Chapter 20: The Progressives
OBJECTIVES
A thorough study of Chapter 20 should enable the student to understand:
1. The social justice reforms of the period and the role of various religious denominations in carrying
out the Social Gospel
2. The origins of the progressive impulse
3. The emphasis progressives placed on scientific expertise, organizational efficiency, and education in
general
4. The role of individual women and women’s groups in promoting progressive reform
5. The significance of the woman’s suffrage movement
6. The reasons that progressives wanted to reform political parties and the methods they used to
accomplish this goal
7. The positive effect that progressivism had on the development of professionalism, the temperance
movement, and socialism in America
8. The origins of the NAACP and the importance of W. E. B. Du Bois
9. The movement to restrict immigration and why this was regarded as a progressive reform
10. The differences among socialists, regulators, and trustbusters and their solutions to the problem of
trusts
11. The similarities and differences between the domestic progressivism of Theodore Roosevelt and that
of William Howard Taft
12. The conservation issue, and why it triggered a split between Taft and Roosevelt
13. The consequences of the Taft–Roosevelt split for the Republicans in 1912
14. The conceptual differences and practices between Roosevelt’s New Nationalism and Wilson’s New
Freedom
15. The differences between Wilson’s New Freedom and the measures actually implemented during his
first term in the White House
16. Roosevelt’s foreign policy in Asia and the Caribbean, and the similarities and differences between the
Roosevelt and Taft approaches to foreign policy
17. The reasons for the continuation of American interventionism in Latin America under President
Wilson
Activities
Day 1
QW1
Mini lecture
SSR
HW: The Progressive Impulse, Women and Reform
Day 2
QW2
HW Review
Discussion
HW: The Assault on Parties, Sources of Progressive Reform
Day 3
QW3
HW Review
HW: Crusade for Order and Reform
Day 4
QW4
Discussion
Video
HW Review
Work
HW: Read Theodore Roosevelt and the Modern Presidency, The Troubled Succession and Woodrow
Wilson and the New Freedom-Take Notes
Day 5
Work on Project
HW; Work on Project
Day 6
Present Projects
HW: TBA
Quickwrites
1.
Does change always mean “progress”?
2. How was progressivism a reaction to the rapid industrialization and urbanization of the United States
in the late nineteenth century?
3. Why did progressives want to reduce the influence of party machines on politics?
4. How did the temperance, immigration restriction, and woman’s suffrage movements take on crusadelike aspects?
Essay Topics
1. What major impulses drove the progressive movement? What specific reforms embodied those
impulses?
2. How did muckrakers, Social Gospel reformers, settlement house workers, and feminists reflect the
central assumptions behind progressivism?
3. Explain how progressivism affected women and, conversely, how women affected progressivism.
4. Who were the major opponents of progressive reforms? What arguments did they advance against
these reforms? What successes did they have?
5. Whose interests were left out of the major progressive reform movement? For what reasons? How did
these interests react to these exclusions?
6. Is it accurate to describe the turn of the twentieth century as a time of progressivism? Is this term
misleading? Is there a better word or term that might be used?
Possible discussion question
1. What state was called the “laboratory of progressivism”? Who was this state’s leading progressive?
2. In general, where were settlement houses located and why? What was their function?
Project:
Create a triple Venn Diagram of Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson. Demonstrate what similarities and
differences in policies, parties, attitudes, etc each president had. Please be sure to include at least three
similarities they all share, two similarities they share with one other and two differences for each
President. Also be sure to include at least 6 images. These images could include pictures of the presidents,
maps of areas they influenced or images of major reforms they championed.
Due: Monday
Triple Venn Diagram Rubric
Far Exceeds
Standard
Demonstrate what
similarities and
differences in
policies, parties,
attitudes, etc each
president had.
Include at least
three similarities
they all share, two
similarities they
share with one
other and two
differences for
each President.
Include at least 6
images. These
images could
include pictures of
the presidents,
maps of areas they
influenced or
images of major
reforms they
championed.
Creativity/Neatness
Exceeds
Standard
Meets
Standard
Partially
Meets
Standard
Does Not
Meet
Standard