PROGRESSIVE ERA 1890s-1920

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PROGRESSIVE ERA1890s-1920

• A21w
• 9.2.13

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ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

• Who were the Progressives?
• What reforms did they seek?
• How successful were Progressive Era reforms in
  the period 1890-1920?
• Consider political change, social change
  (industrial conditions, urban life, women,
  prohibition)

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ORIGINS OF PROGRESSIVE REFORM
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Progressivism
WHEN? Progressive Reform Era
1920s
1890s
1901
1917

• WHO? Progressives
• urban middle-class managers professionals
  women
• WHY? Address the problems arising from
• industrialization (big business, labor strife)
• urbanization (slums, political machines,
  corruption)
• immigration (ethnic diversity)
• inequality social injustice (women racism)

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Progressivism

• WHAT are their goals?
• Democracy government accountable to the people
• Regulation of corporations monopolies
• Social justice workers, poor, minorities
• Environmental protection
• Moral development
• HOW?
• Government (laws, regulations, programs)
• Efficiency
• value experts, use of scientific study to
  determine the best solution
• HOW MUCH?????

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Fostering Efficiency

• Many Progressive leaders put their faith in
  scientific principles to make society better.
• In industry, Frederick Taylor began using time
  and motion studies to improve factory efficiency.
  Taylorism became an industry fad as factories
  sought to complete each task quickly.

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Origins of Progressivism

• Muckrakers
• Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives (1890)
• Ida Tarbell The History of the Standard Oil
  Co. (1902)
• Lincoln Steffens The Shame of the Cities (1904)

Ida Tarbell
Lincoln Steffens
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MUNICIPAL STATE REFORMS
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MUNICIPAL REFORM

• municipal reform
• utilities - water, gas, electricity, trolleys
• council-manager plan (Dayton, 1913)

Shoe line - Bowery men with gifts from ward boss
Tim Sullivan, February, 1910
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MUNICIPAL REFORM
strong mayor system
MAYOR
COUNCIL MEMBER
COUNCIL MEMBER
COUNCIL MEMBER
COUNCIL MEMBER
COUNCIL MEMBER
CITY SERVICES

• council-manager plan (Dayton, 1913)

COUNCIL MEMBER
COUNCIL MEMBER
COUNCIL MEMBER
COUNCIL MEMBER
COUNCIL MEMBER
CITY MANAGER
CITY SERVICES
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STATE POLITICAL REFORM

• secret ballots
• direct primary
• Robert M. LaFollette (regulation of big business
  and the Wisconsin Idea a partnership between
  government and experts at University of
  Wisconsin)
• Initiative
• Referendum
• Recall
• Seventeenth Amendment (1913)

Robert M. LaFollette, Wisconsin Governor 1900-06
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Direct Election Of Senators

• Before 1913, each states legislature had chosen
  U.S. senators. To force senators to be more
  responsive to the public, Progressives pushed for
  the popular election of senators.
• As a result, Congress passed the 17th Amendment
  in 1913.

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STATE SOCIAL REFORMS

• professional social workers
• Health codes
• Zoning laws
• Building codes
• settlement houses - education, culture, day care
• child labor laws
• Enable education advancement for working class
  children

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STATE SOCIAL REFORMS

• workplace labor reforms
• eight-hour work day
• workers compensation laws
• minimum wage laws
• child labor laws
• unionization
• improved safety health conditions in factories

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 1911
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• http//trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/legacy/index.h
  tml
• http//www.bing.com/videos/search?qtriangleshirt
  waistfactorystoryofusFORMVIRE2adltstrictv
  iewdetailmid7ABC164FF736F2728A077ABC164FF736F27
  28A07
• After watching the video clip and researching
  the website above, answer the following
  questions.
• If you were prosecuting a case against the
  Triangle Shirtwaist factory, what evidence would
  you use to show that the owners were culpable in
  this tragedy? (Provide 4 examples)
• If you were a state legislator, what new
  laws/regulations would you support to protect
  people from similar disasters? (Provide at least
  3 examples)

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State Social Reform Child Labor
Breaker Boys Pennsylvania, 1911
Child Laborers in Indiana Glass Works, Midnight,
Indiana. 1908
Shrimp pickers in Peerless Oyster Co. Bay St.
Louis, Miss., March 3, 1911
Child Laborer, Newberry, S.C. 1908
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Settlement Houses

• Hull-House Jane Addams

Jane Addams (1905)
Hull-House Complex in 1906
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Promoting Moral Development

• Some reformers felt that the answer to societys
  problems was personal behavior. They proposed
  such reforms as prohibition.

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TEMPERANCE

• Groups wishing to ban alcohol
• Womens Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
• Anti-Saloon League

Frances Willard (1838-98), leader of the WCTU
Anti-Saloon League Campaign, Dayton
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TEMPERANCE PROHIBITION

• Eighteenth Amendment

Prohibition on the Eve of the 18th Amendment, 1919
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SOCIALISM

• ALTERNATIVES

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Economic Reform

• The Panic of 1893 prompted some Americans to
  question the capitalist economic system.
• As a result, some workers embraced socialism.
  Eugene Debs organized the American Socialist
  Party in 1901.

Debs encouraged workers to reject American
capitalism
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SOCIALISM

• Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or
  Wobblies)

Socialists parade, May Day, 1910
Eugene V. Debs
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NATIONAL REFORM

• Roosevelt, Taft Wilson as Progressive presidents

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ESSENTIAL QUESTION

• How effective were Progressive Era reformers and
  the federal government in bringing about reform
  at the national level in the period 1900-1920?

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Assassination of President McKinley, Sept 6, 1901
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Theodore Roosevelt the accidental
PresidentRepublican (1901-1909)
(The New-York Historical Society)
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Roosevelts Square Deal

• Formed upon 3 basic ideas conservation of
  natural resources, control of corporations, and
  consumer protection. It aimed to help middle
  class citizens, and involved attacking plutocracy
  and bad trusts while protecting business from the
  most extreme demands of organized labor.

Anthracite miners at Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1900
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Trust-Busting

• By 1900, trusts legal bodies created to hold
  stock in many companies controlled 80 of U.S.
  industries.
• Roosevelt filed 44 antitrust suits under the
  Sherman Anti-Trust Act

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Roosevelt the trust-buster

• Northern Securities Company (1904)
• Hepburn Railroad Regulation Act (1906)
  strengthened Interstate Commerce Commission

ONE SEES HIS FINISH UNLESS GOOD GOVERNMENT
RETAKES THE SHIP
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Consumer Protection

• Upton Sinclairs The Jungle
• Meat Inspection Act (1906)
• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

Chicago Meatpacking Workers, 1905
"A nauseating job, but it must be done"
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Pure Food and Drug Act

• In response to unsubstantiated claims and
  unwholesome products, Congress passed the Pure
  Food and Drug Act in 1906. The Act halted the
  sale of contaminated foods and medicines and
  called for truth in labeling.

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Roosevelt Conservation

• Used the Forest Reserve Act of 1891
• U.S. Forest Service (1906)
• Gifford Pinchot
• White House conference on conservation (1908)
• John Muir

Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, 1907
Theodore Roosevelt John Muir at Yosemite1906
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CONSERVATIONNational Parks and Forests
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William Howard TaftPresident 1909-13Republican
Postcard with Taft cartoon
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Tafts Progressive Accomplishments

• trust-busting
• forest and oil reserves
• Sixteenth Amendment

• BUT Caused split in Republican Party
• Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909)
• Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy

(Taft has) completely twisted around the
policies I advocated and acted upon.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Election of 1912

• Woodrow Wilson
• Progressive Party (Roosevelts Bull Moose
  Party)
• New Nationalism Roosevelts
  political philosophy only a powerful federal
  government could regulate the economy and
  guarantee social justice, and the executive power
  should be the steward of the public welfare.

Woodrow Wilson
Theodore Roosevelt cartoon, March 1912
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1912 Presidential Election
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Wilson Reforms (1913-1916)

• New Freedom platform attacked the Triple Wall
  of Privilege tariffs, banks, and trusts.
• Underwood Simmons Tariff lowered tariff rates,
  helping farmers
• Federal Reserve Act established the Federal
  Reserve System, the central banking system of the
  U.S.A.
• Federal Trade Commission Act
• Clayton Anti-Trust Act
• Keating-Owen Act banned items made by child labor
  from being sold in interstate commerce. (Struck
  down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court
  later 2 yrs later.)

Wilson at the peak of his power.
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Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)

• Strengthened the Sherman Act with an anti-trust
  provision that prevented companies from acquiring
  stock from another company.
• Supported workers unions by declaring strikes,
  boycotts, and peaceful picketing perfectly legal.

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Federal Reserve Act (1913)

• The Federal Reserve Act intended to establish
  economic stability through the introduction of a
  Central Bank, which would be in charge of
  monetary policy in the U.S. The Federal Reserve
  Act made currency more flexible.
• The Federal Reserve Act gave the 12 Federal
  Reserve banks the ability to manage the money
  supply in order to ensure economic stability.
• The Fed also has the power to adjust the discount
  rate (impacting interest rates) and to buy sell
  U.S. treasuries.

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Federal Reserve System

• Federal Reserve Act

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WOMEN SUFFRAGE
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ESSENTIAL QUESTION

• To what extent did economic and political
  developments as well as the assumptions about the
  nature of women affect the position of American
  women during the period 1890-1925?

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Women Lead Reform

• Many of the leading Progressive reformers were
  women. Middle and upper class women entered the
  public sphere after graduating from the new
  womens colleges.

Colleges like Vassar and Smith allowed women to
excel
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WOMEN

• womens professions
• new woman
• clubwomen

A local club for nurses was formed in New York
City in 1894. Here the club members are pictured
in their clubhouse reception area. (Photo
courtesy of the Women's History and Resource
Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs.)
The Women's Club of Madison, Wisconsin conducted
classes in food,nutrition, and sewing for recent
immigrants. (Photo courtesy of the Women's
History and Resource Center, General Federation
of Women's Clubs.)
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Three-Part Strategy for Winning Suffrage

• Suffragettes tried three approaches to winning
  the vote
• Convincing state legislatures to adopt the vote.
• Pursuing court cases to test 14th Amendment.
• Pushing for national Constitutional amendment.

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Womens Suffrage

• National American Woman Suffrage Association
  (NAWSA)
• Carrie Chapman Catt

Ohio Woman Suffrage Headquarters, Cleveland, 1912
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• http//womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrageoverview
  /a/suffrage_timeline.htm
• http//watchdocumentary.org/watch/crash-course-us-
  history-episode-31-womens-suffrage-video_89855481d
  .html

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Woman suffrage before 1920
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Womens Suffrage

• Alice Paul
• National Womans Party
• Nineteenth Amendment
• Equal Rights Amendment

Suffragette Banner 1918
19th Amendment
National Womans Party members picketing in front
of the White House, 1917
(All Library of Congress)
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RACE RELATIONS
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Limits of Progressivism

• While the Progressive era was responsible for
  many important reforms, it failed to make gains
  for African Americans. Like Roosevelt and Taft,
  Wilson retreated on Civil Rights when he entered
  office.

The KKK reached a membership of 4.5 million in
the 1920s
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Black Population, 1920
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ESSENTIAL QUESTION

• Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois offered
  different strategies for dealing with the
  problems of poverty and discri-mination faced by
  black Americans at the end of the nineteenth and
  beginning of the twentieth centuries. How
  appropriate were each of these strategies
  (considering the context in which each was
  developed)?

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African-Americans

• Booker T. Washington
• W.E.B. Du Bois
• Niagara Movement
• talented tenth
• NAACP

W.E.B. Du Bois
Booker T. Washington