The Progressive Reform Era
Ch 18 Skele Notes
18.1 The Origins of Progressivism

Progressive Era: 1890-1920, a lot of reform
going on


Roots of Reform (reacting to)





Outgrowth of earlier reform in the Northeast,
Midwest, and West Coast
Immigration
Urbanization: low pay, poor housing
Work environments
Corruption in the gov
Included people from all political parties

Most were of average wealth/middle class
Goals
Didn’t share same views
 Goals fell into 4 categories

 Social
 Moral
 Economic
 Political
 Some
overlapped
 Some conflicted
Beliefs
Gov should be more accountable to its citizens
 Gov should curb power and influence of wealthy
interests
 Gov should be given expanded powers so it
could become more active in improving lives of
its citizens
 Gov should become more efficient and less
corrupt so they could competently handle an
expanding role

Key Writers

Henry George: wrote Progress and Poverty in
effort to explain why poverty plagued such an
advanced civilization

Proposed a single tax on the value of land
Edward Bellamy published Looking Backward
where a man wakes up in 2000 and finds the US
transformed into a utopian country
 Clubs formed supporting both men’s works

More on Writers

Many became scientific in their work and
published their findings about our society


Hoped the public would push legislators to make and
enforce new laws
Muckrakers: journalists who uncovered
information in an area of social reform and
published their findings

Ex: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (meat packing ind),
Lincoln Steffens The Shame of the Cities (corruption
in cities), Ida Tarbell about Standard Oil Trust’s
abuses
Reform Organizations

Union Movement: 1890s



If unions succeeded in forming, business leaders
often used court to issue injunctions (court order
prohibiting something) preventing strike
Did have success with collective bargaining
Socialists: public/gov control of property and
income



Elect leaders to do this, not through revolution
Most progressives didn’t support such huge changes
Wanted to get rid of corruption and help the poor
Women’s Groups

National Consumers’ League (NCL)


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Investigated conditions in which goods were made
and sold
Insisted factories obey state inspection laws and pay
minimum wage
Women believed they needed the right to vote
to get gov to create services essential to a
family’s health


Focused on liquor, workplace conditions, and
commercialized vice
Powerless without the right to vote
Important Women

Florence Kelley: Hull
House
Enforcer of law
prohibiting child labor,
limiting work hours for
women, and regulating
sweatshop conditions
in IL
 Earned a law degree
 Involved in NCL –
general secretary


“Mother Jones” Mary
Harris Jones

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Worked with Knights
of Labor
Organized unions for
workers (men and
women)
Became national
speaker on unions and
child labor laws
1905 helped form
IWW
18.2 Progressive Legislation

Social Welfare Programs

Ensure minimum standard of living for people


Ex: minimum wage, unemployment benefits, accident and
health insurance, social security system
Municipal level reforms: city level
Most early reforms
 Pushed for home rule: system that gives cities and
limited degree of self rule
 Allowed them to escape rule of state level political
machines
 Dealt with ending corruption (political machines)


Some political machines worked with reformers
Why did people want municipal
reforms?

Many tragic events made people want
these reforms
 Galveston:
model of management
 Commission
(5) ran things, not just one person
 Dayton:
first big city to do a councilmanagement gov
 Elected
city council which sets laws and appointed
a professional city manager to run city services
City Reforms

Take over Utilities
 Made
efforts to regulate or dislodge
monopolies that provided city utilities like
water, gas, and electricity
 By 1915 nearly 2 of 3 cities had some cityowned utilities

Provide Welfare Services
 Some
reform mayors led movements for citysupported welfare services
State Reforms


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First worked to oust political bosses then change
things
Robert La Follette (Wis.) began direct primary:
voters choose who should run for office
Initiative: citizens can propose new law
through petition signatures and get it on the
ballot
Referendum: citizens can approve/reject a law
passed by the legislature
Recall: voters can remove person from office
before the next election
Workplace Reforms


Labor depts: provide information and dispute-resolution
services to employers and employees
Went to court with business owners saying gov shouldn’t
get involved in business


Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court struck down a
law setting maximum hours for bakers
Muller v. Oregon the Court upheld an Oregon law that limited
hours for female laundry workers to 10 hours a day



Health issues
By 1907, nearly two thirds of the states had abolished
child labor
Minimum wage laws for women and children also made
headway
Fighting Bob La Follette
Ousted party bosses and brought about
structural changes such as a direct
primary and civil service reform
 “Wisconsin Idea” called on academic
experts to help draft reform legislation. To
get it passed, he had the voting roll call
read publicly in the districts of legislators
who opposed reform.
 Served in Senate after governor

Federal Reforms
Theodore Roosevelt was a powerhouse for
reform as president
 “Square Deal” arbitration in mining strike;
TR felt was fair to both sides (check book
for details)

 “Square
Deal” became slogan for his
presidency
Progressive Reform Legislation
18.3 Taft’s Presidency
Taft chosen by TR, but disappointed many
 Payne-Aldrich Tariff: a protective tariff,
not supported by Progressives
 Ballinger-Pinchot Affair: dispute over lands
in Alaska and their being sold for business
purposes (coal), ended in Taft looking bad
again

New Nationalism
TR campaigned for Progressives in the
interim elections of 1910
 Called for business regulation, welfare
laws, workplace protection for women and
children, income and inheritance taxes,
and voting reform
 Progressive Democrats won many seats in
Congress

Election of 1912
Republicans: Taft
 Progressives formed own party: “Bull Moose
Party” with TR as candidate


tariff reduction, women's suffrage, more regulation of
business, a child labor ban, an eight-hour workday, a
federal workers' compensation system, and the direct
election of senators
Democrats: Woodrow Wilson and “New
Freedom” policy- promised to enforce antitrust
laws without threatening economic competition
 Wilson won because Republican vote was split

Wilson’s Presidency
Underwood Tariff Act of 1913 reduced
average tariff rates from 40 percent to 25
percent
 October 1913 Wilson signed into law a
federal income tax, made legal with
ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment
(to make up for loss in revenue)

“Trust Busting”

Clayton Antitrust Act (1914): spelled out
specific activities that big businesses could not
do
Companies could not prevent their buyers from
purchasing goods from competitors
 Some types of holding companies used to create
monopolies were banned
 Price cutting in local markets to squeeze out
competitors was forbidden, as were some rebates.
 Legalized unions as well as their key weapons:
strikes, peaceful picketing, and boycotts

Federal Trade Commission
Created in 1914
 To enforce the Clayton Act and set up fairtrade laws
 Given the power to order firms to “cease
and desist” the practice of business tactics
found to be unfair
 Later court rulings weakened the Clayton
Act

Federal Reserve Act of 1913
Created the Federal Reserve System
 Divided the country into 12 districts, each with a Federal
Reserve bank owned by its member banks
 Supervised by a Federal Reserve Board appointed by the
President
 Fed. Reserve banks were “bankers’ banks” that collected
and loaned money to member banks (helpful in times of
crisis)
 Created Federal Reserve Notes (new currency)
 Federal Farm Loan Board in 1916 that made loans
available to farmers

Brandeis Appointed to the Supreme
Court
1916 in middle of many reforms Wilson
made to attract progressive voters
 Controversial because some thought he
was too radical, others didn’t like him
because he was Jewish

 Appointed

and served until 1939
Marked the peak of federal progressive
reforms
Wilson’s Re-Elected
TR didn’t run again
 Progressives supported Wilson
 Wilson was re-elected in 1916 running on
a slogan of keeping the US out of WWI
which had broken out in Europe in 1914

Limits of Progressivism
Redefined and enlarged the role of gov
 Little action to make social justice reforms

 Immigrant
issues, race and segregation
issues, even women’s rights (although women
gained the right to vote under Wilson)

Progressivism died down with concern
over WWI
 Women’s
lived on
right to vote was only issue that still
18.4 Suffrage at Last

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton:
important women in suffrage movement (split in
movement)


National Woman Suffrage Association worked toward
a constitutional amendment
American Woman Suffrage Association worked
toward state level suffrage


Wyoming (1890) was 1st state to grant women’s
suffrage
Easier to attain in west because women worked just
as hard as men and were treated more as =
Suffragist Strategies

Constitutional amendment
 More
difficult
 Brought up regularly but stalled, until 1913

Convince each state to grant women the
right to vote
 Easier
at first, especially in the west
National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA) - 1890
Anthony served as president from 18921900
 By this time women had gained many
rights and were demanding right to vote
 Stanton died (1902) and Anthony died
(1906)

 New
leaders emerged
 Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul
Congressional Union (CU)
Created by Paul
 Tended to be more forceful in it’s
demonstrations

 Aggressive,
militant campaign for the
constitutional amendment

CU expelled from NAWSA in 1914 because
so militant
Catt’s “Winning Plan”
Develop a large group of full-time leaders
to work in “red-hot” campaigns for six
years
 Focus on getting Congress to re-introduce
the federal suffrage amendment

WWI’s Effect on Suffrage
1918 US involved in WWI
 Women stepped into many traditionally
men’s roles to help out
 18th Amendment (prohibition) ended liquor
industry’s objections to women’s suffrage
 In August of 1920 the 19th Amendment
allowing women’s suffrage was ratified

 Last
major reform of Progressive era