 Progressivism
- reform movement that
responded to social challenges caused by
industrialization, urbanization, &
immigration in 1890s & 1900s.
 Progressives
believed honest & efficient gov’t
 social justice.
 Mainly
from middle class
 logic and reason for reform
 Honest gov’t  change
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End corruption
Gov’t must respond to ppls needs
Use modern ideas & science to improve society
•
corrupt pol machines
•
trusts & monopolies
•
inequities
•
safety
•
city services
•
women’s suffrage
 Middle
class progressives wanted gov’t to
bust the trusts formed in Gilded Age
 Help create more econ opportunities for the
middle class
 Progressive
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
wanted to attack problems
Gap between rich & poor
Poor living conditions
Poor labor conditions in factories & mines
Improve the city slums
 Jacob
Riis used flash photography to show
the conditions in city slums
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
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Dirty
No running water
Full of disease
 The
naturalist novel portrayed the struggle
of common people.
 Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle provided a
shocking look at meatpacking in Chicago’s
stockyards.
 Walter
Rauschenbusch believed religion 
Social Reform
 He blended ideas of German Socialism &
American Progressivism  Social Gospel
 Use the Bible to lead reform
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Shorter work weeks
No child labor
Limit trust power
 Jane
Addams led the settlement house
movement.
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Hull House – Chicago; urban community center
social services for immigrants and the poor
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Taught English
Offered nursery schools
 YMCA
– rel org
 2/3
of states abolished child labor in 1907
 Massachusetts started minimum wage in 1912
 Florence
Kelley founded the Women’s
Trade Union League which worked for a
federal minimum wage and a national
eight-hour workday.
Progressives succeeded in reducing child labor and
improving school enrollment.
The United States Children’s Bureau was
created in 1912.
 John
Dewey pushes for a school system the
forces thinking creatively
 Teach history, geography, cooking, and
carpentry
 March
25, 1911 500 women were working at
the Triangle Shirtwaist Company
 They were located on the top floors of a ten
story building in New York
 A fire broke out and quickly spread
 The women tried to escape but found the
doors locked from the outside

Employers did not want employees leaving for
breaks
 Some
women filed on to a fire escape
 Their weight collapsed the fire escape
causing them to fall to their death
 Fire truck ladders could not reach the top
floor
 146 workers died
 After
the fire a Jewish immigrant from
Poland named Rose Schneiderman fought for
change
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Fire inspectors
Fire drills
Unlocked fire proof exits
Automatic sprinklers
 Some
employers create disability or other
compensation for workers and their families
in case of accidents
 State governments are allowed to make laws
based on workers safety
 Muller v. Oregon women laundry workers can
not work more then 10 hours a day
 Municipal
means city
 Municipal reformers opposed political bosses
 They had trouble defeating big machines like
Tammany Hall
 Disaster caused municipal change


6,000 people were killed during a hurricane in
Galveston Texas in1900 causing the city to create
an emergency commission to rebuild
The commission became a part in their city
government
Galveston Texas in1900
Mantoloking NJ After
Hurricane Sandy
 City

mayors fought for control of utilities
to end utility monopolies
 Parks,
homeless shelters, and kindergartens
were added to some cities
 Wisconsin
Gov Robert M. La Follette
establishes a direct primary
 Creation of
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

Initiative
Referendum
Recall
 Direct
election of senators by the ppl
 Could
not vote
 Rarely educated
 Paid poor wages if they worked
 Believed
men spent earnings on alcohol
 Alcohol made men neglect families and beat
wives
 The Women’s Christian Temperance
Movement grew in popularity and helped
pass the 18th amendment in 1919 banning
alcohol.
 Margaret
Sanger founded the American Birth
Control league
 Ida B. Wells founded the National Association
of Colored Women
 Since
1860 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton had worked for women’s
suffrage

The right to vote
 In
1919 the 19th amendment gave women the
right to vote
 Immigrants
coming to America were forced
to assimilate to American culture
 This Americanization advised immigrants to
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wear clothing of middle class white Americans
Replace the foods and customs of there
homeland
Stop serving alcohol at dinner, especially to
children
 Prejudice
against non-whites
 Plessy v Ferguson allowed segregation to
spread through the South
 Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois
wanted equality for African Americans
 1909 National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
forms
 Youngest
president to
date
 The Teddy bear was
named after him
 Became president after
McKinley was
assassinated
 Known for his Square
Deal which meant he
promised fairness and
honesty in government
 Mine
workers went on strike and owners
refused to negotiate
 Teddy told each side to submit to arbitration
 He threatened take the mines over with the
army
 Arbitrators granted workers a 10% raise and a
9 hour workday instead of 10
 Roosevelt called it a “square deal”
Roosevelt passed 42 antitrust actions
 He broke up monopolies including Standard Oil
 He wanted trusts regulated by the government

 The
Elkins Act in 1903 allowed the
government to fine railroads that gave
special rates to favored shippers, a practice
that hurt farmers

In 1906 he passed the Hepburn Act creating the
Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) which set
and limited railroad rates
 Teddy
used the Sherman Antitrust Act to stop
large companies from bullying smaller
companies or cheating consumers.
 After
reading The Jungle He past the Pure
Food and Drug Act as well as the Meat
Inspection Act
 It required labeling of ingredients and strict
sanitary conditions and a system for rating
meat
 He
set aside 100
million acres for
national forests,
mineral reserves,
and water projects
Roosevelt closed off more
than 100 million acres of
forestland.
 Taft
defeats William Jennings Bryan in 1908
 He was not a strong leader like Roosevelt
 He angered conservationists because his
Secretary of the Interior did not favor
conserving federal land
 The Republican party became split between
progressives and non-progressives
 Taft believed monopolies were acceptable as
long as they didn't’t squeeze out smaller
companies
 Roosevelt
campaigned for progressive
candidates
 He called his new plan for progressive change
New Nationalism
 Democrats won control of the house
 Taft
- Republican
 Woodrow Wilson – Democrat
 Theodore Roosevelt – Bull Moose Party
 Roosevelt
runs under the “Bull-Moose Party”
 On October 14 Roosevelt is shot in the lung
and then gives a one hour speech
 Wilson was Governor of New Jersey
 He challenged Big Business and Big
Government
 Wilson wins the election
 Reduced
Tariffs
 Underwood Tariff Act of 1913 reduced tariff
rates from 40% to 25%
 Made federal income tax a law in1913
 He wanted to end monopolies
 In 1914 he passed the Clayton Antitrust Act
which stated certain activities businesses
could not do
 The
Clayton Antitrust act also legalized
unions, strikes, peaceful picketing, boycotts
 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was
established to enforce the law
 He passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913
 It created the Feral Reserve System which
divided the country into 12 districts with
their own Federal reserve Bank
 Wilson
would win the presidency again in
1916 on the slogan of keep the US out of the
World War
 The US would eventually enter the war and
the Progressive era would come to a close