I.
The Progressive Era
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a. The Changing American Society and Economy
i. Immigrant Masses and a New Urban Middle Class
1. Urbanization continued – 1920 urban pop. passed 50%
2. Urban growth = mainly immigration
a. 1900-1917, 17 million newcomers to become city dwellers
b. Mainly southern/eastern Europeans
c. Also Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans
3. Factors of immigration
a. Economic reasons
b. Revolutionary upheavals
c. Religious prosecution
4. Lived in slum tenements, row houses, triple deckers
a. Corruption municipals, poor water, plumbing, education, etc.
5. Native-born middle class
a. 1900-1920 doubled white-collar work force
b. Lawyers, physicians, managers, bureaucrats, teachers
c. Membership of national professional society = sense of identity
d. Women – work force grew, housewives frustrated
6.
ii. African Americans in a Racist Age
1. 1900 – 2/3 of blacks lived in rural South (sharecroppers, farmers)
2. 1910 – 20% moved to urban areas
3. Enforced racism in South – “Jim Crows Laws”
a. Segregated streetcars, schools, parks, cemeteries
b. Residential segregation until Supreme Court outlawed in 1917
4. 1920 – 1.4 million blacks lived in North
a. Segregation a fact of life, not law
b. “colored districts” – inferior schools, jobs
c. Movies – The Birth of a Nation even belittled blacks
d. Military service - hostility from white officers and soldiers
5. Explosion of violence
a. Atlanta 1906 – antiblack rioters killed 25 and burned homes
b. Lynching still prevalent – about 75 per year
6. Religious center was African Methodist Episcopal Church
7. Relatives/neighbors for child care
8. Black colleges and universities stayed strong against adversity
a. John Hope – Brown U. grad, pres. of Morehouse College (Atl.)
b. Jane Hope Lyons – dean of women, Spelman College
9. Music emerged
a. Scott Joplin – ragtime
b. W. C. Handy – blues, jazz
iii. Corporate Boardrooms, Factory Floors
1. Holding companies – giant corporations that owned a number of
companies engaged in some kind of business
a. U.S. Steel Co. (J. P. Morgan) controlled 80% of steel production
b. International Harvester Co. (J. P. Morgan) controlled farm
business
c. General Motors Co. (William C. Durant) bought manufacturers
2. Annual wages, unionized industry wages increased
3. Whole families required to work
a. 2/3 immigrant girls, child labor
4. Average work day = long hours and hazardous situations
a. 9-13 hours per day
b. No vacations, retirement
c. No responsibility for work-related incidents
d. “efficiency” – popular catchphrase
iv. Workers Organize: Socialism Advances
1. American Federation of Labor – grew to 4 million members by 1920
2. Supreme Court Danbury Hatters case found union boycotts a violation of
the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
3. International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union went on strike in 1909 and
1911
4. Industrial Workers of the World, the “Wobblies”, founded 1905
a. William D. Haywood, “Big Bill”, founded union
b. Success when won textile strike in Lawrence, Mass.
c. Driven by oration, but reputation of violence
d. Harassment by government until broken in 1920
5. Socialism – end capitalism, public ownership
a. Karl Marx, but mostly democratic socialism
b. 1900 – Socialist Party of America
c. Intercollegiate Socialist Society to colleges and universities
d. Support rose, demand for government action increased
b. The Progressive Movement Takes Shape
i. Progressivism: An Overview
1. Progressivism – political response to industrialization and its social byproducts
a. Populism attracted farmers, progressivism attracted citydwellers, academics, reformers (not destroy the system)
b. Never a unified movement, constituted array of reform activities
2. Overlapping and diverging reformations
a. Regulate business, humanitarians, laws for protection, municipal
government, immigration restriction, abolition of prostitution,
social control strategies
3. Era of organization – source of strength
a. Playground Association of America, American League for Civic
Improvement
4. Spawned social research, expert opinion, statistical data
5. Human emotion drove movement forward
ii. Intellectuals Lay the Groundwork
1. William Graham Sumner/Gilded Age – the theory of evolution called for
unrestrained economic competition (social Darwinism)
2. Thorstein Veblen – the Theory of the Leisure Class satirized business
elite
3. Historians fueled currents of thought
a. Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution
stated that the writers of the Constitution were only considering
the moneyed class
b. Mary Ritter Beard spotlights ignored groups
4. William James, Pragmatism, truth from experience, fluidity of knowledge
5. Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, criticized excessive
individualism
6. Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life, activist government for all
citizens, founded New Republic magazine
iii. New Ideas about Education and the Law
c.
1. John Dewey – a harmonious society could be built through by applying
the scientific method to social problems, intelligence as the instrument
a. public schools the incubator of reform
2. universities and colleges devote themselves to the public good
3. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Common Law, law must evolve with society
iv. Novelists and Journalist Spread the Word
1. novelists and journalists stirred reform
a. Henry Demarest Lloyd, Wealth Against Commonwealth –
exposé of the Standard Oil Company
b. Frank Norris, The Octopus, railroads vs. wheat growers
c. David Graham Phillips, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise, slum
life, political corruption, prostitution
d. Theodore Dreiser, The Financier, business tycoons
2. articles exposing political corruption and corporate wrongdoing – huge!
a. “muckrakers” – nickname for authors of such articles
b. emphasis on fact, not fiction
c. popular magazines – McClure’s and Collier’s
3. artists and photographers painted and photographed real life images
a. George Luks, John Sloan, Lewis Hime, Jacob Riis
v. Reforming the Political Process
1. New York City – anti-Tammany reform
a. Protestant clergy rallied forces against bosses
2. Detroit
a. Mayor Hazen Pingree brought honesty, lower transit fares,
fair tax structure, public baths
3. San Francisco
a. Fremont Older led crusade against corrupt boss (Abe Reuf)
4. Toledo, Ohio
a. Samuel M. Jones – profit sharing, playgrounds
5. some wanted structural change - replace managers/administrators with
mayors
6. municipal reformers – mostly native born middle class
7. 1910 – replaced system of voting, direct primary
8. western state’s electoral reform
a. initiative – voters instruct legislature to consider a bill
b. referendum – voters enact a law or express their views
c. recall petition – votes remove official from office
d. led to ratification of 17th amendment, direct election of U.S.
senators
vi. Protecting the Workers, Beautifying the City
1. by 1907, most states outlawed child labor, limited working hours, etc.
a. under Robert F. Wagner, New York enacted 56 work
protection laws
2. urban beautification – parks, boulevards, street lights, laws against
billboards, smoky factories, electrical wires
a. Daniel Burnham – city plans, vision for Chicago, make cities
efficient and harmonious
vii. Corporate Regulation
1. states began regulating railroads, mines, mills, businesses
a. Gov. Robert La Follette, Wisconsin – direct primary system,
increased corporate taxes, limit campaign spending,
legislative reference library – “Wisconsin Idea”
Progressivism and Social Control: The Movement’s Coercive Dimensions
i. Moral Control in the Cities
1. some campaigned against movies, dancing, gambling, parks
2. movies found immoral – youth to escape parents
3. prostitution increased – better money and hours than factory job
a. Mann Act 1910 – illegal to transport a woman across state
lines for immoral purposes
ii. Battling Alcohol and Drugs
1. Anti-Saloon League – legal abolition of alcoholic beverages
a. professionals ran office, Protestant minister staff
b. propaganda to document misuse
2. alcoholism = domestic abuse, public health issues, social pathologies
a. prohibition campaign became another culture war
(Protestant’s to control immigrant America)
3. Eighteenth Amendment 1919 – outlawed manufacture, sale, or transport
of alcoholic beverages
4. opium – brought from Chinese immigrants
a. physicians/manufacturers used opium, heroin, morphine
b. Pure Food and Drug Act
c. Hague Opium Treaty, Hague Act 1914 – regulated drugs
iii. Immigration Restriction
1. Immigration Restriction League 1894 – Bostonians promoting a literacy
test to cut immigrant numbers
2. American Federation of Labor favored immigrant restriction
3. 1911 – statistical study proving immigrant degeneracy
4. Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Mass. Led Congress
a. literacy-test bills in 1896, 1913, 1915 to be vetoed
b. 1917 became a law over Wilson’s veto
5. immigrants also dealt with physicals, public health stereotypes
iv. Eugenics: Scientific Bigotry
1. eugenics movement – control of reproduction to alter a plant or animal
a. Carnegie Foundation, Charles Davenport – research center
2. some states legalized forced sterilization of criminals, sex
offenders, and mentally deficient
a. Buck vs. Bell – Supreme Court supported laws
3. Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race – racial segregation,
immigration restriction, forced sterilization using data
v. Racism and Progressivism
1. Mary White Ovington – helped found NAACP, Half a Man, studied
emotional scars of racial prejudice
2. progressives viewed blacks as social menace to be controlled
3. President Woodrow Wilson advocated racism, rigid segregation
d. Blacks and Women Organize
i. Controversy Among African Americans
1. Booker T. Washington – foremost black leader
a. founded Tuskegee University
b. publicly, accommodated racist society, must prove economic
value to fight racism
c. Northern blacks disagreed – William Monroe Trotter, Ida
Wells-Narnett
2. W. B. Du Bois – challenged Washington
a. first black Ph.D.
b. The Souls of Black Folk – differences with Washington
c. demanded equal intellectual opportunity, reject racism
ii. The Founding of the NAACP
1. “Niagara Movement” - meetings for those against Washington, led by
Du Bois in Niagara
2. Oswald Garrison Villard + Niagara Movement formed the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People
a. vigorous activism, legal challenges, equality for blacks
iii. Revival of the Women Suffrage Movement
1. 1910 – women vote in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho
2. NY and Cali. Help street meetings and parades for suffragist campaigns
3. Carrie Chapman Catt – succeeded Susan B. Anthony as president of
National American Woman Suffrage Association
a. “Winning Plan” – tight central coordination and organization
4. lobbied legislators, distributed literature, organized parades/rallies
a. 1917 – NY approved woman-suffrage referendum
5. Josephine Dodge – National Assoc. Opposed to Woman Suffrage, tarnish
moral and spiritual role
6. Alice Paul – Congressional Union/Woman’s Party
a. direct pressure to democratic government
b. 1917 – picketed at White House
7. 1920 – Nineteenth Amendment ratified giving women the right to vote
iv. Breaking Out of the “Women’s Sphere”
1. political activism – abolish child labor, improve conditions for women
workers, ban unsafe foods
2. women became active everywhere
a. Katherine Bement Davis – superintendent of women’s
reformatory, commissioner of corrections
b. Emma Goldman – lectured on politics, feminism
c. Margaret Sanger – crusade for birth control, nation’s first
birth control clinic
3. higher education women as well
a. Marion Talbot – first dean of women at U. of Chicago
b. Ellen Richards – taught Home Ec. at MIT
c. M. Carey Thomas – president of Bryn Mawr College
d. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics, advocated
economic independence
e. Alice Hamilton – expert on work-related health hazards
f. Florence Kelley – secured laws prohibiting child labor, limit
work hours, lobby for improved factory conditions
e. National Progressivism-Phase I: Roosevelt and Taft
i. Roosevelt’s Path to the White House
1. Theodore Roosevelt – president after McKinley is shot
2. state assemblyman, police commissioner, civil-service commissioner,
governor of New York
ii. Labor Disputes and Corporate Regulation
1. 1902 – United Mine Workers Union strike
a. T.R. settled dispute through compromise
2. T.R. unlike predecessors
a. not pro-labor, defended right to organize
b. corporations essential for national greatness, but regulated
c. moralist, conservative, progressive
3. 1901 – J. P. Morgan forms U.S. Steel Co., first billion dollar corporation
a. State of the Union Address – T.R. for “trust-busting”
b. suit against Northern Securities Co., company dissolved
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c. “square deal” – denounced special treatment of capitalists
4. 43 other anti-trust lawsuits
a. breakup of Standard Oil Company
b. reorganization of American Tobacco Company
5. T.R. up for re-election, main goal = railroad regulation
a. Elkins Act 1903 – penalties against railroad rebates
b. Hepburn Act 1906 – imposed further regulations
c. Interstate Commerce Commission – maximum railroad rates,
examine financial records, standards bookkeeping
d. knack for political bargaining, increase gov. regulatory power
Consumer Protection and Racial Issues
1. Upton Sinclair, The Jungle – exposed foul conditions of meat-packing
plants
a. other writers exposed use of dangerous medicines/drugs
2. T.R. supported public mood
a. Food and Drug Act 1906 – outlawed sale of unadulterated
foods/drugs, required accurate ingredient labels
b. Meat Inspection Act 1906 – strict sanitary requirements,
program of federal meat inspection
3. T.R. had better record on racial matters
a. appointed black as head of the Charleston customhouse
b. met with Booker T. Washington
c. dishonorably discharged regiment for staging a raid (the
“Brownsville Incident”)
The Conservation Movement
1. Sierra Club and groups sought to preserve wilderness areas
a. 1891 – Congress allowed presidents Cleveland and Harrison
to designate public lands as reserves
2. summer camps, Boy/Girl Scouts provided wilderness for city children
3. Gifford Pinchot – head U.S. Forest Service, campaigned for conservation
(not preservation)
a. conservation – planned to use land for public/commercial
4. T.R. supported conservationalists
a. National Reclamation Act 1902 – public-land sales for water
management
5. Reclamation Service – plan and construct dams/irrigation
a. made settlement and productivity possible in west
b. dams spurred growth of cities
6. competition for water resources caused political battles
7. T.R. set aside land - national parks, mineral reserves, water-power sites
a. 1907 – Congress took away president’s authority to create
national forests
8. national park system grew
a. 1916 – National Park Service, oversee preserves
b. Anti quities Act 1906 – protected archeological sites
9. T.R. always kept environmental concerns in mind
Taft in the White House
1. William Howard Taft, Secretary of War – 1908 election (conservative)
2. much different than Roosevelt
a. was obese, preferred golf, loved speech-making
3. supported Mann-Elkins Act 1910 – strengthened rate-setting powers,
extended to telephone/telegraph companies
A Divided Republican Party
f.
1. Insurgents – challenged Republican leadership
a. Senators La Follette, Albert Beveridge, Congressman George
Norris
b. battled Taft for a lower tariff
2. Payne-Aldrich Act 1909 – raised rates on hundreds of items
3. Speaker of the House Joseph G. Cannon – prevented reform bills
a. 1910 – Insurgents removed Cannon from Rules Committee
4. Ballinger-Pichot affair – told T.R. of Taft’s lack of zeal for reform
a. Ballinger – interior secretary, approved sale of Alaskan land
5. T.R. campaigned for Insurgents
a. called for more regulation of business, censured judges,
reversing judicial rulings by popular vote
6. 1910 – Insurgents/Democrats controlled Senate
National Progressivism-Phase II: Woodrow Wilson
i. The Four Way Election of 1912
1. 1912 Republican party split – Roosevelt vs. Taft vs. La Follette
a. Roosevelt formed Progressive Party/”Bull Moose party”
b. endorsed almost every reform
2. Woodrow Wilson won Democratic nomination
3. Taft gave up campaign – too radical conservatism
4. T.R. preached “New Nationalism” – gov. regulation of big business
5. Wilson, “New Freedom” – small entrepreneurs and free competition
6. Wilson won presidency (Rep. split), linked to reform
ii. Woodrow Wilson: The Scholar as President
1. impressive in bearing, eloquent
2. idealism alienated him
iii. Tariff and Banking Reform
1. tariff reform – goal of Wilson
a. read tariff message to Congress in person (unheard of)
b. bill passed in House, but stopping in Senate
c. denounced tariff lobbyists
d. Senate slashed tariff rates more than House
e. Underwood-Simmons Tariff reduced rates 15%
2. bank system required change
a. bankers – privately controlled banks
b. progressives – publicly controlled central system
c. Wilson insisted banking under public control
3. Federal Reserve Act of 1913
a. network of 12 regional Federal Reserve banks under mixed
public and private control
b. became strong monetary institution
c. guard against financial panics, promote economic growth,
dampen inflationary pressures
d. Wilson’s greatest legislative achievement
iv. Corporate Regulations
1. Federal Trade Commission Act 1914 – administrative
a. created Federal Trade Commission to investigate violations,
require regular reports, issue orders if needed
2. Clayton Antitrust Act 1914 – traditional
a. spelled out illegal practices, such as selling at a loss
3. FTC “watchdogs” linked to big business, ultimately ineffective
v. Labor Legislation and Farm Aid
1. Wilson supported American Federation of Labor
a. Keating-Owen Act 1916 – barred products manufactured by
child labor
b. Adamson Act 1916 – 8 hour workday for railway workers
c. Workmen’s Compensation Act 1916 – accident and injury
protection
d. Federal Farm Loan Act/Federal Warehouse Act 1916 –
farmers can secure low-interest loans
e. Federal Highway Act 1916 – funds for state highways
vi. Progressivism and the Constitution
1. Muller vs. Oregon – constitutionality of 10 hour law for women laundry
workers
a. Louis Brandeis defended – reasons it was unhealthy
2. Wilson nominated Brandeis to Supreme Court 1916 (approved)
3. Progressive Era produced four amendments
a. Sixteenth 1913 – Congress the authority to tax income
b. Seventeenth 1913 – direct election of senators
c. Eighteenth 1919 – nationwide prohibition
d. Nineteenth 1920 – women the right to vote
vii. 1916: Wilson Edges Out Hughes
1. Wilson wins renomination 1916, Republicans Charles Evans Hughes,
Progressive to Roosevelt (who declines) and supports Hughes
2. Wilson wins popular vote, barely electoral