The Progressive Era
Progressivism
Progress toward social justice is possible!
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Started at the local level first
Social Sins
 Reform for Groups of People
 Alcohol reform
 Prison reform
 City reform
 Political reform
 Clean up food and drugs
 Labor reform
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Social Sins
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Hardest to prove
Vague idea of who was to blame
 Women
Groups of people
 African-American
 Children
Reform for women
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Susan B. Anthony
Jane Addams
Susan B. Anthony
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Suffrage
 1870’s
19th amendment
Jane Addams
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Political reformer
 Better rights for women and immigrants
Social reformer
 Hull House
Hull House
House classes and clubs
 Nursery school
 Only library in the neighborhood
 One of the first gymnasiums in in the country
 Many of the neighbors came to the center for weekly baths.
 After school programs
 Laundry service
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Civil Rights?

The Progressive Movement was not concerned with
the rights of minorities.
Most of the leaders, including Wilson, were racist.
 It is the only period of reform was not concerned with
helping minorities.
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African Americans
for
African Americans
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W.E.B. Dubois
Booker T. Washington
Plessy v Ferguson
W.E.B. Dubois
Everything one does should focus on the betterment
of the race
 Founded the NAACP
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Booker T. Washington
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That it was best to concentrate on improving their economic skills
and the quality of their character. The burden of improvement
resting squarely on the shoulders of the black man. Eventually they
would earn the respect and love of the white man, and civil and
political rights would be accrued as a matter of course.
Plessy vs. Ferguson
1895
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Separate but equal facilities for the races
BUT…
Jim Crow Laws
Racial segregation in public facilities
 Varied in communities
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Regulated separate use of water fountains
Public bath houses
Separate seating sections on public transportation
Examples of Jim Crow
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Arizona
 The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a Negro,
Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void.
Georgia
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Child labor
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The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct
apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case
shall Negroes and white persons be together.
Children
Employers said it instilled the work ethic
Horrendous conditions
Long hours
Legislation was difficult to achieve
Child Labor
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Sons and daughters of poor parents or recent immigrants
Symptom of the unchecked industrialism.
1911
 more than two million American children under the age
of 16 were working (many of them 12 hours or more, six
days a week)
1870
 750,000 workers under the age of 15, not including
children who worked for their families in businesses or
on farms
Lewis W. Hine
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Investigative photographer for the National Child Labor
Committee
Conducting a major campaign against the exploitation of
American children
Glass factory
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"...boys traveled as distance of nearly 22 miles in an 8hour shift at a constant slow run to and from ovens...
average pay of 72 cents per 8-hour shift....“
Cannery
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"...children as young as six employed as headers and
cleaners (of shrimp and fish)... stand for shifts of 12 hours
and longer in open sheds... hands immersed in cold
water..."
Silk Mills
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“Child not 9 years old... cleaned bobbins for 3 cents an hour...
must stand at their work... 12-hour shifts... by night...
unceasingly... watching the threads... before... scores of revolving
spindles... some of them making 25,000 revolutions per minute....“
Soap-Packing Plants
"...girls were exposed to caustic soda that turned their nails
yellow and ate away at their fingers..."
Field workers
Breaker Boys
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Used in the anthracite coal mines to separate slate rock from the
coal after it had been brought out of the shaft. They often worked
14 to 16 hours a day.