The Progressives
Problems & Solutions
Progressivism
An early 20th century reform movement
Four Major Goals:
• Return control of gov’t to the people
• Restore economic opportunity
• Correct injustices
• Moral improvement
Immigrants/Urbanization
The airshaft of a dumbbell tenement
Progressives & Solutions
• Jane Addams settlement houses
(Hull House)
• Cities:
– Chlorination
– Plumbing & ventilation
(dumbbell tenements)
– Sanitation, police, fire
depts..
– Brick/stone buildings
Labor
Company Owners
Company laborers
Labor Problems
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Working conditions
Long hours, low pay 12+ hours 6-7 days a week,
1899 women $269 a year, men $498
Carnegie $23 million no taxes
“Yellow-dog” contracts- a contract between a worker and an
employer in which, as a condition of employment, the worker agrees not to
remain in or join a union.
• Injuries/death
• Child labor (2 million in 1910)
• %20 of boys full time jobs, %10 of girls
Labor Solutions
• Unions:
– AFL (strikes)
– Knights of Labor (arbitration)
• Muller v. Oregon (Supreme Court)
State could legally limit women’s
working hours
• Worker compensation
• Collective bargaining
• Keating Owen Act- prohibited the
transportation of goods made with
child labor across state lines
Public Health/Consumer Fraud
Progressives & Solutions
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Labels untruthful
Wretched meat
Contaminated products
Commission to investigate
Public criticism (The
Jungle)
• Laws:
– Meat Inspection Act
– Pure Food & Drug Act
Business Practices
Monopolies
Trusts
Progressives & Solutions
• Ida Tarbell
• Trusts made illegal
– Sherman Anti-Trust Act
– Clayton Anti-Trust Act
• Govt. agencies created to be
“watchdogs”
– Interstate Commerce
Commission
– Federal Trade Commission
• Reduced tariffs (Underwood
Tariff)
• Elkins Act- RR rebates
• Hepburn Act-free RR passes
• Income tax: 16th
Amendment to the
Constitution
Politics
Corruption
Patronage
Graft
Progressives & Solutions
• “Political Machines”
– Controlled jobs, licenses, bought
votes, graft, kickbacks, bribery,
hired friends
• Pendleton Act- civil service
commission
• 17th Amendment- direct election
of senators
• Robert La Follette
• State reforms:
– Initiative- leg can be from people
– Referendum- voted by people
– recall
Environment
Progressives & Solutions
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Industrial waste
Leveled forests
Overgrazed plains
Spoil dumps
Flooding from timber ind.
TR & John Muir
– National Reclamation Act
– National Parks
– Wildlife Refuges
Women/Minorities
Anti-Suffrage Cartoon
Alice Paul
Progressives & Solutions
• No Votes for Afr-Am.
– Literacy test, poll tax
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Jim Crow Laws
Yield sidewalk
Discrimination
NAACP
No Votes for Women
Domestics, factories,
clerks
• 19th Amendment
Were the Progressives
Successful?
Was the industrial revolution a
“revolution”?