Agrarian discontent
• As agriculture and industry output
increased and prices dropped the farmers
found themselves in a predicament
• Many were in long terms debts with fixed
payments
• Looking for a solution, they supported a
more generous money supply
• **This would cause inflation (but also make
the Northern banks weak and debt worth
less!)
The Plan
• Liberal use of silver coin (supported the
mined in the WEST)
• Grange Movement: Organization of
farmers.
– Purpose: was to provide a social outlet and an
educational forum for isolated farm families
The Populist Movement
• The People’s Party:
– 1. An increase in the money supply which
would produce a rise in prices received for
goods and services
– 2. a graduated income tax
– 3.federal loan program
– PAGE 426 of Princeton
Progressivism
• noun: a person who favors a political
philosophy of progress and reform
and the protection of civil liberties
• adjective: favoring or promoting
progress
The Progressive Movement
• At the dawn of the new century, middle
class reformers addressed many problems
that had contributed to the social
upheavals of the 1890’s. Unsafe working
conditions in the factories were exposed
and the dominant role of large
corporations in American society was
questioned. The four main goals for this
movement were:
1. Protecting Social Welfare:
• Worked to soften some of the harsh
conditions of industrialization
• Opened community centers, churches, and
social services aimed to help the poor
• Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)opened libraries, sponsored classes and built
swimming pools
• Salvation Army: soup kitchens, nursed
children and educated immigrants
2. Promoting Moral Improvement
• Belief that morality not the workplace could
improve people’s lives.
• Focused on PROHIBITION
• Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU) sang, prayed and urged saloon
keepers to stop selling alcohol
– *Prohibition cause conflict within immigrant
communities because of cultural customs that
included the consumption of alcohol*
3. Creating Economic Reform
• Severe economic panic of 1893 caused many
to question the CAPATLIST economic system.
• Eugene V. Debs formed the Socialist Party in
1901 which focused on the uneven balance
big business, gov’t, and ordinary people.
• MUCKRAKERS: journalists who wrote about
the corrupt side of business
4. Fostering Efficiency
• Progressive leaders put faith in experts and
scientific principles to make society and the
workplace more efficient.
• *Time and motion studies showed breaking
manufacturing jobs into smaller tasks would
improve speed and efficiency
• THE ASSEMBLY LINE & FORD MOTOR COMPANY
REFORM AT THE STATE LEVEL
• At the state level some of the most important
political work of the progressives took place.
Governor Robert La Follette from Wisconsin
introduced reforms that should allow citizens
to have a more direct role in the political
process.
–These include:
• The Seventeenth Amendment (1913)- made the
election of the states senators decided by the
state’s popular vote.
– *Prior the legislature picked the senators and
public had no say so.
• Citizens could petition to place a INTIATIVE ( a
bill made by he people and supported by
signatures) on a ballot
• A REFREDENDUM- Voters accepted of rejected
the initiative
• A RECALL-could remove elected official to face
another election if enough people called for it.
• It should be noted that progressive goals
and programs were not universally
popular. Progressive programs for the
betterment of the poor oftentimes meant that
the government would have more control
over their lives; many in the lower class
were vehemently opposed to this. In
addition, progressives wanted to crack
down on urban political machines, which in
many cases did much to aid the lives and
conditions of the lower classes. As a result,
the very people that progressive reforms
were designed to help were oftentimes
resentful of these reforms.
Women and Progressivism
• Women played a major role in
progressivism from the start
• Florence Kelley became an advocate for
improving the lives of women and
children. She was appointed chief
inspector of factories of Illinois.
• By the late 19th century only middle and
upper class women could stay at home.
Poorer women were forced to work outside
the home for wages.
– Farms: raise livestock, plow, harvest, and plant
crops
– Industry: 1 in 5 women worked in factories.
Garment industry paid low wages and had harsh
conditions
– Office jobs- required education. Filled jobs in
offices, stores and classrooms.
– Domestic Work: Cleaning others homes, sewing
or caring for the needy
Higher Education for Women
• By the late 19th century many women
entered the workforce or went to
college.
• Many never married and put their
efforts into social reform
• Many colleges such as Brown, Columbia
and Harvard established separate
college just for women
Women and Reform
• National Association for Colored Women
(NACW)Managed nurseries, reading rooms and
kindergartens.
• National Women Suffrage Association (NWSA)
Susan B. Anthony & Elizabeth Cady Staton argued
that women suffrage should be granted since the
14th and 15th amendment had been passed.
• Industry was fearful of giving women the right to
vote because of the temperance and child labor
issues
Settlement Houses
• Women also played a crucial rule in the creation of settlement
houses. In 1889 Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr
founded Hull House in Chicago, which would become a
model for settlement house construction in other cities. Found
at Hull House (and at many other centers) were clubs for adults
and children, rooms for classes, and a kindergarten. Settlement
house workers also gave poor and immigrant women (and their
husbands) advice on countless problems that they encountered
in the city. Some settlement houses were more successful than
others in actually helping lower-class families cope with urban
life. Programs at settlement houses were multidimensional,
stressing art, music, drama, and dance. Classes in child care,
health education, and adult literacy could be founded at most
settlement houses.
Reforming the Workplace
• National Child Labor Committee (1904)
gathered evidence and presented photos, and
statistics of harsh conditions. Together with
Labor Unions they got the Keating-Owen Act
passed.
• Prohibited the transport of any good made by
child labor
• State by state legislation was passed banning
child labor and setting maximum hours.
• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York
City- Fire broke out in 1911 inside the
factory. Sparked investigation and reform
because 146 workers were killed because
they were trapped behind locked doors.
(nearly 50 jumped to their death!)
• New safety precautions were now required by factory
owners.
• Many states adopted legislature that
would help protect families of those killed
or injured in the workplace or mine
accidents
The Square Deal of Theodore
Roosevelt
• Became our 26th President after
McKinley was assassinated.
• Unafraid to use power of the
government to address the evils of
society
– “It is the duty of the President to act upon
the theory that he is the steward of the
people, and…….to assume that he has the
legal right to do whatever the needs of the
people demand, unless the Constitution of
the laws explicitly forbid him to do it.”
Using Federal Power
• Saw Presidency as a “Bully pulpit” in
which he could influence others.
• Square Deal: term used to describe the
government intervention to help
ordinary citizens. Progressive Reforms
The “Trustbuster!”
• Trust-busting- filed 44 antitrust suits and
broke up many trusts that hurt the public
interest
• 1902 Coal Strike- President R. intervened
and forced a compromise
• *Whenever a strike threatened public
welfare the gov’t should intervene.
• Railroad Intervention: railroad officials
and shippers could not get rebates for
using particular railroads and rates could
not be set without notifying the public.
Health and Environment
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair urged Roosevelt to hire
a commission of experts to investigate the
meatpacking industry.
• Pure Food and Drug Act- halted the sale of
contaminated foods and medicine and called for
truth in labeling
• Conservation Measures- Put 148 million acres of
forest aside for national parks, 1.5 million acres aside
of water power sites, and 80 million acres to explore
for mineral and water resources
• **created 50 wildlife sanctuaries and several
national parks.
Progressivism
under
• 27th President
William Howard
Taft
1909-1913
Republican
• Taft did not enjoy
being President
because of all the
criticism that comes
along with the job.
The more unhappy
he became, the
more he ate. By the
time he left office
he weighed 340
pounds becoming
our biggest
President.
Progressivism under William Howard Taft
• Many historians regard Taft as the real trustbuster. More
antitrust lawsuits went to court when he was president
than during the Roosevelt presidency, although some of
them had begun during the Roosevelt administration. In
the 1908 presidential election, William Howard Taft,
Theodore Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor,
defeated three-time candidate William Jennings Bryan.
In the campaign, Bryan continually came across as
supporting more progressive measures than Taft did.
Taft did promise to follow Roosevelt’s progressive
legacy, and to some degree, he followed through on
this; during his presidency the Sherman Anti-trust Act
was used against another 95 corporations.
• However, Taft never had the personal
magnetism that Roosevelt possessed, and
totally unlike Roosevelt, he deferred on
important issues to the Congress. Taft was
influenced by the conservative wing of the
Republican party, which opposed
additional progressive reforms. His
support of the Payne-Adrich Tariff Act of
1909 further angered progressives, who
usually viewed tariffs as hurting the lower
classes (since to pay for them the prices of
goods were usually higher).
Problems for Taft
• Progressives in the Republican Party finally took
action against Taft after the Ballinger-Pinchot
Affair. Richard. A. Ballinger was secretary of the
Interior under Taft and allowed private business
interests to gain access to several million acres of
land in Alaska. A close friend of Roosevelt,
Gifford Pinchot, headed the Forest Service. When
Pinchot protested against Ballinger’s actions in
front of a congressional committee, Taft
proceeded to fire him. Progressives now labeled
Taft as being anti-environment.
The Election
of 1912
• By early 1912 Theodore Roosevelt decided that
the policies of President Taft were not
progressive enough and announced he was
running for president. The single event that
several biographers say pushed Roosevelt to
run was the decision of Taft to go after United
States Steel because it had purchased
Tennessee Coal and Iron back in 1907. Taft
knew that Roosevelt had personally approved
this deal. As might be expected, Taft’s
followers controlled the Republican party
machinery, thus allowing Taft to easily win
the 1912 Republican nomination
• Roosevelt’s followers marched out of the
Chicago convention site. Proclaimed
themselves to be the Progressive party, and
nominated Roosevelt for president (with
California’s progressive governor Hiram
Johnson as his running mate). This party
soon became known as the Bull Moose
Party. Its platform included many
progressive causes, including the
elimination of child labor, suffrage for
women, and an eight-hour workday. Many
women supported the Bull Moose party; in
several states where women had the vote,
women ran for local offices as members of
the party.
Progressive Party Platform
Women’s suffrage.
Graduated income tax.
Inheritance tax for the rich.
Lower tariffs.
Limits on campaign spending.
Currency reform.
Minimum wage laws.
Social insurance.
Abolition of child labor.
Workmen’s compensation.
N
e
w
N
a
t
i
o
n
a
l
i
s
m
Republican Party Platform
High import tariffs.
Put limitations on female and child labor.
Workman’s Compensation Laws.
Against initiative, referendum, and
recall.
Against “bad” trusts.
Creation of a Federal Trade Commission.
Stay on the gold standard.
Conservation of natural resources
because they are finite.
Socialist Party Platform
Government ownership of railroads
and utilities.
Guaranteed income tax.
No tariffs.
8-hour work day.
Better housing.
Government inspection of
factories.
Women’s suffrage.
Growth of the Socialist Vote
Year
Socialist
Party
Socialist
Labor Party
Total
1888
2,068
2,068
1890
13,704
13,704
1892
21,512
21,512
1894
30,020
30,020
1896
36,275
36,274
1898
82,204
82,204
1900
96,931
33,405
130,336
1902
223,494
53,763
277,257
1904
408,230
33,546
441,776
1906
331,043
20,265
351,308
1908
424,488
14,021
438,509
1910
607,674
34,115
641,789
1912
901,873
• The beneficiary of the split in the Republican party was the
Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson, governor of New
Jersey. Wilson also campaigned as a progressive, although in
his platform, called the New Freedom policy, he also
cautioned against big government. Wilson argued that
government was wrong to concentrate on regulating big
monopolies; instead, government should be trying to break
them up. Wilson won the election, but only received 42
percent of the popular vote. Roosevelt received 27 percent
and Taft only 23 percent. It should also be noted that Eugene
Debs ran as a candidate of the Socialist party and received 6
percent of the votes. The political will of the times is easily
shown in this election: The three candidates openly calling
for progressive policies (Wilson, Roosevelt, and Debs)
received 75 percent of the popular vote.
Democratic Party Platform
N
e
w
F
r
e
e
d
o
m
Government control of the monopolies
 trusts in general were bad
 eliminate them!!
Tariff reduction.
One-term President.
Direct election of Senators.
Create a Department of Labor.
Strengthen the Sherman Anti-Trust
Act.
Did NOT support women’s suffrage.
Opposed to a central bank.
An Actual 1912 Ballot
Election Results
By 1912, 100,000 fewer people had voted for
Wilson than had voted for Bryan in 1908.
The 1912 election marked the apogee of the
Socialist movement in America.
GOP Divided by Bull Moose
Equals Democratic Victory!
• 28th President
Woodrow
Wilson
Democrat
The Federal Reserve Building
Progressive Legacy of Woodrow
Wilson
• Much legislation was enacted under Woodrow Wilson that
pleased reformers. The Underwood Tariff Act of 1913 cut
tariffs on imported goods. The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914
was a continuation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and outlawed
certain specific business practices. A key element of this act
also helped the labor movement by making strikes and other
labor activities legal. In 1914 the Federal Trade Commission
was established; the main job of this organization was to
uniformly enforce the antitrust laws. Wilson also signed
legislation creating the Federal Reserve system, which
established 12 district reserve banks and the creation of
Federal Reserve notes. This system was designed to protect
the American economy against further panics such as had
occurred in the early 1890s.
Did Progressivism Succeed?
• Progressives had done much to improve the conditions
of American cities, the plight of factory workers, the
support available for urban immigrants, and the
democratic nature of the American political process.
However, progressive reforms did much less for
migrant farmers and others outside of the city. Many
blacks were disappointed that few alliances ever took
place between black leaders and progressives;
Theodore Roosevelt met twice with Booker T.
Washington but other than that did little to help the
conditions of blacks during his presidency. Race riots
occurred in Springfield, Illinois, in 1908.
• The anti-black message of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film
Birth of a Nation was applauded by many; President
Wilson stated that the film presented a “truthful”
depiction of the Reconstruction era. In 1909 the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) was founded to further the fight of
blacks for political equality in America.
• The outbreak of World War I in Europe turned the
interests of many away from political reform. Only
those reformers concerned with women’s suffrage
relentlessly pursued their cause during the war years.
Political:
-elections are
reformed
-citizens given
greater voice in
gov’t: recall,
initiative, and
referendum
Health and Environment:
-conversationalists establish
wilderness conservation areas
and preserve natural
resources
-Pure Drug and Food Act
PROGRESIVISM
Economic:
Roosevelt
establishes a
Square Deal
-New tax system
is established
-Roosevelt
breaks up trusts
Social and Moral:
-women fight for the
right to vote
-18th amendment bans
alcoholic beverages
-social services for
women, children and
the poor
Industry:
-National Child
Labor
Committee
organizes to end
child labor
-reformers work
to improve
workplace
conditions and
set maximum
working hrs.