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Middle class reformers
Aimed to restore economic opportunities and correct injustices in American life
› Journalistsworking conditions, child labor
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Intellectualsquestioned large corporations
Political reformersmore responsive to citizens

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Dealt with problems from
› Industrialization
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Urbanization-this brought the issue of:
Immigration (SE Europe)
› Gilded Age
 (Titanic) “Haves and Haves Not”

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Angry over:
› American Businesses: too much power, controlled politics
› Social Darwinism- poor stay poor
Progressives: citizens could perfect society (late 1800s)
› Government should help out the poor
› Rise of the Federal Government

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Progressives start at the local level:
› Women step out of home in attempt to clean up society and the urban overcrowding and poverty
Based on Christianity
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Target drinking, prostitution, gambling
“brought by immigrants, Christians duty to save their souls”

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Protecting Social Welfare
Promoting Moral Improvement
Creating Economic Reform
Fostering Efficiency

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Social Gospel
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Community centers
Churches
Settlement Houses
 Hull House, Jane Adams
Salvation Army
› Soup kitchens, nurseries, “slum brigades”
YMCA- Young Men’s Christian
Association
› Libraries, swimming pools, classes,

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Worked in Hull House
1899- improve factory conditions
› Improve lives of women and children
“Why are seals, bears, reindeer, fish, wild game in the national parks, buffalo, and migratory birds all found suitable for federal protection, but not children?”
Secretary of National Consumers’ League
› Promoted reforms
Illinois Factory Act-1893 prohibited child labor and limited women’s working hours

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Morality, not the workplace, was the key to improving the lives of poor people
Improve personal behavior
Prohibition
› alcohol undermined American morals
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
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Cleveland, Ohio, 1874
Crusaded Prohibition

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WCTU members entered bars: prayed, sang and urged owners to stop selling alcohol
Frances Willard transformed WCTU
› 1879- small midwestern group
› 1911- 245,000 members
“Do Everything”- Willard slogan
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Kindergartens for immigrants
Visiting inmates in prison/assylums
› Promote suffrage
HatchetnationsCarry Nations (p. 307)
› Walk into bars and destroy liquor bottles

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Anti-Saloon League 1895 (After WCTU)
› This caused tension between league and immigrants
› Saloons- helped immigrant community
 Cashed paychecks
 Served meals

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Moral reformers, focus on individual behavior; economic reformers prompted by panic in 1893.
Questions Capitalist system
Embraced socialism
Eugene V Debbs- American socialist party in 1901
› Uneven balance among big business, government, and ordinary people

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Progressives are NOT socialist
Saw truth to Debb’s argument
› Big business received favorable treatment from gov officials and politicians and used its economic power to limit competition

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John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
› “Too busy with rake to clean up the muck of this world”
Journalists who wrote about the corrupt side of business and public life in magazines, journals, books, etc.

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David Philips-Treason of State
› Competition in the Senate
Theodore Dreiser-The Financer; The Titan
› Industrialist
Ida Wells- Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in all its
Phases
Lynching of AA ›
Edith Wharton- The House of Mirth
› Ecclesiastes 7:4-
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth
Close mindedness of elite society ›
Ida Tarbell- History of the Standard Oil Co
› Company’s cut-throat methods of eliminating competition
Lincoln Steffens- The Shame of the Cities
› Corruption with political machines

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The Jungle
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How the Other Half Lives

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Move away from Lassiez- Faire
Government starts stepping in to control monopolies and to encourage competition

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Experts and scientific principles to make society and work place more efficient
Frederick Winslow Taylortime and motion
› Taylorism aka Scientific Management
 Breaks down every job, action and task into smaller sections
 Book Principles of Scientific Method
 Maximum efficiency from both machine and worker=maximum profit
 Treated workers as mindless, emotionless

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First one to build conveyer belt
Keep workers happy and to prevent strikes:
› Reduced workday to 8 hours
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$5 a day
“Everybody will be able to afford [a car], and about everyone will have one”

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Make government more efficient
Problems:
› #1 in big cities, political bosses rewarded supporters with jobs and kickbacks
 Favors or bribes for votes
› #2 Big business owners having a strong hold with politics

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Hazen PingreeDetroit, Michigan
› Economic focus- fair tax structure, lowered fares for transportation, removed corruption, work relief system for the unemployed
Tom Johnson Cleveland, Ohio
› Socialist
› Citizens active role in city government
› Circus tent meetings-anyone invited to question officials on business conduct
Both worked to remove greed from utility owners

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Many states passed laws to regulate
Railroads, mines, mills, telephone companies, and other large business
Robert M. La FolletteWisconsin governor
› Regulate big business
› Main focus- rail road
 Taxed railroad property
 Regulated rates
 Forbade free passes to state officials

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William U’Ren , Oregon- secret ballot
(Australian ballot)
Initiativea bill originated by the people rather than lawmakers
Referendumvoters either accept or reject
Recallremove public officials from office by another election before term ends

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Senators elected by the people NOT the
House of Representatives
Populist Reform (Hunter’s Awesome)

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Child labor increasing
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Worked cheaper and small hands
Parents needed kids to work to pull the family out of poverty
More prone to accidents due to fatigue
› Serious health problems and growth stunt
1904, National Child Labor Committee
›
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Investigations
Used” photographs
“Child labor lowered wages for all workers”

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Keating-Owen Act-1916
› Prohibited the transportation across state lines of goods produced with child labor
› Two years later SC called unconstitutional bc interfered with states’ rights to regulate labor

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Louis Brandeis worked with Florence
Kelley
Women required the states protection against powerful employees
10 hour work day

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10 hour work day for men

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Aid families of workers who were hurt or killed on the job

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Gender roles
› What women were expected to do
› Devote time to taking care of families

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Cook, clean, sew, laundry
Raise livestock
Plow and plant

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Garment industry
$$ half as men
Offices, stores, classrooms
High school education
Business schools
› Telephone operator
(p.314)
› Receptionist, shorthand

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U.S. Census Bureau any occupation that includes:
› launderers, cooks, housekeepers, childcare workers, cleaners and servants
70 % women 1870
2 million AA

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Still expected to fulfill domestic roles, women colleges still strived to provided an excellent education .
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By the late 1800s, marriage not the only option for women
› Late 1800s, ½ of the college-ed women never married to retain own independence
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Applied education and skills to promoting social reforms
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Dangerous conditions
Low wages
Long hours
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire 1911
› 146 workers (Jewish and Italian girls) died

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKd
MuVu1wi8

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Educated women strengthened existing reform groups and provided leadership for new groups
› Targeted workplace reform
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Housing reform
Educational improvement
› Food and drug laws

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In 1896, AA women National Association of
Colored Women (NACW)
› Harriett Tubman, Ida B. Wells
1 st came together to dispute a letter written by James Jacks-president of Missouri Assoc.
Press
› He referred to African-American women as thieves and prostitutes .
During the next ten years campaigned in favor of women's Suffrage and against lynching and Jim Crow Laws
› Mission of organization: “The moral education of the race with which we are identified” –
Josephine Ruffin

In July of 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia
Mott spearheaded the first women's rights convention in American history. Although the
Convention was hastily organized and hardly publicized, over 300 men and women came to
Seneca Falls, New York to protest the mistreatment of women in social, economic, political, and religious life.
The Declaration of Sentiments and
Resolutions issued by the Convention, which was modeled after the Declaration of Independence , detailed the "injuries and usurpations" that men had inflicted upon women and demanded that women be granted all of the rights and privileges that men possessed, including the right to vote.

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The right to vote for African
Americans, but excluded women
Susan B. Anthony-leader of the women’s suffrage movement
› Founded National Women Suffrage
Association (NWSA)
› In 1890 united with National
American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA)

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Liquor industry- prohibition
Textile industry- child labor protests
Men (not all)- changing role of women in society

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#1- tried to convince state leg. for right to vote
› Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Idaho
#2- used court cases to test 14 th amendment
› Susan Anthony and others tried to vote 150 times using this argument: “women citizens too”
#3- push for constitutional amendment
› It will take 41 years for this to happen

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_q
2Aw464KI

Write down everything you notice.
Read A Personal Voice on page 317