Study Guide for Wilsonian Progressivism Reading Assignment
PREFACE: Woodrow Wilson did not win the Election of 1912; the Republicans lost it.
The GOP was so determined to ignore public opinion, choosing the weak incumbent
William Howard Taft over the wildly-popular Theodore Roosevelt, that they forced TR
to run on the Progressive Party (ie the “Bull Moose” Party), an act that accomplished
nothing more than splitting the conservative vote and handing the election to the
Democrats. Need further proof? Wilson won 6,286,214 popular votes; TR 4,126,020;
and Taft 3,484,922; if the GOP had not split their vote between Taft and TR they would
have defeated Wilson handily (Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs received 897,011
votes . . . scary).
In any event, the Election of 1912 revealed three things: first, TR’s Bull Moose campaign
was a political disaster, an exercise in TR’s ego that doomed the Progressive Party
forever. Secondly, a significant section of America was dissatisfied to the point of
extremism, as evidenced by Debs’ showing at the polls. And third, by any interpretation
of the election’s result, Americans clearly wanted reform, and they chose Woodrow
Wilson and his New Freedom agenda as the machinery of that reform.
Socialism in America
1. Know the Socialist demographic (where were they strongest, who supported
them, where was their greatest voting strength?)
2. Big Bill Haywood and The International Workers of the World (the Wobblies)
3. Haywood’s agenda and methods
4. Popular reaction to the Effect of the 1912 Lowell Strike, what effect did this have
on unions in general?
5. Reason for decline of socialist popularity
6. Effects on movement as a result of socialist and IWW policy regarding US
participation in WWI
7. Reason for 1919 split into hostile camps
8. Factors that caused socialism to lose to the American Dream.
The Birth Control Movement
1.
2.
3.
4.
Margaret Sanger and her crusade
Sanger and eugenics
Sanger’s experiences as an advocate of contraception
Overall results of Sanger’s reform activities
Progressive Education
1. John Dewey
2. Dewey’s philosophy
WOODROW WILSON
New Freedom Legislation
1. The 1913 Underwood-Simmons Tariff
2. The Graduated Income Tax
3. The 1913 Federal Reserve Act
a. The Federal Reserve System
b. Federal Reserve Notes
c. Controlling the money supply
d. Interest rates
e. Shortcomings and successes
4. The 1914 Federal Trade Commission Act
a. Effect of TR’s New nationalism on Wilson’s thinking
b. Make up
c. Duties
d. Overall effectiveness
Retreat and Renewal
1. Wilson and:
a. Women’s Suffrage
b. Social legislation
c. Big Business
d. Race relations
2. The midterm elections of 1914
3. Significance of Louis Brandeis
4. Renewal of Progressive Reform:
a. The Federal Farm Loan Act
b. The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act (court decision?)
c. The Adamson Act (court decision?)
Twilight of Reform
1. Source of America’s attention
2. Criticisms of Progressivism
3. Wilson’s polices as precedent