APUSH Lecture 6B
Ms. Kray
Some slides taken from Susan Pojer
 ILGWU membership surged.
 NYC created a Bureau of Fire
Prevention.
 New strict building codes were
passed.
 Tougher fire inspection of
sweatshops.
 Growing momentum of support for
women’s suffrage.
 Not a coherent
movement
 Mass response to various
problems created by IR
 Issue driven: immigrants,
women’s rights,
prohibition, political
machines
 Middle-class, urban
reformers
 Opposed laissez-faire
capitalism
 But not socialists!
 Crisis of the 1890s
– Discredited traditional laissezfaire role of gov’t
– Class conflicts
– Party politics
– Municipal problems
 State reforms 1890s
 Populism
 Era began with Teddy
Roosevelt’s presidency
in1901
 Anti-monopoly
 Feared concentration of power and
wanted to limit and disperse wealth
 Desire for social cohesion
 Rejected individualism of the 19th c. in
favor of social interdependence for
improving society
 Cure for society’s problems = more
democracy
 Believed government should be used to
reform society
 Changed definition of “liberalism”
 Faith in progress and knowledge
- Principles of the science and social
science could be used to better society
- Ex. Taylorism & Pragmatism
- Pragmatism: Ideas & laws should be tried
& tested until they found something that
seemed to work well for the bettering of
society
- Faith in experts
 Drew upon Evangelical Protestantism
- Ex. Walter Rauschenbusch & the Social
Gospel social justice for the poor,
apply Christian principles to social
problems
Before the public could be
roused to action it had to
be informed about the
“dirty” realities
Nickname given by
Roosevelt to these
investigative reporters
1881  wrote a series of
articles for Atlantic Monthly
attacking the practices of
Standard Oil
1894  wrote Wealth
Against Commonwealth
exposing the corruption &
greed of the oil monopoly
1893  wrote
muckraking
articles for
McClure’s
Magazine
1904  wrote
The Shame of
Cities which
revealed the
corrupt deals of
big city politics
1902
One of the first photojournalists
1890  published How the Other Half
Lives
Example of the
Social Gospel
Imported from
England
Provided the basic
necessities of life for
the homeless and
the poor
Also preaching the
Christian gospel
 Middle class reformers who settled
in immigrant neighborhoods
 Hoped to relieve the effects of
poverty
 By 1910  400 settlement houses
Jane Addams &
Hull House,
1889
 Growing complexity of modern life +
Darwin’s theory of evolution = questions
about what should be taught
- Elementary schools cont. teaching the 3 R’s &
tradition values of the McGuffey’s readers
 New compulsory laws increased enrollment
in public schools
- By 1900  90% literacy rate
- Growth of kindergarten
 Rise of the Social Sciences
- Use of scientific techniques in the study of
society and its institutions
 Growth of corporations created need for
white-collar workers
– Accountants
– Clerical workers
– Salespeople
 These new jobs incr. demand for
services from other middle class
workers
- Doctors
- Laywers
- public employees
- store keepers
 This new middle class placed a high value on education and
individual accomplishment
 As demand for professional services increased so did the
pressure to reform
- American Medical Association
- National Association of Manufacturers
$ By 1900  1 out of 5 adult
women was in the labor force
$ Factory work often restricted
to certain industries
– textile, garment, food-processing
$ Moved into formerly male
occupations
– secretaries, book-keepers, typists, &
telephone operators, teachers
– Feminized occupations usually
lost status & received lower pay
 Origins
– By 20th c. almost all income-producing activity moved out of the
home and into factory or office
– Kids did not occupy as much time: less of them, started school
earlier
– Technological innovations had reduced demands of housework
– Increasing levels of education for women
– Some educated women never married
 More and more women began looking for activities outside
the home and taking on more public roles
– Example: women’s clubs
 The prominent role women played in Progressive reform
served both to expand and confirm the idea of a separate
woman’s sphere in society
– b/c much of the reform work done by women was in areas that
were seen as traditional female preserves/
1900  became
president of NAWSA
Made “conservative
argument” for suffrage
would allow women to
bring their special and
distinct virtues more
widely to bear on social
problems
Focused on suffrage at
the state level
Alice Paul of NJ, leader
Mass pickets, parades, hunger
strikes
1916  broke from NAWSA
and formed National Woman’s
Party
 BELIEF: parties corrupt, undemocratic, & reactionary; wanted to
get power out of hands of political machines
 Australian “secret” ballot
– 1888: MA was first state; 1910: in all states
 Direct primaries
– 1903: introduced by Gov. Robert
Wisconsin
– 1915: some form of direct primary
La LaFollette of
used in every state
 Direct election of U.S. senators
– 1913: 17th Amendment
 Initiative – method by which voters
could compel the legislature to consider a bill
 Recall – enabled voters to remove corrupt officials
 Referendum – allowed citizens to vote on proposed laws on their
ballots
 City bosses & their business partners
were the targets
 1897  Mayor Samuel “Golden
Rule” Jones
– Toledo, Ohio
– Introduced comprehensive program of
reform
– Free kindergartens, night schools, &
public playgrounds
 Public Utilities
– 1915  2/3 of the nation’s cities
owned their own water systems
 Commissions and City Managers
– 1900  Galvaston, Texas
Charles Evan
Hughes of NY
Battled
fraudulent
insurance
companies
Hiram
Johnson of CA
Fought the
Southern
Pacific Railroad
Robert La Follette of
WI won passage of
the “Wisconsin Idea”
– a series of
Progressive reforms
that included direct
primary, tax reform, RR
regulation
• Political parties never again had same kind of influence
they did during the Gilded Age. Replaced by “interest
groups”
Some labor unions were
active in reform
movements (not the
AFL)
Some political machines
became vehicles of
social reform in order to
hold on to power
Tammany Hall and the
example of the Triangle
Shirtwaist Fire
Francis Perkins
Future Secetary Of Labor
Alfred E. Smith – Future NYC Mayor
and Presidential Candidate
Future Senator Robert Wagner
 Settlement House reformers
like Jane Addams & Florence
Kelly lobbied for
– better schools
– liberalized divorce laws
– safety regulations for tenements
& factories
 Reformers believed criminals
could learn to become effective
citizens
– Fought for system of parole
– Juvenile reformatories
– Limits on the death penalty
Progressives split on the
issue
Urban Progressives
generally had little sympathy
for the movement
Rural Progressives thought
they could clean up morals
and politics
1915  2/3 of state
legislatures had prohibited
the sale of alcoholic
Francis E.
Willard, leader
Advocated
total
abstinence
from alcohol
1898  500,000
members
 Became a powerful political force
 By 1916  persuaded 21 states to close down
all saloons and bars
 1917 18th Amendment & Volstead Act
 Virtually all reforms agreed immigration had created
social problems but disagreed on best way to respond
 Do we help new residents adapt or limit immigration?
 Eugenics
 grade races and ethnic groups according to their genetic
qualities
 Some “experts” argued immigrants were polluting
Americas racial stock
 The Dillingham Report
 “new immigrants” less assimilable than past immigrants
 restrictions needed
 Nativism gained strength
Progressive Era coincided w/one of the worst
periods of racism (the nadir)
Why are Progressives not progressive on race?
- Shared general prejudices of the time
- considered other reforms more important
• “Separate but Equal”
• The rise of Jim Crow
laws
1890s
1,400
African
Americans
lynched!
End of the 19th c. 90% of African
Americans lived in the South
1910 to 1930  millions migrated
North to seek jobs in the cities
- Deteriorating race
relations
- Destruction of the
cotton crop
(boll weevil)
- Job opportunities
vs.
Booker T. Washington’s
Atlanta Exposition, 1895
W.E.B. Du Bois The
Souls of Black Folk,
1903
1905  W.E.B. DuBois
met with a group of
black intellectuals in
Niagara Falls, Canada
Discussed a program of
protest and action aimed
at securing equal rights
for blacks
1908  founded by Du Bois, members
of the Niagara Movement, & white
progressives
Mission:
- abolish all forms of segregation
- increase educational
opportunities
- Federal anti-lynching law
1920  largest civil rights organization
in the U.S. with over 100,000 members
“Not Alms but Opportunity”
Tried to help those migrating from
the South to northern cities
Reflected emphasis on self-reliance
and economic advancement
Eugene V. Debs
Violence was justified to
overthrow capitalism.