Chapter 9 Sec 3
Reforming Society
Reforming City Life
 By 1920 50% of Americans lived in urban areas.
 Cities struggled to provide:
o Garbage collection
o Safe and affordable housing
o Health care
o Police and fire protection
o Adequate public education
Cleaning up the City
 Various women’s and men’s clubs and reform
societies asked for help to clean up cities.
 Lawrence Veiler- Head of N.Y. State Tenement
House Commission
o Interviewed residents and discovered
problems.
o 1901 passed N.Y. Tenement House Act
 new tenements built around open
courtyards
 contain/bathroom for each apartment or
every 3 rooms
 National Tuberculosis Association
o Fun, special hospitals to treat disease
o By 1915 death rate dropped significantly
o 1908 Massachusetts Law Required cities
with 10,000 hold election to pay for at least
one playground.
 41 of 42 cities passed it.
 Some critics from middle and upper class
objected to using taxes to pay for poor.
City Planning
 First National Conference on City Planning was
held in 1909
o Cleaner cities would produce better citizens
o Beautiful cities would inspire patriotism.
 Daniel Burnham was first to redesign a major
city-Chicago 1909
o Other cities hired him
o Only successful and fully built design was in
Washington D.C.
o City planning was necessary function
 Parks
 Building codes
 Sanitation standards
 Zoning
Moral Reform
o Prohibition – ban on the manufacture, sale, and
transportation of alcoholic beverages and closing
of saloons
o Reduce crime and breakup of families
o McClure’s Magazine- George Kibbe Turner
o “The Story of an Alcohol Slave, as Told by
Himself.”
o To truly reform U.S. cities, saloons must be
closed
o Colleges did not allow student athletes to
drink
o Industrialists tried to get workers not to
drink
o Text books had info on dangers of alcohol
Passage of Prohibition
o Anti-Saloon League (ASL) and Women’s
Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
o By 1902 ASL has branches in 39 states with
200 paid employees.
o Many ministers spread message in church
 Billy Sunday saloons were “the parent
of crimes and mother of sins”
 France Willard red WCTU from 18791889 force for temperance, moral
purity, and women’s rights.
o During WWI prohibitionists drew on patriotic
sacrifice
o U.S. Navy banned consumption of alcohol
in 1914
o 1917 Congress passed 18th amendment states
ratified in 1919
 proved unpopular and hard to enforce
 repealed in 1933 with 21st amendment
Movie Going
o Urban reformers believed movies were a threat
to morality
o “Great Train Robbery” first movie to tell a story1903
o by 1910 millions were going to movies each
week
o In 1916 NY times reported movies were 5th
largest industry in U.S.
o Nickelodeons provided cheap entertainment
o Many mid class believed movies were
immoral and sources of temptation
o Reformers demanded censorship
o States and cities set up censorships boards to
ban movies they considered immoral
o By 1909 movie industry censored itself
Progressivism and Racial Discrimination
o Concerned about Plight of Poor
o Few devoted much energy to Racial
discrimination and prejudice
o Some expressed open prejudice against
Blacks and Native Americans
Views of W.E.B.Du Bois
o Influential Black leaders emerged
o Born 1886 in Massachusetts.
o Attended mixed Sunday school classes
o Not until high school did he realize his skin color
caused people to dislike him.
o Attended Fisk University in Nashville,
Tennessee.
o In 1895 he became the first black to earn a PHD
from Harvard.
o Taught at Atlanta University until 1910
o Strong supporter of civil rights
 Access to college and vocational
schools offered best chance
 Blacks should be politically active
Booker T. Washington-opposing views
 Blacks should not fight discrimination
 Focus on education and economic prosperity
 Throughout career Du Bois maintained interest
in Africa.
o 1920’s organized series of Pan African
congresses that attracted black leaders from
around world.
o By 1950’s embraced socialism for its
promise of social justice
o In 1961 at age of 93, joined Communist
Party and moved to Ghana- Died in 1963
African Americans Organize
o In 1909 Du Bois and a group of black and white
progressives met in N.Y. City
o Discussed lynching of 2 men in Springfield,
Illinois
o NAACP- National Association for the
Advancement of colored people was formed
o Dubois edited The Crisis which publicized cases
of racial inequality
o By 1918 magazines circulation rose to 100,000
o Used court system to fight civil rights restriction
o 1915-Guinn v. U.S.
 outlawed “grandfather” clause
 This freed men from other voting
requirements if their father or
grandfathers had voted.
 1917 Buchanan v. Warley overturned a
Louisville, Kentucky law requiring
racially segregated housing.
 National Urban League-1911
 Improve job opportunity and housing
for urban African Americans
American Indians Organize
 Dawes Act of 1887-Indians lost land to
speculators and fell deeper in poverty by 50
middle class professional
 Improve civil rights

Education

Health

Local government
 Publicized accomplishments of Jim Thorpe
 Some wanted strong native cultures while other
favored assimilation
 Some criticized Bureau of Indian Affairs for
Mismanaging
Reservations
Immigrants and Assimilation
 Lobbied for improving immigrants lives as
well as conditions in workplace and slums.
 Some criticized immigrants for immoral
behavior.
 1916 Madison Grant publishes “The Passing of
the Great Race”
o Expressed racist opinions about blacks,
Jews, and immigrants from south and eat
Europe
 Americanization-process of preparing foreign
born residents for citizenship
 Focus was on educating immigrants
 Learn to read, write, and speak English.
 Also U.S. history and government
 Cities and states passed Americanization
measures
 1924 Horace Kallen Wrote Culture and
Democracy
in U.S.
 Supports pluralism or home to a number of
distinctive
cultures
 Some immigrants supported Americanization
without
giving up
ethnic
identities.