• Immigrants and Immigration
• Height of new immigration from southern and
  eastern Europe
• Immigration from agrarian to industrial centers
  as a global process
• Volume and flows (see chart 18.1, page 645)
• Causes
• Circumstances of immigrants
• Ellis Island
• Influx of Asian and Mexican immigrants in West
• Immigrant presence in industrial cities

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Map 73
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II. Urban age (contd)

• Immigrants and Immigration
• 6. Aspirations of new immigrants
• Social and legal equality, freedom on conscience,
  economic opportunity, escape from poverty
• Means to acquire land back home
• Material property as central to freedom
• 7. Circumstances of new immigrants
• Close-knit ethnic neighborhoods
• Social institutions
• Preservation of native languages
• Churches
• Low pay, harsh working conditions

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II. Urban age (contd)

• D. The new mass-consumption society
• Outlets for consumer goods
• Department stores
• Neighborhood chain stores
• Retail mail order houses
• Expanding range and availability of consumer
  goods
• Leisure activities
• Amusement parks
• Dance halls
• Theaters vaudeville
• Movies nickelodeons

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II. Urban age (contd)

• E. Women in urban public life
• Employment
• Racial and ethnic stratification
• Working woman as symbol of female emancipation
  Charlotte Perkins Gilmans Women and Economics
• Leisure, entertainment
• F. Fordism
• Background on Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company
• Production innovations
• Standardized output
• Lower prices
• Assembly line

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II. Urban age (contd)

• F. Fordism
• Strategies to attract and discipline labor
• Five-dollar day
• Anti-union espionage
• Linking of mass production and mass consumption
  Fordism
• G. Impact of mass-consumption ideal
• Recasting American way of life, freedom
• Challenges to material inequalities
• Labor unionism
• Critique of corporate monopoly
• Doctrine of a living wage
• Father John A. Ryan
• Moral standards of economics

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III. Changing ideas of freedom

• Varieties of Progressivism
• Industrial labor and the meanings of freedom
• Frederick W. Taylors scientific management
• Principles of
• Mixed response to
• Favorable as way to enhance efficiency
• Unfavorable as threat to worker independence
• New talk of industrial freedom, industrial
  democracy

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III. Changing ideas of freedom (contd)

• Socialist party
• High watermark of American socialism
• Membership
• Elected officials
• Newspapers Appeal to Reason
• Eugene V. Debs (see quotes, pages 651-652)
• Program
• Public ownership of railroads and factories
• Democratic control of economy
• Free college education

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Map 74
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III. Changing ideas of freedom (contd)

• Socialist party
• 3. Breadth of following
• Urban immigrant communities
• Western farming and mining regions
• Native-born intelligentsia
• 4. Rising presence of socialism throughout
  Atlantic World
• Labor movement
• American Federation of Labor (President Samuel
  Gompers)
• Surge of growth
• Boundaries of membership
• Skilled industrial and craft laborers
• White, male, and native-born

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III. Changing ideas of freedom (contd)

• Labor movement
• American Federation of Labor
• Moderate ideology ties with business
  Progressives
• National Civic Federation
• Collective bargaining for responsible unions
• Alternative strain of rigid employer
  anti-unionism
• Industrial Workers of the World (1905)
• Inclusion of workers from all stations and
  backgrounds
• Trade union militancy
• Advocate of workers revolution
• William Big Bill Haywood
• Support and guidance for mass, multiethnic strikes

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III. Changing ideas of freedom (contd)

• Labor movement
• 3. High points of broad-based labor struggle
• Lawrence Bread and Roses textile strike march
  of strikers children
• New Orleans dock workers strike
• Paterson silk workers strike Paterson pageant
• Colorado Fuel and Iron miners strike Ludlow
  Massacre
• 4. Suppression of labor radicalism and emergence
  of civil liberties issue
• Emergence of Clarence Darrow

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III. Changing views of freedom (contd)

• Shadings of feminism
• Appearance of term feminism
• Lyrical Left
• New cultural bohemia
• Radical reassessments of politics, the arts,
  sexuality
• Rise of personal freedom
• Freudian psychology
• Free sexual expression and choice
• Pockets of open gay culture
• Birth control movement
• Emma Goldman
• Margaret Sanger

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IV. The Politics of Progressivism

• Global scope of Progressive impulse
• Common strains arising from industrial and urban
  growth
• International networks of social reformers
• Influence of European social legislation on
  American reformers pensions, minimum wage
  unemployment insurance, workplace safety
• Shared premises
• Commitment to activist government
• View of freedom as a positive concept
• John Dewey (see quote, page 662)
• Randolph Bourne (see quote, page 662-663)
• Trans-Atlantic scope of Progressive impulse

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IV. The Politics of Progressivism (contd)

• Progressivism in municipal and state politics
• Agendas
• Curbing of political machines
• Regulation of public utilities, railroads, and
  other business interests
• Taxation of property and corporate wealth
• Improvement and enhancement of public space
• Humanizing of working and living conditions
• Significant municipal and state Progressives
• Mayors Hazen Pingree (Detroit) and Samuel Golden
  Rule Jones (Toledo)
• Governors Hiram Johnson (California) and Robert
  M. La Follettee (Wisconsin)

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IV. The Politics of Progressivism (contd)

• Progressive democracy
• Expansion and empowerment of electorate
• Popular election of U.S. senators (17th
  Amendment), judges
• Primary elections
• Initiatives, referendums, recalls
• Womens Suffrage
• Contraction and curtailment of electorate
• Disenfranchisement of southern blacks
• Spread of appointed city commissions or managers
• Narrowing of voting rights for the poor
• Preference for government by experts
• Walter Lippmanns Drift and Mastery

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IV. The Politics of Progressivism (contd)

• Women reformers
• Challenge to political exclusion
• Crusades to uplift condition of immigrant poor,
  women, and child laborers
• Settlement house movement
• Government measures to alleviate problems of
  housing, labor, health
• Racist aspect
• Leading figures
• Jane Addams (Hull House)
• Julie Lathrop (Childrens Bureau)
• Florence Kelley (National Consumers League)

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IV. The Politics of Progressivism (contd)

• Revival of suffrage movement
• Scattered progress at state and local levels
• Gathering focus on constitutional amendment
• Ambiguities of maternalist reform
• Drive to improve conditions of working women
  while reconfirming their dependent status
• Mothers pensions
• Maximum working hours for women (Muller v.
  Oregon Brandeis brief)
• Stamping of gender inequalities into foundation
  for welfare state and its further implications

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IV. The Politics of Progressivism (contd)

• Native American Progressivism
• Profile of Indian reformers
• Intellectuals
• Pan-Indian
• Society of American Indians
• Shared aims
• Highlight plight of Native Americans
• Promote justice for Native Americans
• Differing aims
• Endorsement of federal Indian polity
• Full citizenship rights
• Self-determination
• Carlos Montezuma

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V. Progressive presidents

• Progressivism and the rise of the national state
• Jeffersonian ends by Hamiltonian means
• Theodore Roosevelt (Square Deal)
• Succession to presidency reelection in 1904
• Limits on corporate power
• Good trusts U.S. Steel Standard Oil
• Bad trusts Northern Securities case (J. P.
  Morgan)
• Mediation between labor and capital 1902 coal
  strike arbitration
• Regulation of business
• Hepburn Act
• Pure Food and Drug Act
• Meat Inspection Act
• Mixed reaction from business

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V. Progressive presidents (contd)

• Theodore Roosevelt
• Conservation movement
• Late-nineteenth-century antecedents
• Early national parks
• John Muirs Sierra Club
• Wildlife preserves and national parks
• Gifford Pinchot balance between development and
  conservation
• Water as a key point of contention

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V. Progressive presidents (contd)

• William Howard Taft (see quote, page 673)
• Anointment as successor by Roosevelt electoral
  victory over Bryan
• Partial continuation of Progressive agenda
• Antitrust initiatives
• Standard Oil case
• American Tobacco case
• Upholding of good trust/bad trust distinction
  by Supreme Court
• Support for graduated income tax (Sixteenth
  Amendment)
• Conservative drift
• Payne-Aldrich Tariff
• Pinchot-Ballinger affair

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V. Progressive presidents (contd)

• Election of 1912
• Woodrow Wilson (Democrat New Freedom)
• Antitrust, unionization, small business (curse
  of bigness)
• Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive New
  Nationalism)
• Blueprint for welfare state
• Taxation of personal/corporate wealth,
  industrial regulation
• Womens suffrage, child labor laws, living
  wage, medicare, etc.
• William Howard Taft (Republican conservative
  wing)
• Eugene V. Debs (Socialist)
• Wilson victory
• Wilsons first-term program
• Underwood tariff
• Labor
• Clayton Act, Keating-Owen Act, Adamson Act

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Map 75
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V. Progressive presidents (contd)

• Wilsons first-term program
• 3. Farmers Warehouse Act
• 4. Supervision of economy
• Federal Reserve System
• Federal Trade Commission