Chapter Twenty-One
Urban America and
the Progressive Era,
1900—1917
Part One:
Introduction
This chapter covers continued urbanization of America and the
social problems that resulted from rapid unplanned growth
of the cities. Both political bosses and reformers tried to
respond to the reality of industrialized and urbanized America.
Social Darwinism was challenged by the Progressives who
had a new, sometimes inconsistent, vision of the American
community. They viewed the government as an ally to
achieve realistic and pragmatic reforms. The climate for reform
came from social workers, social scientists at universities and
investigative journalists. Both political parties would embrace
progressive views. Presidents Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson
based their programs on these new ideas. Although much was
accomplished, the progressive movement lacked unity and
failed to address issues of class, race or sex adequately.
Legislation was not always enforced or had unintended
negative consequences. In the long run, politics was affected
by the demands for social justice and attempts were made
to confront the problems of rapid industrialization and
urbanization.
“Of course our whole national history has been
one of expansion. . . that the barbarians recede
or are conquered . . . is due solely to the
power of the mighty civilized races which
have not lost the fighting instinct.”
Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life
When Gandhi was asked about “Western
Civilization” he responded: “It’s a good idea.”
During the 1930s, the governor of the Michigan territory,
Lewis Cass, described the taking of millions of acres of
land from Indians as “. . . the progress of civilization.” He
also said: “A barbarous people cannot live in contact
with a civilized community.”
“True the white man brought great change. But the varied
fruits of his civilization, though highly colored and inviting,
are sickening and deadening. And if it be the part of
civilization to main, rob, and thwart, then what is progress?
I am going to venture that the man who sat on the
ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning,
accepting the kinship of all creatures, and
acknowledging unity with the universe of things was
infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.”
Chief Luther Standing Bear, [from his 1933 autobiography]
“. . . There was not a family in that whole nation that
had not a home of its own. There was not a pauper
in that nation, and the nation did not owe a dollar. . .
It built its own schools and its hospitals. Yet the
defect of the system was apparent. They have
got as far as they can go, because they own their
land in common. . . There is not enterprise to make
your home any better than that of your neighbors.
There is no selfishness, which is at the bottom
of civilization.” Senator Henry Dawes, author of
the act that broke up Indian reservations into small
private possessions [today’s privatization?] in the
1880s after a visit to the Cherokee Nation.
John Reed
• Writer for the Masses
• Wrote Insurgent Mexico after riding with Pancho
Villa
• Wrote Ten Days That Shook the World following his
experiences in Russia during its revolution.
• Died in Russia at age of 33 from illness
• Influences: Max Eastman, Emma Goldman, Lincoln
Steffens, Margaret Sanger, Walter Lipmann
Sam Houston
“The Anglo-Saxon race must pervade the whole
southern extremity of this vast continent. The
Mexicans are no better than the Indians and I see
no reason why we should not take their land.”
On Karl Marx
“Perhaps the most precious heritage of Marx’s thought is
his internationalism, his hostility to the national state, his
insistence that ordinary people have no nation that they
must obey and give their lives for in war, that we are all
linked to one another across the glove as human beings.
This is not only a direct challenge to modern capitalist
nationalism, with its ugly evocations of hatred for “the
enemy” abroad, and its false creation of a common interest
for all within certain artificial borders. It is also a rejection of
the narrow nationalism of contemporary ‘Marxist’ states,
whether the Soviet Union, or China, or any of the others.”
Howard Zinn
Sources
Daniel J. Leab (editor), The Labor History Reader [1985]
Philip S. Foner, Women and the American Labor Movement
[1979]
Philip Foner (editor), Mother Jones Speaks [1983]
Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind [1967] ["Do
rocks have rights?"]
Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR
[1955]
Chapter Focus Questions
• What were the political, social, and intellectual
roots of progressive reform?
• What tensions existed between social justice and
social control?
• What was the urban scene and the impact of new
immigration?
• How were the working class, women, and African
Americans politically active?
• How was progressivism manifested in national politics?
Chronology
1889
1890
1895
1898
1900
1901
1904
1905
Jane Addams founds Hull House in Chicago
[http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/hull_house.html]
Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half Lives
Booker T. Washington addresses Cotton States
Exposition in Atlanta, emphasizing an accomodationist
philosophy; Lillian Wald establishes Henry Street
Settlement in NY
Florence Kelley becomes general secretary of new
National Consumers' League
Robert M. La Follette, governor of Wisconsin
Theodore Roosevelt succeeds the assassinated William
McKinley as president
Lincoln Steffens publishes The Shame of the Cities
President Roosevelt creates U.S. Forest Service and
names Gifford Pinchot head
Industrial Workers of the World founded in Chicago
1906
1908
1909
1911
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposes conditions in
the meat-packing industry
Congress passes Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat
Inspection Act and establishes Food and Drug Admin.
In Muller v. Oregon the Supreme Court upholds a state
law limiting maximum hours for working women
Uprising of the 20,000 in New York City's garment
industries helps organize unskilled workers into unions
National Associations for the Advancement for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded
Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire kills 146 garment
workers in New York City
Socialist critic Max Eastman begins the Masses
1912
1913
1914
1916
Dem. Woodrow Wilson wins presidency,
defeating Repub. William H. Taft, Progressive
Theodore Roosevelt, & Socialist Eugene V. Debs
Bread and Roses strike involves 25,000 textile
workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts
Margaret Sanger begins writing / speaking in
support of birth control for women
Sixteenth Amendment, legalizing a graduated
income tax, is ratified
Clayton Antitrust Act exempts unions from being
construed as illegal combinations in restraint of trade
Federal Trade Commission established
Ludlow Massacre
National Park Service established
OBJECTIVES
1. Trace the process by which largely female settlement house
workers first began and the community of reform they tried to create.
2. Summarize the principles of the Progressives, and the views of
its principal proponents in journalism, social sciences and
government, as well as its legacy.
3. Discuss the aims of and problems with social control legislation
desired by the Progressives.
4. Explain the problems of working class communities & their
attempts to solve them through unions and reform legislation.
5. Summarize the role of women in the reform campaigns and the
effects it had on their participation in public life and leadership
positions.
6. Summarize the difficulties of black Progressives in gaining
recognition, but also their positive effects within the black community.
7. Explain the attempts by both the Democratic and Republican
parties to respond to demands that the governments, local, state and
national, address issues of social justice.
8. Analyze the possible connections between Populism and
Progressivism as social reform movements.
Part Two:
American Communities
The Henry Street Settlement
House
• Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement began as a
visiting nurse service.
• At Henry Street, Wald created a community of collegeeducated women who lived among the urban poor and
tried to improve their lives.
• Most settlement workers did not make a career out of
this work, but several of the women went on to become
influential political reformers.
• The workers served the community by promoting
health care, cultural activities, and, later, by promoting
reform legislation.
Part Three:
The Currents of
Progressivism
Unifying Themes
• Progressivism drew from deep roots in American
communities and spread, becoming a national
movement.
• Progressives articulated American fears of the
growing concentration of power and the excesses
of industrial capitalism and urban growth.
• Progressives rejected the older Social Darwinist
assumptions in favor of the idea that government
should intervene to address social problems.
• Progressives drew upon evangelical Protestantism,
especially the Social Gospel movement, and the
scientific attitude to promote social change.
Women Spearhead Reform
• Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago in
1889.
• Working there served as an alternative to marriage
for educated women who provided crucial services
for slum dwellers.
• Florence Kelley worked there and later wrote reports
that influenced labor legislation.
Jane Addams and Hull House
• http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/hull_h
ouse.html
SOME HULL- HOUSE FIRSTS
First Social Settlement in Chicago
First Social Settlement with men and women residents
Established first public baths in Chicago
Established first public playground in Chicago
Established first gymnasium for the public in Chicago
Established first little theater in the United States
Established first citizenship preparation classes
Established first public kitchen in Chicago
Established first college extension courses in Chicago
Established first group work school
Established first painting loan program in Chicago
Established first free art exhibits in Chicago
Established first fresh air school in Chicago
Established first public swimming pool in Chicago
Established first boy scout troop in Chicago
Investigations for the first time in Chicago of:
truancy, sanitation, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, distribution of
cocaine, midwifery, children's reading, infant mortality,
newsboys, social value of the saloon
Investigations that led to creation and enactment of first
factory laws in Illinois
Investigations that led to creation of the first model tenement
code
First Illinois Factory Inspector, a Hull-House resident,
Florence Kelley
First probation officer in Chicago, a Hull-House resident,
Alzina Stevens
Labor unions organized at Hull-House:
Women Shirt Makers
Women Cloak Makers
Dorcas Federal Labor Union
Chicago Woman's Trade Union League
The Urban Machine
• Urban political machines were a closed and corrupt
system that:
– offered jobs and other services to immigrants in
exchange for votes
– drew support from businesses and provided
kickbacks and protection in return
• By the early 20th century, machines began promoting
welfare legislation, often allying themselves with
progressive reformers.
• But reformers blamed the machines for many urban
ills.
Political Progressivism and
Urban Reform
• Political progressivism arose in cities to combat
machines and address deteriorating conditions, such
as impure water.
• They sought professional, nonpartisan
administration to improve government efficiency.
• Following a tidal wave in Galveston, Texas, reformers
pushed through a commissioner system.
• Other cities adopted city manager plans.
• Reformers like Samuel Jones of Toledo sought
municipal ownership of utilities and pursued other
welfare issues.
Progressivism in the
Statehouse: West and South
• Governor and then Senator Robert La Follette of
Wisconsin forged a farmer-labor small business
alliance to push through statewide reforms.
• Oregon passed referendum and initiative
amendments that allowed voters to bypass
legislatures and enact laws themselves.
• Western progressives like California’s Hiram
Johnson targeted railroad influence.
• Southern progressives pushed through various
reforms such as improved educational facilities, but
supported discriminatory laws against African
Americans.
New Journalism: Muckraking
• A new breed of investigative journalist began
exposing the public to the plight of slum life.
• Muckrakers published accounts of urban poverty,
unsafe labor conditions, as well as corruption in
government and business.
• Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle exposed the
unsanitary conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking
industry.
• Muckraking mobilized national opinion.
• Jacob Riis, Lincoln Steffens, John Reed, Walter
Lipmann, Jack London [The Iron Heel]
Intellectual Trends Promoting
Reform
• The emerging social sciences provided empirical
studies used by reformers to push for reforms.
• Early 20th-century thinkers like Lester Frank Ward
challenged some of the intellectual supports for the
prevailing Social Darwinism.
• John Dewey’s ideas on education and John R.
Commons and Richard Ely’s ideas on labor were
influential in shaping public policy.
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. attacked constitutional
interpretations that had prevented states from passing
legislation that protected public interests.
• Sociological jurisprudence was used to support points
instead of legal arguments.
Part Four:
Social Control and its
Limits
The Prohibition Movement
• Many middle-class progressives worried about the
increased numbers of urban immigrants and sought
methods of social control.
• Temperance groups like the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League
pushed for restrictions or bans on alcohol.
• Native-born, small town and rural Protestants generally
supported prohibition while recent immigrants opposed
it.
The Social Evil
• Reformers also attacked prostitution, an illicit trade
that was connected with corrupt city machines.
• A national movement used the media to try and
ban the “white slave” traffic allegedly promoted by
foreigners.
• Progressives investigated prostitution and
documented its dangers, though they were unable
to understand why women took it up.
• Progressive reform helped close down brothels,
but they were replaced by more vulnerable streetwalkers.
The Redemption of Leisure
• Reformers were aghast at the new urban
commercial amusements, such as amusement
parks, vaudeville, and the most popular venue, the
movies.
• New York City reformers and movie producers and
exhibitors established the National Board of
Censorship.
Standardizing Education
• For many progressives, the school was the key
agency to break down the parochial ethnic
neighborhood and “Americanize” immigrants.
• Expansion and bureaucratization characterized
educational development as students started earlier
and stayed later in school.
• High school evolved as comprehensive institutions
that offered college preparatory and vocational
education.
Part Five:
Working-Class
Communities
and Protest
New Immigrants from Two
Hemispheres
• The early twentieth century saw a tremendous
growth in the size of the working class.
• Sixty percent of the industrial labor force was
foreign-born, mostly unskilled workers from
southern and eastern Europe.
Immigrants
• Driven out by the collapse of peasant agriculture and
persecution, the new immigrants depended on family
and friends to help them get situated.
• Many worked long hours for pay that failed to keep
them out of poverty.
• Non-European immigrants included:
– French-Canadians who worked in New England
textile mills
– Mexicans who came as seasonal farm workers. A
large number stayed and established communities
throughout the southwest.
– The Japanese, who worked in fishing and truck
farming
Urban Ghettos
• In large cities, immigrants established communities
in densely packed ghettos.
• New York City became the center of Jewish
immigrants, many of whom worked at piece-rates in
the ready-to-wear garment industry.
• A general strike by 20,000 workers contributed to the
growth of the International Ladies Garment Workers
Union.
• The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York led to
laws to protect workers.
Company Towns
• Some industrial workers lived in communities often
dominated by a single corporation that owned the
houses, the stores, and regulated life.
• Ethnic groups maintained many cultural traditions.
• Factories were dangerous places with high accident
and death rates.
• Immigrants resisted the discipline of the factory by
taking time off for cultural activities, spreading out the
work by slowing down and becoming increasingly
involved in unions
• In western mining communities, corporate power and
violent labor conflict occurred.
The AFL
• The leading labor organization at the turn of the
century was the American Federation of Labor.
• With the exception of the mineworkers, most
AFL unions were not interested in organizing
unskilled immigrants, women, or African
Americans.
• The AFL was on the defensive from open shop
campaigns promoted by trade associations and
court injunctions that barred picketing and
boycotting.
• Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers:
What does labor want? We want more
schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less
arsenals; more learning and less vice; more
leisure and less greed; more justice and less
revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to
cultivate our better natures, to make manhood
more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and
childhood more happy and bright.
“Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll
show you the country in which there is no liberty.”
“The worst crime against working people is a
company which fails to operate at a profit.”
“Doing for people what they can and ought to do
for themselves is a dangerous experiment. In the
last analysis the welfare of the workers depends
upon their own private initiative.”
"The labor of a human being is not a commodity or
article of commerce. You can't weigh the soul of a
man with a bar of pig-iron."
Samuel Gompers, AFL president from 1888 to
1924
Frank Lloyd Wright: If capitalism is fair then
unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize
their ideas and the resources of their country, then
that implies the right of men to capitalize their labor.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt: It is one of the
characteristics of a free and democratic nation that
is have free and independent labor unions.
Jimmy Carter: Every advance in this half-centurySocial Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to
education, one after another-came with the support
and leadership of American Labor.
Joe Hill: If the workers took a notion they could stop all
speeding trains;
Every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains.
Every wheel in the creation, every mine and every mill;
Fleets and armies of the nation, will at their command stand
still.
John L. Lewis: The labor movement is organized upon a
principle that the strong shall help the weak. The strength of
a strong man is a prideful thing, but the unfortunate thing in
life is that strong men do not remain strong. And it is just as
true of unions and labor organizations as is true of men and
individuals.
John L. Lewis: Let the workers organize. Let the toilers
assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their
injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful
citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of
America.
Lya Sorano: When we talk about equal pay for
equal work, women in the workplace are
beginning to catch up. If we keep going at this
current rate, we will achieve full equality in about
475 years. I don't know about you, but I can't wait
that long.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: In our glorious fight for
civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by
false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no
'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy
labor unions and the freedom of collective
bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped.
Molly Ivins: Although it is true that only about 20
percent of American workers are in unions, that 20
percent sets the standards across the board in
salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you
are making a decent salary in a non-union
company, you owe that to the unions. One thing
that corporations do not do is give out money out
of the goodness of their hearts.
Mother Jones: My friends, it is solidarity of labor
we want. We do not want to find fault with each
other, but to solidify our forces and say to each
other: "We must be together; our masters are
joined together and we must do the same thing."
A. Phillip Randolph: The essence of trade
unionism is social uplift. The labor movement
has been the haven for the dispossessed, the
despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the
poor.
Abraham Lincoln: Labor is prior to, and
independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of
labor, and could never have existed if Labor had
not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and
deserves much the higher consideration.
Abraham Lincoln: The strongest bond of human
sympathy outside the family relation should be
one uniting working people of all nations and
tongues and kindreds.
The IWW
• Radical workers, especially from the mining camps in
the West, organized the Industrial Workers of the
World.
• Led by “Big Bill” Haywood, the IWW tried to organize
the lowest paid workers.
• The IWW used direct action, including strikes.
• The IWW gained temporary power in the east but
remained a force in the West.
• Songwriter Joe Hill
Rebels in Bohemia
• A small community of middle-class artists and
intellectuals in Greenwich Village, New York City,
called “Village bohemians” supported the IWW and
other radical causes.
Part Six:
Women’s Movements
and Black Awakening
The New Women
• Middle-class women’s lives were changing rapidly.
• More were receiving an education and joined various
clubs involved in civic activities.
• Women become involved in numerous reforms, from
seeking child labor laws to consumer safety and
sanitation.
• Margaret Sanger promoted wider access to
contraceptives and opened a birth control clinic in a
working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Racism and Accommodation
• The turn of the century was an intensely racist era.
• Segregation was institutionalized throughout the South.
• Violent attacks on blacks were supported by vicious
characterizations in popular culture.
• Booker T. Washington emerged as the most
prominent black leader.
• Washington advocated black accommodation and
urged that blacks focus on self-reliance and economic
improvement.
Racial Justice
• W. E. B. DuBois criticized Booker T. Washington for
accepting “the alleged inferiority of the Negro.”
• DuBois supported programs that sought to attack
segregation, the right to vote, and secured city equality.
• He helped found the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
• Editor of The Crisis in 1910
• He proposed developing a “talented tenth”
Part Seven:
National
Progressivism
Theodore Roosevelt and
Presidential Activism
• Roosevelt viewed the presidency as a “bully pulpit” to
promote progressive reforms.
• He pressured mine owners into a settlement that won
better pay for miners.
• He directed the Justice Department to prosecute a
number of unpopular monopolies, actions that won him
the sobriquet “trustbuster.”
• Roosevelt favored passing regulatory laws including:
– the Hepburn Act that strengthened the Interstate Commerce
Commission
– the Pure Food and Drug Act
Conservation, Preservation and
the Environment
• Roosevelt founded the Forest Service and
supported the conservation efforts of John Muir, the
founder of the modern environmental movement.
• Gifford Pinchot, government leader in charge of
forest service
Republican Split
• In his second term Roosevelt announced his Square
Deal program as a way to stave off radicalism through
progressive reform.
• His Republican successor, William Howard Taft,
supported some of his reforms.
• But Taft wound up alienating many progressives.
• Roosevelt then challenged Taft for Republican
leadership.
The Election of 1912
• In the 1912 election, Roosevelt ran for president on the
new Progressive Party touting his New Nationalism
program.
• The Democrats ran a progressive candidate, Woodrow
Wilson, who promoted his New Freedom platform.
• The Socialist Party, which had rapidly grown in
strength, nominated Eugene Debs.
• Wilson won 42 percent of the vote, enough to defeat
the divided Republicans.
Eugene Victor Debs
“While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there
is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a
soul in prison, I am not free.”
[He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for
encouraging people to avoid the draft during WW I.]
Eugene V. Debs
“Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and
bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted
by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press,
frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians.
But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the
most vital and potential power this planet has ever known,
and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as
is the setting of the sun.”
“Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and
impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the
basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of
intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is lacking, all
sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other efforts to achieve
it will be barren of results.”
Woodrow Wilson’s First Term
• Wilson followed Roosevelt’s lead in
promoting an activist government by:
– lowering tariffs
– pushing through a graduated income tax
– restructuring the banking and currency
system under the Federal Reserve Act. He
expanded the nation’s anti-trust authority and
established the Federal Trade Commission
• On social reforms Wilson proved more
cautious.