Origins of Progressivism
What were the goals of
Progressivism?
The Progressive Movement
•
1890s: Americans looking for change
•
“Muckrakers” (Journalists) questioned the domination of
corporations
Four Goals of Progressivism - #1Promoting Social Welfare
1. Social Gospel Movement & Settlement Houses help the poor
2. YMCA: opened libraries, sponsored education
3. Salvation Army: fed the poor in soup kitchens, cared for
children
4. Florence Kelly becomes a well known advocate to push govt
to change things, improve labor condition, stop child labor
Goal #2 Promoting Moral Improvement
•
Prohibition Movement says “Alcohol is undermining American
Morals!”
• Women’s Christian Temperance Union used peaceful & violent
means to end alcohol use
• Anti-Saloon League began endorsing politicians who
favored prohibition of alcohol
Carry Nation
Goal #3 Creating Economic Reform
1.
2.
•
•
Muckrakers: exposed business corruption, esp. Captains of
Industry (Robber Barons)
American Socialist Party forms (1901)
Formed by labor leader Eugene V. Debs
Argued that big business is favored by government and hurts
the workers!
Goal #4 Businesses Become Efficient
1. Use science & economics to make business run more efficiently
2. Focus on workweek/hours
3. Increase productivity: Henry Ford introduces the automobile
assembly line
Reforming Government
1. City government – use a manager to run day to day city
operations
2. Elect reform Mayors – those w/ progressive ideas
3. Elect reform Governors – Robert La Follette of Wisconsin &
James Hogg of Texas go after big businesses (regulation)
4. Protect Children – new laws limiting child labor
5. Working Hours – Supreme court sides with workers, limits the
work day to 10 hours
6. Reform elections
• A) Ballot initiative & referendum – allow voters to place bills on
the ballot to be voted on
• B) Recall – give voters ability to remove bad leaders
• C) 17th Amendment Direct election of Senators (takes vote
away from State Legislature and gives it to the people)
Women’s Rights
• Only one in five women had a job in the 1890s
• Typical female jobs:
1. Office worker – filing, secretarial
2. Nurse
3. School teacher (K-8)
4. Telephone Operator
5. Maid, cook, seamstress (esp. African Americans)
• Women want suffrage (right to vote)
Plan for Women’s Suffrage
•Convince individual states
to allow women to vote
-Already in Wyoming,
Utah, Colorado & Idaho
•Challenge laws in court
-14th Amend says citizens
have equal rights
-15th Amend says all
citizens can vote
-Aren’t women citizens?
•Push for a Constitutional
Amendment
•Two of the leading suffragettes are Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(Seneca Falls Convention) & Susan B. Anthony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXNQPb6bzT4&feature=related
1. What did Stanton write at the Seneca
Falls convention?
2. What did she found in 1888?
3. How was she honored by the US?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtDPZudU0ek
1. How did Anthony feel about slavery?
2. What did she fight for after 1851?
3. How was she honored by the US?