The Progressive Era
Chapter 18
The Progressive Era
• What is a progressive?
• Progressive Era not confined to a definitive set of years
• Progressives consisted of several groups with different objectives
 Reformers fighting corruption and inefficiency in government
including civil service reform and city bosses
 Reformers wanting to regulate/control big business
 Reformers worried about the welfare of the urban poor (settlement
houses)
The Progressive Era
• The Progressive Mind
 Sought to arouse the American conscience
 Convinced people were essentially good and that institutions were the sources
of society’s problems – reform the institution and solve the problem
 The weak, including women and children, must be protected
 Progressives were typically paternalistic, moderate, and soft-headed
 Progressives over-simplified issues and believed their values were above
question
 Progressives were not allies of socialists - they were believers in capitalism
The Progressive Era
• The Muckrakers
 Progressive journalistic fad
 A small army of writers flooded the
periodical press wanting to expose
the abuses of big businesses, social
problems such as prostitution, and
political corruption
 Ida Tarbell – exposed monopolistic
practices of Standard Oil
The Progressive Era
• “Radical” Progressives
 The depression of the late 1800’s and its
impact on the poor turned many to Marxist
socialism
 Socialism – political ideology in which the
state owns / controls business for the
benefit of the people
 Eugene V. Debs – socialist candidate for
president
 “Bohemians” – artists, writers, & musicians
who congregated in sections of cities such
as New York’s Greenwich Village
The Progressive Era
• Political Reform: Cities
 As cities grew corruption became
more disgraceful
 Muckrakers exposed corrupt city
administrations
 Political machines were attacked
using new political institutions such
as “home rule” charters and
elected commissions (Galveston)
 Commissions established city
managers
Galveston after Hurricane of 1900
The Progressive Era
• Political Reform: The States
 Best example was Wisconsin
under Governor Robert M. La
Follette
 States voted in initiatives –
where citizens could propose
legislation; referendums –
where proposed legislation
could be voted on by public;
and recall – where voters
could demand a special
election to remove an
elected official
The Progressive Era
 Progressive laws used coercion and was seen by some judges as
violating the 14th Amendment – conservative judges were against
new “socialist” legislation
 Lochner v. New York – overturned law limiting bakers to a 10 hour
day
 Hammer v. Dagenhart – Supreme Court overturned child-labor law
as unconstitutional
 Adkins v. Children’s Hospital – overturned law granting women a
minimum wage
The Progressive Era
 Laws were passed giving some
protection against on-the-job
accidents
 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire set
stricter workplace standards
 Accident insurance programs were
gradually adopted
 Progressive laws sent many
conservatives to court to seek
redress
History of US: Cities: 39:10 - End
The Progressive Era
• Muller v. Oregon
 Law limiting working hours of women
laundry workers to ten hours was
challenged
 Consumer’s League, represented by Louis
Brandeis, defended the statute
 Brandeis prepared brief that included
scientific evidence of damage to women
and society
 The “Brandeis Brief” became standard
practice
The Progressive Era
• Settlement Houses
 Established mainly by middleclass women
 Provided services to poor
including classes, child care,
etc.
 Jane Addams – Hull House
The Progressive Era
• Political Reform: Woman Suffrage
Movement
 Many women bitter over failure of
14th and 15th Amendments to give
women vote
 Feminists split between just the
vote or more feminist issues
 Radicals included Elizabeth Cady
Stanton & Susan B. Anthony
The Progressive Era
 Women handicapped by lack of unity and
Victorian morality
 1890 both groups combined to form the
National American Women’s Suffrage
Association (NAWSA) – Stanton and
Anthony were first presidents
 Women concentrated on suffrage stateby-state
 Women could vote in Wyoming in 1869,
Utah, Colorado, and Idaho by 1896
 Congress approved by 1919 and the
Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1920
The Progressive Era
• Political Reform: Income
Taxes and Popular Election of
Senators
 Income taxes authorized
by the Sixteenth
Amendment
 Direct election of Senators
authorized by the
Seventeenth Amendment
The Progressive Era
• Prohibition Movement
 Progressives believed alcohol
cause of many social problems
 Temperance Movement – wanted
to moderate or eliminate alcohol
consumption
 Women’s Christian Temperance
Movement – established by women
to end the consumption of alcohol
 18th Amendment – prohibited sale
and consumption of alcohol
The Progressive Era
• Theodore Roosevelt
 Ascended to presidency upon assassination of
McKinley in 1901
 Distrusted by conservatives
 More trust-regulator than trust-buster
 Went after several trusts and holding
companies including the meat packers,
Standard Oil, and the American Tobacco
Company
 Roosevelt was not anti-corporation – made
“gentleman agreements” with several as long
as they cooperated with government
The Progressive Era
• The 1902 Coal Strike
 United Mine Workers (UMW)
stopped work demanding higher
wages, shorter hours, and
recognition of the union
 Mine owners shut down mines
determined to starve the workers
into submission
 Miners refrained from violence and
won public support
 Onset of winter and need for coal
forced Roosevelt to act
The Progressive Era
 Management refused to deal with
the union
 Roosevelt announced that unless
settlement was reached he would
order troops in – not to break the
strike – but to seize and operate
the mines
 Threat of government intervention
brought owners to terms
 Example of Roosevelt’s Square Deal
– all won something
The Progressive Era
• TR’s Triumphs
 Elected by landslide to second term
 Hepburn Bill – regulated railroads
and made the Interstate Commerce
Commission (ICC) more powerful
 Pure Food and Drug Act passed
after Roosevelt read The Jungle by
Upton Sinclair
The Progressive Era
• Roosevelt Tilts Left
 Became more Progressive as time passed
 Conservation laws
 Favored income tax, regulation of interstate
corporations, and reforms for industrial
workers
 Roosevelt lost support of conservatives and
the courts and failed to pass further reform
legislation as his term ended
Presidents: T. Roosevelt
The Progressive Era
• William Howard Taft
 Chosen by TR as his successor
 1908 Election – Taft versus Bryan
 Loyal to TR but also acceptable to
conservatives due to his lack of
aggressiveness
 Lacked stamina of TR
The Progressive Era
• Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy
 Ballinger, Secretary of the Interior,
took actions concerning
waterpower sites that alarmed
conservationists and Chief Forester
Gifford Pinchot
 Pinchot launched attacks on
Ballinger when he seemed to
surrender to mining interests
 Taft supported Ballinger and
dismissed Pinchot
The Progressive Era
 Pinchot as well as other
leaders such as Senator Henry
Cabot Lodge complained to TR
about Taft
 Taft / TR friendship ruptured –
split also between Republican
conservatives and
Progressives
 TR came out with a new
Progressive program he called
New Nationalism that called
for expansion of federal
power
The Progressive Era
 Taft’s order to break up US Steel was the
final blow to his relationship with TR who
had made deals with some of the
corporations – it made TR look like a fool
or a dupe
 TR challenged Taft for the Republican
nomination of 1912
 The Republican machine supported Taft
and TR lost the nomination
 Supporters urged TR to run on a third
party ticket – the Progressive Party aka
Bull Moose Party
Presidents: Taft
Frickin’
The Progressive Era
• The Election of 1912
 Democrats nominated Woodrow
Wilson, governor of New Jersey
 Wilson - Progressive
 His reform policies called New
Freedom – federal government
best suited to advance the cause of
social justice
 Republican split gave victory to
Wilson
Wilson
The Progressive Era
• Wilson and New Freedom
 1913 Underwood Tariff – reduced duties with lowered revenue to be replaced by
income tax
 Federal Reserve Act
• Divided nation into 12 banking districts each under a a federal reserve bank
(a bank for bankers)
• All participating banks had to invest 6% of capital and surplus in reserve bank
• Reserve bank empowered to exchange paper money for commercial and
agricultural paper used by borrowers as security
• Gold no longer dictated volume of currency
The Progressive Era
 Federal Reserve Board in
Washington had some control over
interest rates
 1914 Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) – protected the public against
trusts
 Clayton Anti-Trust Act – made
certain business practices illegal –
exempted unions
 Wilson was done – did not seek
further reforms
The Progressive Era
• Progressives and Minority Rights
 Generally, Progressives were not
sympathetic to non-whites and certain
immigrant groups including Asians, Southern
and Eastern Europeans
 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement excluded
Japanese from immigrating
 Indians were seen as inferior and secondclass citizens
 1902 Dead Indian Land Act made it easier for
Indians to sell lands
The Progressive Era
 Segregation for blacks became even
stricter (Jim Crow Laws)
 Education and equal rights were
argued against by conservatives and
Progressives alike
 Between 1900 and 1914 over 1100
blacks were murdered by mobs
 The influence of Booker T.
Washington was waning and
accommodation was no seen as
desirable
The Progressive Era
• Black Militancy
 W. E. B. DuBois
• First black to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard
• Cooperated with Washington but broke
away and became more militant
• Elitist – blacks would be saved by the
“talented tenth”
• Met at Niagara Falls in 1905 – issued list of
demands including unrestricted right to
vote and equal justice in courts
The Progressive Era
• Attracted some sympathy from descendants of
abolitionists
• 1909 – White liberals and blacks established
the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) - leadership
primarily white
• Roosevelt no different than earlier presidents
and Wilson antipathetic to blacks- believed
segregation in the best interests of both races
• DuBois attacked Wilson’s policies in The Crisis