South Carolina
Standard USHC-4.6
Mr. Hoover, Abbeville High School
UNITED STATES HISTORY
AND THE
CONSTITUTION
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER
What are the accomplishments and limitations
of the women’s suffrage movement?
 How did the Progressive Movement affect
social and political reforms in America,
including the roles of the media and of
reformers such as Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice
Paul, Jane Addams, and Presidents Theodore
Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson?

PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT
The Progressive Movement developed as
concerned citizens organized into civic groups
in response to the problems of the city and the
workplace in the late nineteenth century.
 Progressivism was essentially a movement of
the middle class who objected to paying taxes
to corrupt city governments and who desired
better city services.

MUCKRAKERS!

Progressivism was also the result of role of the media.
“Muckrakers” investigated the corporations and
conditions of the times and pointed out the corruption
of machine politics, the power of the monopolists and
the plight of the Native American, the worker and the
immigrant.
THE JUNGLE
Their writing was made
available to the general
public through
inexpensive
newspapers and books.
 The most famous
muckraker was Upton
Sinclair whose book The
Jungle exposed the
meat packing industry.

SENECA FALLS CONVENTION
During the progressive era, many young educated
women took a role in promoting social reform.
 The movement for women’s rights which had been
initiated at the Seneca Falls Convention and
focused on suffrage since the Civil War,
intensified.
 Women had the opportunity for higher education
at new women’s colleges and new opportunities in
factories and offices.
 The movement west also had an impact on gaining
the right of women to vote.



Wyoming was the first state to grant women suffrage;
western states generally allowed women to vote before
eastern states did.
Historians attribute this to appreciation for the role
that women played as pioneers.
MIDDLE CLASS WOMEN
Middle class women were increasingly
frustrated by their inability to have political
influence in solving the problems of city life and
the workplace.
 African-American women formed an
association [the National Association of
Colored Women] to secure the civil rights of
African-Americans which included women’s
suffrage.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT
In 1890, Carrie Chapman Catt helped to found
another woman’s group [the National American
Women’s Suffrage Association] to lobby for the
vote.
 Women campaigned on the idea that they
would clean up society and government.
Therefore they were opposed by the liquor
industry and political bosses.

NATIONAL WOMAN’S PARTY
A split over tactics disrupted the movement as
Catt’s organization lobbied state legislatures
while other women supported a national
amendment to the Constitution.
 This group [National Woman’s Party], led by
feminist Alice Paul, engaged in marches and
picketed the White House during World War I.

19TH AMENDMENT
Suffragettes were attacked by angry men,
arrested and held in prison where they engaged
in hunger strikes and were force fed by their
jailers.
 The 19th Amendment was finally passed in
1920 in part as a result of this activism and of
the contribution women made to the war effort
as nurses, public workers and factory laborers.

ALICE PAUL
Democracy was extended
as women gained the right
to vote.
 However, few women ran
for political office or were
treated equally in the work
place.
 In the 1920s, Alice Paul
campaigned for an equal
rights amendment.

HULL HOUSE

Jane Addams was an educated woman who
should be associated with her introduction of the
settlement house, the Hull House in Chicago,
where her immigrant neighbors were able to take
vocational classes and receive childcare.
CHILD LABORERS



Addams and other
progressives advocated
protection for child
laborers.
State laws limited hours
and conditions and a
federal child labor act was
passed.
However, progress was
limited by the Supreme
Court which ruled the
federal child labor
legislation
unconstitutional.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
The progressive movement started at the city and
state level with progressive mayors and governors
and gained support at the national level with the
presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.
 Roosevelt was the first president to give any
support to the rights of workers when he used his
office as a ‘bully pulpit’ and required that the coal
mine owners negotiate with their workers in order
to avoid a strike.

“TRUST-BUSTER.”
During Roosevelt s administration, legislation
enhancing the powers of the Interstate
Commerce Commission over the railroads was
passed.
 He supported government regulation of the
corporation through the application of the
Sherman Anti-Trust Act in a series of cases that
won him the appellation of “trust-buster.”

PURE FOOD AND DRUG ACT

He also protected the consumer with his
championing of the Pure Food and Drug Act
and the Meat Inspection Act, prompted by the
publication Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle.
NATIONAL PARKS

Roosevelt also promoted conservation of
natural resources by creating national parks.
He was the founding force behind and
candidate of the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party
in 1912 which split the Republican Party and
gave the election to Woodrow Wilson.
WOODROW WILSON
Woodrow Wilson was a progressive governor
during whose presidency a number of
progressive measures were passed.
 The Clayton Anti-Trust Act [which the AFL’s
Samuel Gompers referred to as the ‘Magna
Carta of Labor’] allowed labor unions to be
exempt from the anti-trust laws.

INCOME TAX, BUMMER
The 16th amendment authorized a progressive
income tax and the 17th amendment provided
for the direct election of Senators.
 It was during Wilson’s administration that the
first federal child labor act was passed.
 However, the Supreme Court later ruled that
act unconstitutional, thus limiting the
progressive’s impact on this problem.

FEDERAL RESERVE ACT
The Federal Reserve Act, although prompted by
the financial markets fear in the Panic of 1907,
addressed the farmers’ demand for a more
elastic money supply
 The Federal Reserve is still active today as a
bankers’ bank, providing a safety net to prevent
bank failures due to market conditions by
regulating the amount of money in circulation.

8 HOUR DAY

Other actions made credit more available to
farmers, protected the 8 hour day for some
workers, as well as providing some workman’s
compensation for injury on the job.
WORLD WAR I
World War I limited the continuation and
effectiveness of progressive reforms.
 Little significant progressive legislation was
passed after the war broke out and the rights of
individuals were limited because of wartime
fears.

PROHIBITION

Wartime grain
shortages and antiGerman propaganda
prompted the
passage of the 18th
amendment,
establishing
Prohibition, long a
goal of reformers.
DISILLUSIONMENT
Support for women’s rights grew as a result of
their contribution to the war effort and the 19th
amendment was passed granting women the
right to vote.
 Disillusionment with the progressive idealism of
Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the very
unprogressive Treaty of Versailles undermined
the commitment of American voters to
progressivism

LIMITS OF PROGRESSIVISM
During the 1920s the limits of progressivism were
evident.
 The 18th amendment was impossible to enforce.
 The 19th amendment did not result in any
significant political changes.
 The traditional Republican Party won the election
of 1920 and the enforcement of progressive
legislation lapsed.
 The idea that government is responsible for the
welfare of all of the people would be revived in the
New Deal

COMPARISONS
Any comparison of the movement for women’s
suffrage and the progressive movement would
include the following factors.
 Both were essentially middle class movements
that employed the tactics of persuasion in
order to pass legislation.
 Both employed the talents of many educated
supporters, particularly women. Both
experienced significant opposition.

PRESIDENT WILSON
While presidents championed the goals of
progressivism, they did not advocate women’s
suffrage.
 Indeed Wilson openly opposed it. Women
eventually took more aggressive actions and
marched and picketed to achieve their goal.
