Education, Jim Crow, and
Women in the
Progressive Era
Ch 9, Sec 1, 3, 4
Education
• By 1865, 50% of white children attended
school.
– 2% graduated from high school.
• Push for more school funding, longer school
year, child labor laws.
– By 1910, 72% of children attended school.
• 8.6% graduated high school.
• Compulsory education.
1865 School
1910
School
• Immigrants highly valued education.
– Children and adults attended.
• Schools aided in assimilation.
– Taught English, American history, culture, values.
• Religious schools existed.
• Schools segregated by color.
• Colleges, universities opened in huge numbers
in late 1800s, early 1900s.
– Only wealthy families could afford, at first.
• Women’s colleges began to open, men’s
colleges began to accept women.
• Few colleges would accept black students.
• During Reconstruction, many black
universities were founded.
• Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee
Institute in Alabama.
– Taught students skills and trades to push for
economic equality.
• W.E.B. DuBois wanted black students do study
liberal arts and become political leaders.
– Take pride in both African and American heritages.
Tuskegee Institute
Booker T. Washington
W.E.B. DuBois
Discrimination and Jim Crow
• After Civil War, slavery ended, discrimination
began.
• Voting restrictions:
– Property Test-had to own property to vote.
– Poll Tax-had to pay a tax to vote.
– Literacy Test-be able to read, write, meet
minimum standards of knowledge.
– Grandfather Clause-if your grandfather could
vote, you could vote.
• Did not single out black voters
(unconstitutional), but really did.
“What is that big word?”
• Segregation also existed, especially in south.
– Separating a group of people from the whole.
– Known in the south as Jim Crow Laws.
• Black and white segregated in schools,
hospitals, public buildings, restaurants, public
transportation, water fountains, restrooms.
• Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson
established “separate but equal” doctrine.
– Segregation was legal, as long as facilities were
equal.
– Rarely equal in practice.
• Segregation sometimes turned violent.
– Suspected criminals, blacks who got “uppity” were
sometimes subjected to lynching.
• Hanging.
• Many southern black families moved north.
– Faced “de facto” discrimination.
• By custom, not law.
• Many, black & white, opposed discrimination.
• 1909, Mary Ovington founded NAACPNational Association for the Advancement of
Colored People.
– Goal-abolish segregation, discrimination, gain civil
rights for black citizens.
Mary Ovington
Women
• Wanted suffrage, to control their own
property & income, have access to higher
education & professional jobs.
• For the most part, women were still
homemakers.
– Worked outside home as maids, nurses, teachers.
• Many did volunteer work.
– Joined clubs that promoted suffrage, temperance,
women’s rights.
• As more women went to school and entered
workforce, they began to demand more.
• “New Women” changed fashion, hairstyles to
be more convenient, wanted more out of
marriage, access to birth control info.
• Suffrage movement grew.
• Women also had increased purchasing power.
– Creation of department stores, mail-order
catalogs.
A.J. Stewart Co., First
Department Store