THE PROGRESSIVE
ERA
1890-1920
Background to the Progressive Era: The Gilded
Age
• Gilded Age: 1865-1890
• Overlaps with Reconstruction
• What does Gilded mean?
• What was the Gilded Age like?
• Rapid industrialization—factories, assembly lines, mass production
• Rapid growth of cities—New York, Chicago, St. Louis, etc.
• Massive Immigration—New Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe
• Italians, Poles, Greeks, Slavs, Eastern European Jews, etc.
• Political Corruption—political machine, corrupt Senators, Representative’s
etc.
• Big Business in control—big corporations (called Trusts or Monopolies) did
whatever they wanted, no laws/regulations about working conditions,
minimum wage, workplace safety, child labor, price manipulation, etc.
• Weak Federal Govt.—Federal govt. played very little to no role in
regulating the US economy
New Reformers: The Progressives
• What was Progressivism?
• Hard to define—included a wide range of reformers/reforms
• Use the power of the government (city, state, and federal) to fix the
problems of the Gilded Age (industrialization, immigration, corruption)
• Increase democracy in the government to maximize the power of the
people and minimize the power of special interests (big business, political
machines, etc.)
• Use new science, technologies, and experts to maximize efficiency (in
government and society) and solve problems
• Who were the Progressives?
• Generally the Progressives came from the middle class—people who were
tired of, and the key victims of, corruption in politics
• Debate: Is it a good thing to use government regulations to fix
economic and social problems? How much influence over our daily
lives should the government have?
Beginnings of Progressivism: The Muckrakers
• Investigative journalists who exposed some of the problems of the
Gilded Age (1890’s—early 1900’s)
• Famous Muckrakers
• Jacob Riis—How the Other Half Lives (1890)—about tenements in New York
• Lincoln Steffens—“The Shame of the Cities” (1902)—about municipal
corruption/the political machine
• Ida Tarbell—The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904)—highlighted
the abuses of John Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company
• Upton Sinclair—The Jungle (1906)—highlighted sanitation abuses in
Chicago meatpacking plants
• Muckraker articles led many (especially in the middle class) to
demand reform and government action to address these problems
Early Progressivism: Fix the government so
government can fix everything else
• Governmental Reforms—meant to increase the power of the people
(democracy)
• Primary Elections instead of conventions or caucuses
• People got to directly vote for their party’s candidate instead of a small group
of elites deciding or a group of delegates at a convention
• Direct election of US Senators
• 17th Amendment (1913)—the people elected Senators not the legislative branch
of state governments
• Initiative, referendum, and recall
• Instituted on the state and local level ONLY
• Initiative=voters could submit legislation and get laws passed by popular vote
(without having to go to the state legislature) direct democracy
• Referendum=certain issues passed by state legislatures had to be sent to the
people to vote on before they took effect
• Recall=government officials could be voted out of office before their term had
expired
• Secret (or Australian) Ballot—vote kept secret
Democracy for Women: Women’s Suffrage
• Women’s Suffrage had been active since the Seneca Falls
Convention (1848)
• Women had some successes after the Civil War, especially in
western states—Wyoming 1869
• Women’s suffrage fit in well with the Progressive ideology of
increased democracy as a means of reform
• Two strategies for obtaining women’s suffrage
• Constitutional Amendment
• State Action
• By 1920 40 states had women’s suffrage of one form or another,
although only 15 states had full women’s suffrage (able to vote in
every election) (And only two of those NY and MI were east of the
Mississippi River)
• 19th Amendment (1920) barred any restriction on voting due to sex
Progressive Reforms of City/State: Influence of
Experts
• Galveston Texas 1901: The City Manager System
• Citizens elect a mayor and city council who make the big decisions on
behalf of the people
• Mayor and city council then hire an expert to manage the city (City
Manager)
• City manager hires other experts to manage city departments: ex.
someone trained as an engineer to manage the sewer system, a trained
accountant to be city treasurer
• Mayor and city council face reelection every few years, city manager/other
managers are employees who can be fired at any time by the mayor and
city council
• Debate: Is the city manager system and the reliance on experts
democratic? Who makes the decisions that impact people’s lives on
a daily basis?
Progressive Presidents: Roosevelt
• Roosevelt became President in 1901 after the assassination of
President McKinley
• Breaking up abusive big businesses: The “Trust Buster”
• Northern Securities Case 1904 – first time a monopoly was broken up by
the federal govt.
• Regulating Big Business
• Numerous laws passed to limit the power of railroads/stop railroad abuses
• Pure Food and Drug Act 1906
• Meat Inspection Act 1906
• New Attitude Toward Labor
• Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902
• Conservation of Natural Resources
• Creation and expansion of the National Forest System and National Park
System to preserve and conserve the country’s wilderness areas
Progressive Presidents: Taft
• Election of 1908
• Roosevelt voluntarily steps down, picks Taft as his successor
• Taft easily wins the election
• Taft Presidency
• Broke up more trusts than Roosevelt
• Set aside more land as national parks and forests than Roosevelt
• Roosevelt/Taft Split
• Taft never a die-hard progressive reformer, more conservative less enthusiastic
about progressivism—angered Roosevelt’s supporters
• Taft and Roosevelt disagreed about some of Taft’s decisions
• Roosevelt decided to run for reelection in 1912 so did Taft
• Problem: 2 Republicans both want to run for President, what needs to
happen?
• Roosevelt popular with the people, won the primaries
• Taft popular with party leaders, won the delegates at the convention won the
nomination
• Roosevelt formed his own third party, Progressive Party (Bull Moose Party)
Election of 1912: Roosevelt vs. Taft vs. Wilson
• Republicans nominated Taft
• Bull Moose nominated Roosevelt
• Democrats nominated Woodrow Wilson
• Republican vote split, Democrats won
• Results
•
•
•
•
Wilson: 435 electoral votes, 41.8% of vote
Roosevelt: 88 electoral votes, 27.4% of vote
Taft: 8 electoral votes, 23.2% of vote
Debs (socialist): 0 electoral votes, 6% of vote
• Question: Wilson won the election but did he represent the 1 st or
even the 2nd choice of most people in the country?
Alternative Vote:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiHuiDD_oTk&NR=1&feature=fv
wp&safe=active
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmP81NW9_O0&safe=active
Progressive Presidents: Wilson
• Woodrow Wilson (1912-1920)
• 1st Democratic President since Grover Cleveland
• Only the 2nd Democrat to win a Presidential election since 1860
• Wilson’s Progressivism: Attack “the three walls of privilege”
• Tariff
• Wilson pushed through a dramatically lower tariff: Underwood Tariff 1913
• Lower tariff meant less money for the federal government—led to the 16th amendment (income
tax) and the first income tax (on the very wealthy only) to make up the difference
• Banks
• A small group of wealthy bankers controlled the nation’s money supply by manipulating the gold
and currency market, industrial economy needed a more flexible currency system
• Solution=The Federal Reserve Act of 1913
• Federal Reserve system created—public/private combination controlled by the government
(federal reserve board appointed by the President) but the actual Reserve Banks were owned by
commercial banks
• Could issue Federal Reserve Notes (paper money)
• Trusts
• Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914—set up the FTC investigated unfair business practices
• Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914—beefed up the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890
Other Progressive Actions by Wilson
• For farmers
• Federal Farm Loan Act 1916
• Warehouse Act of 1916 (both old Populist ideas)
• La Follette Seamen’s Act of 1915
• Protected commercial sailors from workplace abuse
• Workingmen’s Compensation Act of 1916
• Unemployment and disability payments for FEDERAL employees
• Child labor laws—eventually overturned
• Adamson Act 1916—8 hour workday for railroad workers
The Dark Side to Progressivism: Control through
the State
• Prohibition
• Progressives allied with prohibitionists to oppose the manufacture and sale
of alcohol
• Why?
• “Scientific” evidence that alcohol was linked to crime, unemployment, domestic
abuse, etc
• In the new industrial economy drinking on the job had the potential to be a major
problem
• Alcohol was associated with immigrant culture (Italian wine drinkers, German
beer drinkers, East European vodka drinkers, etc.) Progressives sought to
Americanize these groups, banning alcohol was one way to do that
• 18th Amendment (1919) took effect 1920 banned the manufacture,
transport, and sale of alcohol (repealed in 1933, 21st amendment)
Dry vs. Wet States
The Dark Side to Progressivism: Control through
the State
• The push to “Americanize” immigrants
• Progressives were worried about preserving the American identity—
especially with large numbers of new immigrants coming to the US
• Progressives took it upon themselves to teach these new immigrants how
to be “American”
• How?
• Public Schools—pledge of allegiance, civics classes, teaching English, etc.
• Settlement houses—teaching English and “American” culture to immigrants
• Going into immigrant neighborhoods and households to transform them into
“American households”
• Problems?
• Loss of immigrant languages, cultures, and sometimes religions
• When the progressives said “American” what did they really mean?
The Dark Side to Progressivism: Control through
the State
• Eugenics—NOT something all progressives believed
• Belief that social problems—unemployment, crime, un-intelligence—were
primarily based on genetics not on other factors (like upbringing or socioeconomic status)
• If those who were genetically pre-disposed to crime, mental disability,
unemployment, etc. could be prevented from having children society
could breed out many of the problems it currently had
• Many states passed eugenics laws that called for the involuntary
sterilization of criminals, and the mentally disabled
• Buck v. Bell 1927
• State of Virginia had a law that mandated the forced sterilization of the
mentally handicapped
• Carrie Buck was a patient in a Virginia state asylum, her mother was mentally
disabled, and her daughter was deemed to have an abnormally low IQ as well
• Buck’s lawyers argued that the Virginia law violated her right to liberty as
outlined in the 14th amendment
• Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in fav0r of Virginia
• “Three generations of imbeciles are enough”
• Forced sterilization laws remained on the books until 1974
African Americans and the Progressive Era
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois
• Life for African Americans during the Progressive Era
•
•
•
•
•
•
Not good—most rights gained during Reconstruction rolled back by 1900
Ex. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Jim Crow Laws in practically every Southern State by early 1900’s
Informal harassment and prejudice
Extreme poverty for many but not all African Americans
Segregation by the Federal Govt. for the first time since the Civil War—Woodrow Wilson
• African American leaders
• Booker T. Washington
•
•
•
•
•
Born into slavery
Grew up in the South
Poor
Became a self-made success (Graduated from Hampton University)
Became the head of the Tuskegee Institute
• W.E.B. DuBois
•
•
•
•
Born into a free-African American family living in Boston
Grew up in the North
Middle/Upper Class
Graduated from Harvard (PhD) became a sociologist and professor at University of Pennsylvania