Fighting for Change

1
Fighting for Change
The Progressive Movement
2
Basic Problems of the Gilded Age

• poor working conditions
• unfair labor practices
• political corruption
• environmental destruction
• monopolies
• discrimination and legal segregation for women,
  African Americans, and immigrants
• unstable economy
• social divide between rich and poor

3
Causes of Problems

• Industrialization
• Immigration
• Urbanization
• Bank Instability
• Lack of Government Regulation

4
The Progressive Movement

• Why this name?
• The Progressives want change
• To some, change is bad
• For example, the factory owners may see new
  regulations (lots of fire exits, for example) as
  a drain on their profitability
• The Progressives are making the point that change
  is you guessed it
• Progress!

5
Origins of Progressives

• Farmers
• -railroads had monopolies? could charge farmers
  high prices to ship crops
• - Result? farmers work harder each year and make
  less money
• Farmers form Grangers ? a sort of farmers union
  that fought to regulate railroads
• succeeded with the Interstate Commerce Act
• Labor Unions

6
Origins of Progressives (cont.)

• Populists- Labor Unions and Grangers formed a new
  political party (the Populists) to challenge a
  gov which seemed to only care about the rich and
  powerful
• Populists never won the presidency, but did cause
  other parties to adopt some popular ideas

7
Other Reformers

• Social Gospel Movement
• Salvation through charity
• Help the poor and the weak
• Settlement Houses
• Set up in slums to take care of those in need and
  new immigrants
• Run mostly by educated women
• Muckrackers

8
TheMuckrakers
Originally considered a negative term, but
eventually these journalists helped inspire
others to fight for progressive change
including President Teddy Roosevelt
9
Who and What are the Muckrakers?

• investigative reporters attempting to uncover
  corruption in American society
• primarily wrote articles for newspapers,
  magazines, and journals
• some published entire books

Focused on raking the muck of society and making
it public knowledge.
10
Famous Muckrakers
Ida Tarbell(focused on monopolies like
Rockefellers Oil Monopoly)
Lincoln Steffens(focused on government
corruption like political machines)
Upton Sinclair(focused on immigrants experience)
11
The Jungle
12
(No Transcript)