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Exploring American History Unit VII Becoming a World Power

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Title: Exploring American History Unit VII Becoming a World Power


1
Exploring American HistoryUnit VII Becoming a
World Power
  • Chapter 21 - The Progressive Spirit of Reform
  • Section 1- The Gilded Age and Progressive Movement

2
Birth of the Progressive Era - 52 min.
3
The Gilded Age and the Progressive Movement
  • The Big Idea
  • From the late 1800s through the early 1900s, the
    Progressive movement addressed problems in
    American society.
  • Main Ideas
  • Political corruption was common during the Gilded
    Age.
  • Progressives pushed for reforms to improve living
    conditions.
  • Progressive reforms expanded the voting power of
    citizens.

4
Main Idea 1 Political corruption was common
during the Gilded Age.
  • Political machines strongly influenced city,
    county, and even federal politics in the late
    1800s.
  • Political machines used both legal and illegal
    means to get their candidates elected to public
    office.
  • Stuffed ballot boxes with votes for their
    candidates
  • Paid people to vote with bribes, or bribed vote
    counters
  • Supporters of political machines were often
    rewarded with government jobs.
  • The most notorious political machine was New York
    Citys Tammany Hall, headed by William Marcy
    Tweed.

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6
Corruption in Washington
  • The administration of Ulysses S. Grant, who was
    elected in 1868 and reelected in 1872, was
    charged with corruption.
  • In Grants second term, federal officials were
    jailed for taking bribes from whiskey distillers.
  • The scandal caused many Americans to question the
    honesty of national leaders.

7
Cleaning Up Political Corruption
  • Rutherford B. Hayes (18771881) promised radical
    and complete changes in government and made some
    minor reforms.
  • James B. Garfield (1881) attempted reforms, but
    was assassinated by a disgruntled federal-office
    seeker early in his term.
  • Chester A. Arthur (18811885), Garfields vice
    president, became president. Backed the Pendleton
    Civil Service Act passed in 1883.
  • Grover Cleveland (18851889, 18931897), a
    Democrat, worked hard to hire and fire people
    based on merit, not party loyalty.
  • Benjamin Harrison (18891893) helped control
    inflation and passed the Sherman Antitrust Act.
  • William McKinley (18971901) avoided scandal and
    helped win back public trust in the government.

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9
Political Corruption
  • Explain Why did member of political machines
    stuff ballot boxes?
  • Recall What happened to federal officials who
    took bribes from whiskey makers during President
    Grants second term?
  • Predict If government officials were replaced
    after each presidential election, what effect
    would this have on the governments workforce?

10
Political Corruption
  • Identify Which Presidents tried to reform
    government corruption before 1883??
  • Recall In what two ways did the Pendleton Act
    change the hiring process for federal jobs?

11
Who were the reformers? What did they want?
  • Mostly middle class people (Roosevelt called them
    Muckrakers) concerned with social issues of the
    times. Issues such as
  • immigrants - oldcomers and newcomers
  • city life- poor and needy, and prohibition
  • crime and corruption
  • strikes, Workmans compensation, minimum wage
  • Political bosses
  • city/state governments- direct democracy, tax
    laws
  • Giant business corporations
  • Womens Suffrage
  • Child Labor

12
Main Idea 2 Progressives pushed for reforms to
improve living conditions.
  • Progressives were reformers who worked to solve
    problems caused by rapid industrial and urban
    growth.
  • Eliminate causes of crime, disease, and poverty
  • Ease overcrowding in cities
  • Advocate for better education
  • Promote better working conditions and less child
    labor
  • Fight corruption in business and government
  • Muckrakers were journalists who wrote about child
    labor, racial discrimination, slum housing, and
    corruption in business.
  • Influenced voters, causing them to pressure
    government officials

13
Muckrakers
  • Name applied to American journalists,
    novelists, and critics who in the first decade of
    the 20th cent. attempted to expose the abuses of
    business and the corruption in politics.
  • The term derives from the word muckrake used by
    President Theodore Roosevelt in a speech in 1906,
    in which he agreed with many of the charges of
    the muckrakers but asserted that some of their
    methods were sensational and irresponsible.
  • The muckraking movement lost support in about
    1912. Historians agree that if it had not been
    for the revelations of the muckrakers the
    Progressive movement would not have received the
    popular support needed for effective reform.

14
Muckrakers
  • Miss Ida Tarbell had been at work for years on
    her history of the Standard Oil Company, and it
    began to run in McClure's in November 1902.
  • Lincoln Steffen's first novel on municipal
    corruption, "Tweed Days in St. Louis" appeared in
    McClure's Oct 1902.
  • Henry Demerest Lloyd's Wealth Against
    Commonwealth, published in 1894, attacked the
    Standard Oil Company.
  • How the Other Half Lives, published in 1890 by
    Jacob Riis, exposed life in New York's slums.
  • John Spargo, an Englishman, published The Bitter
    Cry of the Children, an account of young kids at
    work in sweatshops.
  • Perhaps the most famous Muckraking novel, The
    Jungle by Upton Sinclair, exposed the horrors of
    the Chicago meat-packing plants and the
    immigrants who were worked to death in them.

Lincoln Steffen
Ida Tarbell
Upton Sinclair
Jacob Riis
15
Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair
  • In 1877 Riis became a police reporter for the New
    York Tribune. In the 1880s his work gravitated
    towards reform and he worked with other New York
    reformers then crusading for better living
    conditions for the thousands of immigrants
    flocking to New York in search of new
    opportunities. He constantly argued that the
    "poor were the victims rather than the makers of
    their fate".

As a writer Sinclair gained fame in 1906 with the
novel The Jungle, a report on the dirty
conditions in the Chicago meatpacking industry.
The book won Sinclair fame and fortune, and led
to the implementation of the Pure Food and Drug
Act in 1906.
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17
Reform Successes
  • Reforms and Reformers
  • Progressives started settlement houses, such as
    Jane Addamss Hull House.
  • City planners
  • Helped design safer building codes
  • Opened new public parks
  • Civil and sanitation engineers
  • Improved transportation
  • Addressed pollution and sanitation issues,
    including waste disposal and clean water
  • Death rates dropped in cities where city planners
    and civil engineers addressed urban ills.

18
Progressive Programs - 535 min.
19
Progressive Movement
  • The Progressive Movement was an effort to cure
    many of the ills of American society that had
    developed during the great spurt of industrial
    growth in the last quarter of the 19th century.
    The frontier had been tamed, great cities and
    businesses developed and an overseas empire
    established, but not all citizens shared in the
    new wealth, prestige and optimism.
  • Progressivism was rooted in the belief that man
    was capable of improving the lot of all within
    society. Progressivism also was full of strong
    political overtones and rejected the church as
    the driving force for change. Supporters of the
    movement were found in both major political
    parties, Democrat and Republican.
  • Specific goals included
  • Remove corruption and undue influence from
    government
  • Conservation
  • Include more people more directly in the
    political process.
  • Government must play a role to solve social
    problems and establish fairness in economic
    matters.
  • Race- Blacks and Native Americans
  • Child Labor, Workers- young and old, workers
    compensation,
  • Political Reform- Direct Election, political
    reform,
  • Anti- monopoly reform.

20
Social Reforms
  • Education reform included the enacting of school
    attendance laws.
  • Susan Blow opened the first American public
    kindergarten.
  • John Dewey advocated new teaching methods
    designed to help children learn problem-solving
    skills, not just memorize facts.
  • Joseph McCormack led the American Medical
    Association in supporting public health laws.

21
Progressives Push for Reforms
  • Recall What sort of reforms did Progressives
    want?
  • Making Inferences What audience do you think
    muckrakers were trying to reach?

22
Progressives Push for Reforms
  • Recall Name three writers who urged reform.
  • Cause and Effect What resulted from Upton
    Sinclairs novel The Jungle?
  • Evaluate What is your opinion of the importance
    of city planners and engineers?

23
Progressives Push for Reforms
  • Recall When did the first public kindergarten
    open in the United States?
  • Contrast How were Deweys ideas on education
    different from earlier methods of teaching?

24
Main Idea 2Progressive reformers expanded the
voting power of citizens.
  • Progressives worked to reduce the power of the
    political machines by
  • Ending corrupt ballot practices
  • Adopting the secret ballot
  • Adopting the direct primary, which allowed voters
    to choose party candidates rather than having it
    done by party bosses
  • The Seventeenth Amendment allowed Americans to
    vote directly for U.S. senators.

25
Recall, Initiative, and Referendum
  • Recall
  • Some states and cities adopted the recall.
  • It was a special vote that gave citizens the
    opportunity to remove an elected official from
    office.
  • Initiative
  • Some states adopted the initiative.
  • It allowed voters to propose a new law and vote
    on it.
  • Referendum
  • Some states adopted the referendum.
  • It permitted voters to directly approve or reject
    a proposed or enacted law.

26
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27
Government Reforms
  • The Cities
  • Some cities adopted a council-manager form of
    government, in which a professional manager runs
    the city.
  • Other cities adopted a commission form of
    government, in which a group of elected officials
    runs the city.
  • The States
  • Governor Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin
    challenged the power of the political bosses.
  • He began a series of reforms called the Wisconsin
    Idea.
  • His reforms decreased the power of the political
    machine.
  • The Wisconsin Idea influenced other states.

28
Progressive Movement
  • The efforts and successes
  • Interstate Commerce Act (1887) and the Sherman
    Antitrust Act (1890).
  • A minority supported socialism with government
    ownership of the means of production.
  • conservation movement
  • railroad legislation
  • food and drug laws.
  • elect senators
  • prohibition
  • suffrage to women.
  • Workers compensation, civil service, and minimum
    wage
  • efforts to place limitations on child labor were
    routinely thwarted by the courts.
  • The needs of blacks and Native Americans were
    poorly served by the Progressives.
  • Secret Ballot, Direct Election, direct primary
    and initiative, referendum and recall
  • Robert La Follette- Leader in reform measures and
    the candidate of the reform element of his party
    for the nomination for governor in 1896 and 1898
    in 1900 unanimously nominated for Governor of
    Wisconsin and elected by the largest plurality
    ever given a candidate for that office.

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30
Election Reforms
  • Secret Ballot
  • Direct Primary- People select the candidates
  • INITIATIVE The people may initiate(propose) by
    5-8 petition of voters a bill to a legislature.
  • REFERENDUM The people may use referendum
    (popular ballot) to enact, approve or reject acts
    of the legislature.
  • RECALL All elected public officials in the
    State, except judicial officers, are subject to
    recall (by petition) by the voters of the State
    and forced to stand for re-election at any time.
  • 17th Amendment Direct Election of Senators. The
    Senate of the United States shall be composed of
    two Senators from each State, elected by the
    people thereof, for six years and each Senator
    shall have one vote

31
Reforming Government
  • City Government reforms
  • New rules for police, releasing debtors from
    prison and a fairer tax system.
  • 5 member commission system
  • Council-manager model
  • State government reforms
  • Election reforms
  • Seventeenth Amendment
  • Initiative, referendum and recall.

32
City Government
  • Commission Plan
  • Replaced the mayor and council with a small
    board of commissioners, each elected at large and
    each responsible for a single area of municipal
    administration.
  • Under the new plan voters could easily identify
    and punish those responsible for shortcomings in
    city services.

33
City Government
  • City Manager scheme
  • Under this plan an elected city council
    determined basic policy and appointed a
    professional, nonpartisan city manager who was in
    charge of the day-to-day operation of the
    municipality. Worked well in small cities.
  • Critics of corruption urged adoption of
    nonpartisan elections, new methods of municipal
    accounting, a civil service system for city
    employees, and state constitutional amendments to
    halt state legislative interference in municipal
    affairs.

34
Expansion of Voting Power
  • Identify What ballot change did many states
    make, after being pressured by Progressive
    reformers?
  • Analyze How did the right to recall officials
    give voters more political leverage?

35
Expansion of Voting Power
  • Compare What is the difference between an
    initiative and a referendum?
  • Identify Cause and Effect What effects resulted
    from Progressives work to reform city
    governments?
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