DBQ #1
Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that
integrates your interpretation of Documents A-J and your knowledge of the period
referred to in the question. High scores will be earned only by essays that both cite key
pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period.
Question: To what extent and in what ways did reformers in United States promote
social changes which benefited a majority of Americans during the so-called Progressive
Era?
In writing your answer, use the documents and your knowledge of the period 1900-1920.
Document A
Source: "Concerning Three Articles in this Number of McClures," Editorial in
McClure's, 1904.
"The Shame of Minneapolis" could well have served for the current chapter of
Miss Tarbell's History of Standard Oil. . . . Miss Tarbell has our capitalists
conspiring among themselves deliberately, shrewdly, upon legal advice, to break
the law so far as it restrained them, and to misuse it to restrain others who were
in their way. . . . In "The shame of Minneapolis" we see the administration of a
city employing criminals to commit crimes for the profit of the elected officials,
while the citizens - Americans of good stock and more than average culture, and
honest, healthy Scandinavians - stood by complacent and not alarmed.
We all are doing our worst and making the public pay. The public is the people.
We forget that we all are the people; that while each of us in his group can shove
off on the rest of the bill of to-day, the debt is only postponed; the rest are
passing it on back to us. And in the end the sum total of the debt will be our
liberty.
Document B
Source: Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities, 1904.
The honest citizens of Philadelphia have no more rights at the polls than the
negroes down South. Nor do they fight very hard for this basic privilege. . . . If
you remind the average Philadelphian that he is in the same position, he will
look startled, then say, "That's so, that's literally true, only I never thought of it in
just that way." And it is literally true.
The [political] machine controls the whole process of voting, and practices fraud
at every stage. . . . The assessor pads the list with the names of dead dogs,
children, and non-existent persons.
The machine controls the election officers, often choosing them from among
fraudulent names; and when no one appears to serve, assigning the heeler ready
for the expected vacancy.
Document C
Source: "Roosevelt the Trustbuster," Poster, 1905.
Document D
Source: Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, 1906.
If seemed as if every time you met a person from a new department, you heard
of new swindles and new crimes. There was, for instance, a Lithuanian who was
a cattle butcher for the plant where Marija had worked, which killed meat for
canning only; and to hear this man describe the animals which came to his place
would have been worth while for a Dante or a Zola.
It seemed that they must have agencies all over the country, to hunt out old and
crippled and diseased cattle to be canned. There were cattle which had been fed
on "whisky-malt," the refuse of the breweries, and had become what the men
called "steerly" - which means covered with boils.
Document E
Source: Jane Addams, "Ballot Necessary for Women," 1906.
Insanitary housing, poisonous sewage, contaminated water, infant mortality,
prostitution and drunkenness are the enemies which the modern cities must face
and overcome would they survive.
Logically, its electorate should be made up of those who can bear a valiant part
in this arduous contest, those who in the past have at least attempted to care for
children, to clean houses, to prepare foods. . . . To test the elector's fitness to deal
with this situation by his ability to bear arms is absurd. These problems must be
solved, if they are solved at all, not from the military point of view . . . but from
a world, human-welfare point of view.
Document F
Source: Progressive Party Platform, 1912.
This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its business, its
institutions, and its laws should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever
manner will best promote the general interest. It is time to set the public welfare
in the first place.
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of
the people. Old parties have . . . become the tools of corrupt interests, which use
them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible
government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and
acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible
government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and
corrupt politics, is the first task.
Document G
Source: Theodore Roosevelt, 1913.
"Reformers" made reform respectable in the United States, and these "muckrakers" [have] been the chief agent in the making the history of "muck-raking" in
the United States a National one, conceded to be useful. [They have] preached
the task of making reform respectable in a commercialized world, and the of
giving the Nation a slogan in a phrase, is greater than the man who preformed it
is likely to think.
This globe is the capital stock of the race. It is just so much coal and oil and gas.
This may be economized or wasted. Our water resources are immense, and we
are only just beginning to use them. Our soils are being depleted; they must be
built up and conserved.
Document H
Source: Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of
the Generous Energies of a People, 1913.
The doctrine that monopoly is inevitable and that the only course open to the
people of the United States is to submit to and regulate it found a champion
during the campaign of 1912 in the new party of the Republican Party, founded
under the leadership of Mr. Roosevelt. . . . If you have read the trust plank in that
platform as often as I have read it, you have found it very long, but very tolerant.
It did not anywhere condemn monopoly, except in words; its essential meaning
was that the trusts have been bad and must be made to be good.
All Mr. Roosevelt explicitly complains of is lack of publicity and lack of
fairness; not the exercise of power, for throughout that plank the power of the
great corporations is accepted as the inevitable consequence of the modern
organization of industry. All that it is proposed to do is to take them under
control and deregulation.
Shall we try to get the grip of monopoly away from our lives, or shall we not?
Shall we admit that the creature of our own hands is stronger than we are? We
have been dreading all along the time when the combined power of high finance
would be greater than the power of the government.
Document I
Source: Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography: Making an Old Party Progressive.
The republican Party had been obliged during the last decade of the nineteenth
century to uphold the interests of popular government against a foolish and ill
judged mock-radicalism. . . . In all National matters, of importance to the whole
people, the Nation is to be supreme over State, county, and town alike.
We succeeded in working together, although with increasing friction, for some
years, I pushing forward and [the opponents] handing back. Gradually, however,
I was forced to abandon the efforts to persuade them to come my way, and then I
achieved results only by appealing over the heads of the Senate and House
leaders to the people, who were the masters of both of us.
Document J
Source: "Vote Yes," Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, 1915.
Sample Response
Following the depression of the 1890s and the remarkable success of the Populist
Movement in reforming certain aspects of transportation and politics, the Progressives
sought to end the abuse of power, reform social institution, and promote bureaucratic and
scientific efficiency. Led mainly by the urban, middle-class, the Progressive Era
flourished during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Characterized by a
combination of different movements, the Progressive Era aimed to renovate American
values, morals, and institutions and to combat "a foolish and ill judged mock-radicalism"
according to Theodore Roosevelt.
Progressivism grew out of the new association and organizations at the turn of the
century. Having escaped a devastating depression, the Progressives attempted to enrich
the American society with a more polished set of values and morals. The rise of
organizations like the American Bar Association, the National Woman Suffrage
Association, and the National Municipal League rallied new citizens, who were not
satisfied with the policies of the major political parties, to support the Progressive cause.
The Progressives, for the most part, were members of the educated middle class. The
obvious corruption that they saw in politics and business hurt their sense of decency. The
deplorable conditions of the urban poor simply provided yet another impetus for the
Progressive Movement. Supported by a group of reform-minded journalists, Progressives
exposed the true face of American corruption. As Lincoln Steffens in The Shame of the
Cities notes, "The honest citizens of Philadelphia have no more rights at the polls than the
negroes down South." He then goes on to express his disgust for the political machine
that "controls the whole process of voting" and "pads the list with names of dead dogs."
Having blindly lost the ideals of justice and democracy, the Progressives persuaded many
states to adopt reforms such as the initiative, referendum, and recall in an effort to restore
and renovate their society. Another example, well publicized in the papers, was the
corruption in the meat-packing industry. As Upton Sinclair reported in his novel, The
Jungle, that led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, the meat-packing
industry had used "old and crippled and diseased cattle to be canned"; such instances
were not rare. In fact, Sinclair claims that "every time you met a person, . . . you heard of
new swindles and new crimes." Bringing public attention to the societal corruption and
flaws, the Progressive sought to re-raise the moral standards in business and politics.
The success achieved by the Progressive Movement was in part because it was an urban,
middle class movement. The Progressive movement, centered around the Northern
middle class, did not inflame regional and class differences that the Populist movement
had. The "universal" participation of the movement partly explains their success. The
women undoubtedly played an integral part during these decades. Finding new roles and
opportunities to expand the "women's sphere," many women of the Progressive Era swept
the country with ideals of education and women's rights. Jane Addams, the founder of the
Hull House and a firm advocate of women's right to vote, says, "Infant mortality,
prostitution and drunkenness are the enemies which the moden cities must face. . . .
Logically, its electorate should be made up of those who can bear a valiant part in this
arduous contest." Such ideas were not well received to say the least; many of the men,
unwilling to give up their current position in society, found these ideas "radical." But
women found support and a moral "calling" to pursue their rights. As one poster claimed,
"Vote YES on the amendment enabling woman to vote. Give your children equal rights!"
These women campaigned for public enlightenment on the predicaments of the orphans,
prostitutes, and the mentally infirm. By using morality and logic, Progressives achieved
their greatest success with the passage of the nineteenth amendment in 1920 giving
women the right to vote. Such successes exemplify how the new patterns of thought
during the period were truly "progressive."
Another wave of movement occurred in the political realm. Theodore Roosevelt, the most
prominent Progressive leader at the time, stressed the importance of the government and
the need to eliminate corruption in businesses and in politics. He firmly believed that the
"muck-rakers" (journalists who revealed social, economic, and political abuses) had made
"reform respectable in a commercialized world." As the popular poster illustrates,
Roosevelt was even nicknamed "The Trustbuster" in honor of his policies against bigbusiness monopolies; he, in fact, was the first president to use the Sherman Anti-Trust
Act against the monopolies. In 1904 for example, the Supreme Court, influenced by his
policies, dissolved the Northern Securities Company, a railroad trust formed by J. P.
Morgan. Woodrow Wilson continued Roosevelt's policy towards regulating businesses.
Wilson went one step farther than Roosevelt by "condemn[ing] monopoly" and to "get
the grip of monopoly away from our lives" rather than "accept[ing] it as the inevitable
consequence of the modern organization of industry." At the same time, some ideals and
policies of Progressivism were only good on paper and were not practical nor applicable.
As Roosevelt confesses in his autobiography, "I pushing forward and [the opponents]
handling back. Gradually, however, I was forced to abandon the efforts to persuade them
to come my way." Roosevelt, in other words, had to compromise his idealism; Senate and
the House often disagreed with Roosevelt's "progressive" ideas.
The Progressive Era lasted until the end of World War I, when the country had to back
away from the moral crusade to "set the public welfare in the first place" (Document F).
The wide-ranging variety of movements within the Progressive Era split the Progressive
coalition by dividing the lefts from the moderates. It can be argued that the Progressivism
was brought to a halt, due to its own success; it was simply unable to accommodate all
the interest groups. The most important progress made during the era, undeniably, was
the establishment and the revision of the old ways of thinking. The Progressive Era
provided an outlet for the middle class to express and act on their moral compulsion to reestablish stability in politics, rights of minorities, and businesses.