Chapter 12: Progressive Reforms and the
1920s (1900-1920)
Summary
By 1900, America was a troubled nation. The urbanization and industrialization of the late nineteenth
century damaged the country’s social, economic, and political systems. Business competition all but
vanished, governments served only the needs of the wealthy, and millions lived in economic
deprivation.
To combat these problems, progressive reformers stepped forward to change America. Growing out of
the Populist Party’s platform, the Mugwump revolt, and the Social Gospel movement, these middleclass reformers tried to restore equality and fairness to American society through government
intervention. Although made up primarily of politicians, progressives also included social workers such
as Jane Addams and writers such as Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, and Upton Sinclair. These “muckrakers”
exposed the injustices of society to the public in order create enough public outrage to inspire political
action that would bring solutions to a wide range of abuses.
Progressive Reformers
Early progressive reform occurred at the municipal and state level. Mayors such as Tom Johnson and
Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones began to clean up their cities and make government more responsive to
the people. On the state level, Hiram Johnson and Robert La Follette instituted direct primaries, the
direct election of Senators, initiatives, and referendums in their states. As Governor of Wisconsin (the
laboratory of progressivism) La Follette developed a regulatory plan for railroads and utilities that was a
model for the nation.
In Washington, Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson led a bipartisan drive to
reform the nation. Operating around the “Four C’s” of change: control of corporations, conservation of
natural resources, citizen protection, and cleaning-up government, these presidents harnessed the
power of the federal government to correct problems. They created the Federal Reserve System, the
Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Commerce and Labor, and encouraged congress to
expand the national parks, to pass the Pure Food and Drug and Meat Inspection Acts, and to enact child
labor laws. Overall, the reforms were rather modest, yet the progressives took the first steps to
promoting social justice and ending the laissez-faire/Social Darwinist philosophy that had dominated
government during the Gilded Age.
New Freedom vs. New Nationalism
In 1912, Wilson and Roosevelt offered competing visions of progressivism. Wilson espoused “New
Freedom” as he rhetorically opposed big business and pledged to dismantle abusive trusts. Roosevelt, in
contrast, proposed his “New Nationalism” which called on the nation to regulate large corporations but
accept their existence as part of modern life. Roosevelt lost his bid for the Republican nomination to the
incumbent Taft and his progressive program of limited and steady limited government action; but, he
continued his charge as a progressive “Bull Moose” third-party candidate. With Taft and Roosevelt
splitting the Republican vote, Wilson was elected to the White House.
The first shots of World War I all but extinguished progressive reforms. As the nation confronted
outrages on the seas and rallied behind a military preparedness campaign at home, the reform fervor
faded. When America entered the war in 1917, the nation mobilized for war and much of the unfinished
progressive agenda languished until the New Deal of the 1930s.
Urban vs. Rural Values
When World War I ended, Americans were jolted with changes and challenges. By the 1920s, for the
first time in history, over 50 percent of the population lived in the cities. From the rural point of view,
these urban areas were corrupt, sinful, and unhealthy. In addition, progressive reforms and wartime
agencies had spawned new bureaucracies, and despite progressive attempts at regulation, trusts
continued to dominate economic life.
The decade became a battleground between those who accepted change and those who longed for the
days of the 19th century. Liberal, urban, modern, progressive, science-friendly people welcomed (or
attempted to improve) the political, economic, and social changes that came with the modern age.
Conservative, rural, and Christian fundamentalist-minded Anglo Saxon Protestants feared and resisted
the new morality and modern change of the era. Essentially, Conservative, rural, and Christian
fundamentalist Anglo Saxon Protestants feared that their historical dominance of American politics and
culture was slipping away; and, they reacted negatively and sometimes violently (reactionary) to it.
Flappers, Jazz, Prohibition, the Scopes Trial, and the ascendancy of the Ku Klux Klan were skirmishes in
this struggle. Flappers were young women who challenged the traditional Victorian role of women much
to the chagrin of conservatives. Jazz originated in urban African American circles and brought conflict as
the radio broadcast “colored music” into America’s rural heartland. Prohibition (the 18th Amendment)
was a conservative attempt to restrict the supply of liquor and prevent cities, along with their “new
morality” and large “new” immigrant populations, from gaining dominance over the direction of
American life. Similarly, the Scopes Trial in 1925 pitted the rural fundamentalists against urban
modernists for control over school curriculum. And the emergence of a large nation-wide Ku Klux Klan
was, in part, a response by white, conservative, rural Protestants to the rising tide of “new” immigrants,
modern women (flappers etc…), and the “New Negro.”
The Women’s Movement
Few groups experienced more changes in the 1920s than women. The efforts of Carrie Chapman Catt,
Alice Paul, and other reformers finally convinced the nation to approve the Nineteenth Amendment,
which gave women the vote (suffrage). In addition, the number of working women increased over 25
percent during the decade. While most employment was in the traditional areas of teaching and
secretarial/retail services, this new economic independence propelled some women to challenge
conventional sexual and social roles with their “new morality”: work, college, marriage for love, sex for
pleasure, pre-marital sex, public displays of skin, shorter hair, smoking, drinking, dancing, etc…
The “New Negro”
Throughout the years 1900-1929, African Americans confronted the Jim Crow system of racial
discrimination and segregation. Many blacks looked to Booker T. Washington and his “don’t-rock-theboat” approach (the Atlanta Compromise) to race relations as a means of coping with injustices. On the
other hand, W.E.B. Du Bois, Washington’s chief rival, called on African Americans, especially the
“talented tenth,” to agitate and protest for political, social, and economic equality.
World War I and the Great Depression promoted a new attitude among blacks. Four Hundred thousand
black men served in the war and came home with raised expectations for equality. Hundreds of
thousands of blacks moved North during the war (the Great Migration) to take advantage of wartime
shortages in industrial jobs where they experienced more freedom and economic success than was
possible in the South under sharecropping and Jim Crow. However, racial clashes over housing and jobs
led to riots and the “red summer” of 1919 in many northern cities and dashed hopes for better race
relations. The migration of southern blacks to northern cities continued after the war. For example, from
1920 to 1930, the black population of New York City doubled, and brought cultural changes as well.
In Harlem (a borough of NYC), writers such as Langston Hughes and Claude McKay wrote about life
under Jim Crow. This Harlem Renaissance also featured jazz clubs and theaters that headlined top black
entertainers. Overall, the “new negro” was proud of his/her heritage, celebrated their culture in various
ways, and, wasn’t going to back down in the face of abuse and discrimination.
When Booker T. Washington died in 1915, Du Bois and his allies initiated the Niagara Movement and
founded the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons). A new leader,
Marcus Garvey, emerged and gained support among urban blacks as well. Garvey advocated for Black
Nationalism, then Black Nationalism, and finally, a “back to Africa” movement.
The Red Scare and a Return to “Normalcy”
In the 1920s, America rejected European immigration. Embracing nativism against “new” immigrants
and fearful of them bringing communism with them, Congress reduced the number of permitted each
year from 800,000 in 1920 to 150,000 in 1929. The Emergency Immigration Act and the Immigration
Quota Act were nativist in that they greatly reduced the number of “new” immigrants coming while
leaving the number of “old” immigrants largely unaffected.
The fear of radical left-wing political ideologies (socialism, communism, anarchism) led to the First Red
Scare in America in the 1920s. After a series of anarchist bombings, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer
led a series of warrantless raids (the Palmer Raids) against recent “new” immigrants he suspected of
being leftists; many were detained without due process and eventually deported without recourse.
The First Red Scare also led to the execution of two self-professed anarchists (Sacco and Vanzetti) based
more upon their status as recent immigrants and their politics than on evidence.
Republicans (now a strongly conservative party) returned to political dominance in the 1920s with three
presidents in a row: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. Harding’s election sealed the
death of America’s involvement in the League of Nations. Harding also promised America a “return to
normalcy”; a thinly veiled appeal to conservative, rural, Christian Americans who were unhappy with all
of the social and cultural changes going on, and, an appeal to wealthy industrialists and financiers who
wanted an end to progressivism and a return to the government’s laissez-faire/pro-business philosophy.
This pro-business era would lead to an economic boom that was really a boom in wealth for the wealthy
that would create a massive gap in wealth between the “haves” and the “have-not’s”. In the end, these
policies created an economic bubble (more than a boom) that would burst and lead to the Great
Depression.
Also, Harding’s administration was rocked by scandals before and after his death. For example, when
the Teapot Dome Scandal was uncovered, we found out that people in the Harding administration were
selling off public goods (the Navy’s oil in this case) so as to enrich themselves and their “cronies.”
Coolidge restored public faith in the government though, and Coolidge and Hoover led the most probusiness administrations since the time of Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists.