THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
Progressive Roots
• Sources of Strength:
– 1. Farmers – As Populism lost steam, famers held onto
the desire for change.
– 2. Urban Middle Class/Social reformers- Alarmed by
the power of corporations and political machines.
Troubled by urban decay.
– 3. Workers – Sought reform to protect workers from
corporate excess, poverty, and work place dangers,
– 4. Writers – Journalists that analyzed social ills.
Muckrakers
Muckrakers &
Reformers
• Muckrakers – Name given
by T.R. to journalists that
sought social reform by
exposing the ills of the day.
• McClure’s Magazine was
the home of many of these
articles.
• Held the idea that the cure
for the ills of democracy
was an informed and active
citizenry.
Reform
• Social Gospel: Protestant intellectual movement. Applied
Christian ethics to social problems.
• Settlement movement: goal to deal with the vast gap in
wealth.
– Object was to establish ‘settlement houses’ in poor urban
areas
• Provided educational, recreational, and social services to the
community.
• Jane Addams - Settlement House: Hull House in
Chicago.
• Jacob Riis – “How the Other Half Lives” -.
State Reforms
• Reforms in the workplace
– Safety
– Labor departments (provide info & dispute
resolution services)
– Workers’ accident insurance & compensation
– Banned child labor (under age 14)
– Set minimum wage laws
Political Reform
• State reforms focused on giving more power to voters
– Direct primary (citizens vote to select nominees for
upcoming elections)
– Initiative (citizens can put a proposed new law directly on
the ballot in the next election by collecting voters’
signatures on a petition)
– Referendum (citizens can approve or reject a law passed by
a legislature)
– Recall (allows voters to remove public officials from office
before next election)
National Reforms
–
–
–
–
16th Amendment : Clarification of the income tax
17th Amendment : Direct election of Senators
18th Amendment : National prohibition of alcohol
19th Amendment : Universal Suffrage
The Progressive Era had four constitutional amendments
within 7 years.
th and
There
were
43
years
between
the
passage
of
the
15
th and
16th
Amendments,
and
another
12
between
the
19
20th Amendments.
IV. Social Ills & Solutions
• The emergence of modern America brought
social issues into sharp view
• The economy had modernized, but many parts
of society and the culture lagged behind.
• Progressives sought the modernization of
systems to deal with the pressing social ills
Moral Reform: Temperance
• Reformers viewed alcohol as cause for social ills
– crime, unemployment, prostitution, wasting of wages, hurts
family
• Carrie Nation:
– radical temperance reformer.
– Noteworthy for vandalism, frequently attacking taverns with a
hatchet
• Anti-Saloon League & Women’s Christian
Temperance Union
– Connect alcoholism and the modern economy
Women and Reform
• Women were often at the fore of reform efforts
– Child labor and temperance
– Increased access to education
– Visible in public life and social reform
• Reform accomplishments: prohibition, federal
Children’s Bureau, etc.
Child Labor
• In 1900 about 1 in every 6 children
between the ages of five and ten
were engaged in "gainful
occupations
– Fifty percent increase from
1880.
– National Child Labor Committee
campaigned against child labor
• Sociologist Lewis Hine used
photography to stimulate reform.
– Successful on state level to
ensure minimum age laws.
Women’s Rights
• The modern economy created a larger middle
class, and thus a larger bloc of educated
women
• Women had pushed for many of the
Progressive reforms, but lacking the right to
vote, focused women’s concern for suffrage
• National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA) formed in 1890
– United National Woman Suffrage Association &
American Woman Suffrage Association.
• Change of strategy: sought federal constitutional
amendment
• WWI: women able to “prove themselves”
• 19th Amendment ratified (1920)
• New generation of
suffragettes
– Carrie Chapman Catt –
pres. of NAWSA
• Argue vote broadens
democratic role of women
in caring for families
– Alice Paul
• militant of taking it to the
streets; hunger strikes;
focus on amendment
– 19th Amendment (1920)
passed to reward women
for role in WWI
Women’s Suffrage
Carrie Chapman
Catt: 1859-1947
Maud Wood Park:
1871-1955
Lucy Burns
1879-1966
Alice
Paul:18861977
THE STRUGGLE FOR WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
18
VI. National Politics
National Politics
• Election of 1900
– William McKinley (R) vs. William Jennings Bryan
(D)
– Campaign on domestic issues: currency, tariff
– McKinley wins
– Assassinated in 1901
– VP Teddy Roosevelt takes over
The Roosevelt Era
• Activist conservative, moralist, internationalist
– Antitrust prosecution of the Northern Securities Company
– Environmental conservation: Gifford Pinchot, U.S. Forest Service
• Election of 1904
– Landslide victory
– Square Deal – domestic program formed upon three basic ideas:
conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and
consumer protection
• Policy debates over monopoly, various
strategies for regulation
– Pure Food and Drug Act, Meat Inspection Act resulting from Upton
Sinclair’s The Jungle
•
•
•
•
In 1902, Roosevelt instituted an antitrust suit against ta railroad holding
company – Northern Securities Company.
– First president to push enforcement of Sherman Antitrust Act
1904 – Northern Securities Co. v. United States
– 5-4 decision by court against the trust.
– Northern Securities had to disband, and each RR had to be run
independently.
– Opens door for further anti-trust cases.
TR & Atty. Gen. took on about 40 trusts
Stated that bad trusts harmed public & stifled competition, while regulated
good trusts
Trustbusting
Consumer Protection
• Influenced by The Jungle (1906)
• Pure Food and Drug Act forbade the
manufacture, sale, & transportation of
adulterated or mislabled food and drugs
• Meat Inspection Act provided that federal
inspectors visit meatpacking plants to ensure
they met minimum standards of sanitation
Conservation vs. Preservation
• TR’s most original & lasting contribution
• Repeated use of the Forest Reserve Act 1891 –
set aside 150 mil acres of federal land as a
national reserve
• White House conference on conservation – est.
National Conservation Commission
OTHER TR CONSERVATION ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• 150 National
Forests
• 51 Federal Bird
Reservations
• 4 National Game
Preserves
• 5 National Parks
• 18 National
Monuments
• 24 Reclamation
Projects
Pro
Con
• Trust-busting – twice as many • Taft aligns himself with the
Old Guard, gutting many of
• Conservation – Bureau of
Mines; added large tracts in
Roosevelt’s Square Deal
Appalachia to reserve; 1st pres.
policies.
to set aside oil reserve
• Fired Forestry Director
th
• 16 Amendment –
Pinchot and weakened
Progressive income tax
National Forest Service
(originally applied to very
wealthy
Through Roosevelt’s Eyes:
Taft’s Presidency
Election of 1912
• Reps nominate Taft
• TR splits & forms Progressive Party (Bull Moose
party)
• Dems nominate Woodrow Wilson
• Taft represents the Old Guard, pro-business
Republicans, Roosevelt Progressive Republicans,
and Wilson Progressive Democrats.
• SPLIT VOTE!
New Nationalism
• Continue with powerful
regulatory agencies
• Woman suffrage
• Broad program of social
welfare
– Minimum wage
– Social insurance
New Freedom
• Favored small enterprise,
entrepreneurship, & free
functioning of unregulated
& unmonopolized markets
• Banking reform
• Tariff reductions
• Shunned social programs
TR vs. Wilson
Wilson’s Presidency
• Attacks the “triple wall of privilege”
– Tariffs
– Banking
– Trusts
• Seeks to restore competition
• Favors rights of unions and working man
• Wilson introduces the New Freedom:
– New Freedom was Wilson’s social program for the US
• Federal Reserve Act 1914 (National Bank is back)
– National banking system of 12 district banks
– Supervised by Federal Reserve Board
– Oversees currency
• Federal Trade Commission 1914 – Consumer protection.
The FTC oversees business practices in US. Responsible for
eliminating monopolies.
• Federal Trade Commission 1914 – investigate & take
action against “unfair trade practice”
New Freedom
Effects of the Progressive Movement
Political
• Party primaries
• Decline of
political
machines
• Votes for
Women
Social
Economic
• Laws protecting
workers
• Settlement
houses & social
work
• Birth control for
women
• Beginning of
rights for
African
Americans
• Prohibition of
alcohol
• Regulation of
unsafe food &
drugs
• Conservation of
land, water, &
other resources
• Regulation of
business
• Lower tariffs
• Federal in come
tax
• Some victories
for workers