PROGRESSIVE
ERA
1890s-1920
A21w
9.2.13
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
Who were the Progressives?
► What reforms did they seek?
► How successful were
Progressive Era reforms in
the period 1890-1920?
►
Consider: political change, social change (industrial conditions, urban life, women, prohibition)
ORIGINS OF
PROGRESSIVE
REFORM
Progressivism
WHEN? “Progressive Reform Era”
1890s
1901
1917 1920s
WHO? “Progressives”
urban middle-class: managers & professionals;
women
WHY? Address the problems arising from:
industrialization (big business, labor strife)
urbanization (slums, political machines, corruption)
immigration (ethnic diversity)
inequality & social injustice (women & racism)
Progressivism
WHAT are their goals?
► Democracy – government accountable to the people
► Regulation of corporations & monopolies
► Social justice – workers, poor, minorities
► Environmental protection
HOW?
► Government (laws, regulations, programs)
► Efficiency
value experts, use of scientific study to determine the
best solution
Origins of Progressivism
►
►
►
►
►
“Muckrakers”
Jacob Riis – How the Other Half Lives (1890)
Ida Tarbell – “The History of the Standard Oil Co.” (1902)
Lincoln Steffens – The Shame of the Cities (1904)
Upton Sinclair- The Jungle
Ida Tarbell
Lincoln Steffens
MUNICIPAL
& STATE
REFORMS
Progressive Legislation
►
►
Municipal Reforms
Commission System
Voters elect 5 commissioners
with expertise to head city
departments
City-Manager Plan
Voters elect a city council to
make laws, council hires a
qualified manager to run city
Both attempt to run government
more efficiently
MUNICIPAL REFORM
strong mayor system
COUNCIL
MEMBER
COUNCIL
MEMBER
COUNCIL
MEMBER
MAYOR
COUNCIL
MEMBER
COUNCIL
MEMBER
council-manager plan (Dayton, 1913)
COUNCIL
MEMBER
COUNCIL
MEMBER
COUNCIL
MEMBER
CITY
MANAGER
CITY SERVICES
COUNCIL
MEMBER
COUNCIL
MEMBER
CITY
SERVICES
Progressive Legislation
► State
Reforms
Direct Primary
An election where voters
choose the candidates
who will later run in a
general election
17th Amendment
U.S. Senators will now be
elected by the peoplepopular vote (and NOT by
state legislators) more
democratic
Progressive Legislation
►
►
Secret Ballot
Voters could not be pressured to
vote for certain candidates- Hurt
political machines
Initiative
Allows voters to introduce NEW legislation
with signatures on a petition
►
Referendum
Allows voters to CHANGE a law already in
place, also done with signatures
►
Recall
Allows voters to REMOVE an elected official
from office by holding a new election
STATE SOCIAL REFORMS
► professional
social workers
► settlement houses - education, culture, day
care
► child
labor laws
Enable education & advancement for working
class children
STATE SOCIAL REFORMS
► workplace
& labor reforms
eight-hour work day
improved safety & health conditions in
factories
workers compensation laws
minimum wage laws
unionization
child labor laws
Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory Fire, 1913
State Social Reform: Child Labor
Child Laborers in Indiana Glass Works,
Midnight, Indiana. 1908
Child Laborer, Newberry, S.C. 1908
“Breaker Boys” Pennsylvania, 1911
Shrimp pickers in Peerless Oyster Co.
Bay St. Louis, Miss., March 3, 1911
Settlement Houses
► Settlement
Houses
Tried to bridge the gap between
social classes
Almost like communes for recent
immigrants
► Hull-House
Jane Addams (1905)
– Jane Addams
Hull-House Complex in 1906
TEMPERANCE
► Temperance
Crusade
► Women’s Christian
Temperance Union (WCTU)
► Anti-Saloon League
Frances Willard (1838-98),
leader of the WCTU
Anti-Saloon League Campaign, Dayton
Prohibition
►
Women’s Christian
Temperance Union (example)
Group that led fight against
alcohol, wanted prohibition
Believed alcohol was
responsible for
unemployment, crime, and
divorce
Carrie Nation was a radical
temperance crusader.
Smashed saloons with
hatchet
Accomplished goal with
passage of 18th Amendment
TEMPERANCE & PROHIBITION
► Eighteenth
Amendment
Prohibition on the Eve of
the 18th Amendment, 1919
NATIONAL
REFORM
Roosevelt, Taft & Wilson
as Progressive presidents
ESSENTIAL QUESTION
How effective were Progressive
Era reformers and the federal
government in bringing about
reform at the national level in
the period 1900-1920?
Assassination of President McKinley, Sept 6, 1901
Theodore Roosevelt:
the “accidental President”
Republican (1901-1909)
(The New-York Historical Society)
Progressive PresidentsRoosevelt
►
‘Square Deal’ became TR’s 1904
campaign slogan
►
►
three basic ideas: conservation
of natural resources, control of
corporations, and consumer
protection
Settled Strikes
United Mine Workers went on
strike to get better pay and
fewer hours
TR was arbitrator-third
neutral party listens to both
sides and settles dispute
Roosevelt: Trust-Buster
►
Trust busting: breaking up
monopolies
Distinguished between
“good” trusts and “bad”
trusts.
Kept eye on “good”
trusts to make sure
they did not take
advantage of
consumers
Filed 44 anti-trust
lawsuits against “bad”
trusts
Consumer Protection
► Upton
Sinclair’s The Jungle
► Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
► Meat Inspection Act (1906)
Chicago Meatpacking Workers, 1905
"A nauseating job, but it must be done"
►
Consumer Issues
Meat Inspection Act of 1906
prevent adulterated or misbranded meat
and meat products from being sold as food
and to ensure that meat and meat
products are slaughtered and processed
under sanitary conditions.
Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906
ban foreign and interstate traffic in
adulterated or mislabeled food and drug
products
required that active ingredients be placed
on the label of a drug’s packaging and that
drugs could not fall below purity levels
Interstate Commerce Commission
regulated shipping between states,
mainly controlled prices
Roosevelt &
Conservation
►
Believed strongly in Conservation
(saving forest)
Wanted to save nation’s forests by
preventing short sighted over cutting
Started National Park
Service(1906)
Used the Forest Reserve Act of
1891
U.S. Forest Service Gifford
Pinchot
► White
House conference
on conservation -1908
Theodore
Roosevelt &
John Muir
at Yosemite
1906
Theodore Roosevelt and
Gifford Pinchot, 1907
CONSERVATION:
National Parks and Forests
William
Howard Taft
President 1909-13
Republican
Postcard with Taft cartoon
Accomplishments of Taft
►
William Howard Taft
Filed 90 anti-trust suits
including Standard Oil and
American Tobacco
16th Amendment
allows the Congress to levy an
income tax
17th Amendment
Created Department of
Labor: enforces labor laws
Passed mine safety laws
Established 8 hour workday
for companies doing
business w/ federal govt.
Taft
Taft angered many Progressives
Progressive favored lower
tariffs to help consumers
Taft signed a bill that raised
tariffs
► Ballinger-Pinchot Affair
Taft’s Secretary of Interior,
Richard Ballinger allowed for
the sale of vast amounts of
timber in Alaska
Head of US Forest Service,
Gifford Pinchot criticized
Ballinger for selling out
Taft fired Pinchot
►
Taft
►
Passed Mann-Elkins Act that
extended powers of ICC
(interstate commerce
commission) to
telephone/telegraph
►
Established Federal
Children’s Bureau
►
Did not agree with “bully
pulpit” for prez
Taft throwing out first pitch at a
baseball game. 1st President to do
this.
Election of 1912
► Woodrow
Wilson
► Progressive Party (“Bull Moose
party”)
“New Freedom”-campaign slogan
(Taft has)
“…completely
twisted around the
policies I advocated
and acted upon.”
-Theodore
Roosevelt
Theodore
Roosevelt
cartoon,
March 1912
Woodrow Wilson
Wilson: Accomplishments
►
Underwood Tariffreduced tariffs- lowered prices for consumers
►
Federal Reserve Act
3 Level banking system that controls the flow of
money in the US by controlling interest rates
►
Clayton Anti-Trust Act
Broadened and strengthened the Sherman Act
(1890)
► Federal
Trade Commission
Est. to investigate corporations so they are not
fraudulent or corrupt
► Workmen’s
Compensation
provided benefits to workers hurt on the job
Accomplishments
► 18th
Amendment:
established the prohibition of
alcoholic beverages :the
production, transport and sale of
alcohol is illegal (though not the
consumption or private
possession)
► 19th Amendment:
prohibits any United States
citizen from being denied the
right to vote on the basis of sex
Video Quiz
WOMEN &
SUFFRAGE
ESSENTIAL QUESTION
To what extent did economic and
political developments as well as
the assumptions about the nature of
women affect the position of
American women during the period
1890-1925?
WOMEN
► “women’s
professions”
► “new woman”
► clubwomen
A local club for nurses was formed in New
York City in 1894. Here the club members
are pictured in their clubhouse reception
area. (Photo courtesy of the Women's History and Resource
Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs.)
The Women's Club of Madison, Wisconsin conducted classes in food,
nutrition, and sewing for recent immigrants. (Photo courtesy of the Women's
History and Resource Center, General Federation of Women's Clubs.)
Women’s Suffrage
► National
American
Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA)
► Carrie Chapman Catt
Ohio Woman Suffrage Headquarters,
Cleveland, 1912
Woman suffrage before 1920
Women’s Suffrage
► Alice
Paul
► National Woman’s Party
► Nineteenth Amendment
Suffragette
► Equal Rights
Banner
Amendment
1918
19th Amendment
National Woman’s Party members picketing in front of the White House, 1917
(All: Library of Congress)
RACE
RELATIONS
ESSENTIAL QUESTION
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois
offered different strategies for dealing
with the problems of poverty and discrimination faced by black Americans at the
end of the nineteenth and beginning of
the twentieth centuries. How appropriate
were each of these strategies (considering
the context in which each was developed)?
Black Population, 1920
African-Americans
► Booker
T. Washington
► W.E.B. Du Bois
► Niagara Movement
► “talented tenth”
► NAACP
W.E.B. Du Bois
Booker T.
Washington