1889-1916
An effort to impose order & justice on society
that was approaching chaos
What created the chaos?
Rapid industrialization
Urbanization
Immigration
Laissez faire
White Protestants
African Americans
Middle class
College-educated professionals
Scholars, writers
Politicians
Union leaders
Society was capable of improvement
Growth and advancement were the nation’s
destiny
What didn’t work?
Laissez faire
Social Darwinism
Direct, purposeful human intervention in
social and economic affairs was essential
GOVT ACTION NEEDED!
Progressives wanted MILD
reforms. They were NOT
RADICALS
Antimonopoly
Fear of concentrated
power
Urge to limit/disperse
authority & wealth
Social cohesion
We are part of a great
social web
Each person’s welfare
is dependent on the
welfare of society as a
whole
Faith in Knowledge
Applying the principles
of natural and social
sciences to society
Knowledge can make
society equitable and
humane
Modernized govt must
play important role
Crusading journalists
Exposed scandal,
corruption and injustice
Targets:
Trusts
Political machines
Factories
Social Justice
Justice for all of society
Egalitarian society
Support for the poor and oppressed ppl
American Protestant movement
Social justice and sacrifice should be foundation of
society
Salvation Army
Fusion of religion and reform
Charles Sheldon: In His
Steps (1898); “What would
Jesus do?”
Walter Rauschenbusch:
all ppl should work
toward creating the
Kingdom of God on
Earth
Father John A. Ryan:
expand Catholic social
welfare organizations
Influence of the
environment on the
individual
Crowded immigrant
neighborhoods
Staffed by educated
middle class teaching
middle class values
Young college women
Social work
Enlightened experts
should run govt and
economy
Scientists and engineers
Thorstein Veblen
New middle class emerges
Industries: managers, technicians, accountants
Cities: commercial, medical, legal, educational services
New technology: scientists, engineers
Requires schools and teachers to train them
Education and individual accomplishments
Women in the “helping” professions
Created professional organizations
Why?
Set up standards to secure position
Lend prestige to profession
Keep #’s down to ensure high demand
AMA (1901); medical schools
Bar associations; law schools
Chamber of Commerce (1912); schools of business
1. Vast majority of income-producing work outside of the
home
2. Children going to school earlier & longer
3. Technological innovations impact the home
4. Families are smaller
5. Living longer
6. Some shun marriage
7. Divorce rates increase
Women’s clubs
First social but then concerned w/ social betterment
Non-partisan (Remember, couldn’t vote)
Middle to upper class women (clubs had $$)
Allowed women to create a public space for themselves
w/o threatening male dominated society
Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903)
Join unions, support strikes, picket lines, bail money
African Americans excluded
NY Women’s Trade Union League & Intl. Ladies
Garment Workers Union
1909: 50 hour workweek, wage increases, preferential
hiring for union members
1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (NY)
146 female workers killed; avg age 19
Reformers, union leaders, women’s groups, politicians
from Tammany Hall
Machine politicians & progressive reformers
Laws regulating fire safety, equipment, wages and hours
for women and children
19th Amendment provides full
suffrage to women in all the
states, 1920.
Radical idea: it was a “natural right”
Led to a powerful anti-suffrage movement; a threat to
the “natural order”
Looseness, promiscuity, divorce, child neglect
20th Century
National American Woman Suffrage Association
(NAWSA)
Justify suffrage in a “safer” way
Not challenging the separate sphere
Because they ARE mothers, wives and homemakers
Bring special experiences and sensitivities to public life
Would help temperance movement (largest supporter)
Would help war become a thing of the past
Conservative Argument
If blacks, immigrants and other undesirables have the
vote, then…educated “well-born” women should
1848: Seneca Falls
1890: Wyoming
1910: Washington
1911: CA
1913: IL (1st state east of Miss. River)
1919: 39 states
1920: 19th Amendment
Alice Paul: Not enough; Equal Rights Amendment
1873: Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Francis Willard
1890s: Anti-Saloon League
Local level: isolate “wet” areas
State level: Use of direct democracy
1913: Lobby for Amendment
Impact of entry into WWI
1919: 18th Amendment
Immigration polluting the nation’s racial stock
Carnegie Foundation: turn eugenics into a
method for altering human reproduction
Races and ethnic groups graded
Sterilization
1916: “The Passing of the Great Race”
(Madison Grant)
Dillingham Commission
Muckrakers role
Middle class blamed
machine politicians
saloon owners
brothel keepers
businessmen connected to political
machines
City Reforms
City
Commissioner Plan
City Manager
Plan
Cities hired experts in different fields to run a
single aspect of city government. For example,
the sanitation commissioner would be in charge
of garbage and sewage removal.
A professional city manager is hired to run each
department of the city and report directly to the
city council.
1900: Galveston, TX tidal wave
Commission Plan
1908: Staunton, VA
City-Manager Plan
Plans promotes efficiency/undermines patronage of
machine
Old system benefitted the working class; new ones were
controlled by new professionals
Non-partisan mayoral elections
Mayoral elections moved to off-election years
Ward (neighborhood) elections switched to citywide
elections
Hazen Pingree (Detroit):
1889-96
Samuel Jones (Toledo);
1897-1903
Tom Johnson (Cleveland);
1901-09
State Reforms
Allows voters to petition to have an elected
representative removed from office.
Recall
Initiative
Referendum
Allows voters to petition state legislatures in
order to consider a bill desired by citizens.
Allows voters to decide if a bill or proposed
amendment should be passed.
Secret Ballot
Privacy at the ballot box ensures that citizens
can cast votes without party bosses knowing
how they voted.
Direct Primary
Ensures that voters select candidates to run for
office, rather than party bosses.
Wisconsin governor,
Senator
Direct primaries,
initiatives and
referendums
Regulated RRs and
utilities
Workers’ compensation
Inheritance tax
Increased taxes on RRs
and business
Decline of party of influence
Voter turnout decreases
Why?
Secret ballot
Illiteracy among immigrants
Interest groups
17th Amendment: Direct election of Senators
Thomas
Nast was the artist for
Harper's Weekly in the late 1800s.
 Father of American Caricature."
Nast's campaign against New York
City's political boss William Tweed
is legendary
Nast's cartoons depicted Tweed as
a sleazy criminal
Tweed was known to say, "Stop
them damn pictures. I don't care
what the papers write about me.
My constituents can't read. But,
damn it, they can see the pictures."
Contradiction b/w
progressive rhetoric and
their conscious
discrimination
Fearful of interracial
alliance under populism
1890s south: Jim Crow,
voter restrictions
Mississippi Gov. James
Vardaman
Atlanta Compromise
Self-improvement first
Equality later
By turn of century:
challenge to
Washington and
structure of race
relations
Harvard grad
1903: Souls of Black Folk
Trade school vs.
university education
Fight for civil rights;
don’t wait for white to
rescue them
1905: Niagara Movement
1909: NAACP
NAACP attorneys
1915: Guinn v United States
Grandfather clause unconstitutional
1917: Buchanan v Worley
Residential segregation unconstitutional
NAACP wanted federal
law against lynching
Ida Wells
NACW
Women’s Convention of
the National Baptist
Church
Radical Reformers
Radicalism: 1900-14
Socialist Party of America
Eugene Debs
Urban workers,
intellectuals, tenant
farmers
1,200 public offices; 79
mayors in 24 states
Public ownership of
utilities, 8 hr workday,
pensions
Need for basic structural changes in economy
Differed in extent of those changes and the
tactics necessary to achieve them
Allow small-scale private enterprise but nationalize
major industries
Electoral politics vs. direct militant action
Moderates dominated (workers’ comp and min.
wage)
Opposed WWI; hurt the PArty
Industrial Workers of the
World (1905)
Utopian state run by
workers
Blacks, immigrants and
women; unskilled labor
Rejected political action;
favored general strikes
Uncompromising
1917 timber strike
William “Big Bill” Haywood
But most progressives
believed capitalist
system could be
reformed from within
Reformers pushed for the
government to play an
active role in planning and
regulating economic life
SUPERVISION, CONTROL and
REGULATION
Sept. 14, 1901
Republican Party leaders thought that the vice presidency would be a political dead end
“The unscrupulous rich man who
seeks to exploit and oppress those
who are less well off is in spirit not
opposed to, BUT IDENTITCAL
WITH, the unscrupulous poor
man who desires to plunder and
oppress those who are better off.”
A “Square Deal”
Controlling corporations
Consumer protection
Conservation of natural resources
Govt should have power to investigate the
activities of corporations and publicize the
results
1903: Dept of Commerce and Labor
1903: Elkins Act
Illegal for RRs to give or shippers to receive
rebates
1906: Hepburn Act
Increased power of ICC
Oversee RR rates
Centralization was a fact
of modern life
“good” vs. “bad” trusts
J.P. Morgan’s Northern
Securities Company
“Send your man to my
man and they can fix it
up.”
1904: Supreme Court
decision
1902: Anthracite Coal Strike in PA (May through Oct.)
20% wage increase; 8 hour day, recognition of union
TR supported workers; owners refused to compromise
TR threatened to send in 10k fed. Troops to seize the
mines and resume work.
Workers got: 10% wage increase, 9 hour day BUT no
union recognition
1906: Meat Inspection
Act
Federal inspection of
meat
The Jungle
Pure Food and Drug Act
Crime to sell
adulterated food or
medicine
Correct and complete
labeling of ingredients
Used executives powers to restrict private development
on govt land
1907: conservatives restricted his authority over public
lands; he just seized all forests in public domain before
bill became law
Conservationist
Promoted policies to protect land for careful
MANGAGED DEVELOPMENT
1902: Newlands Act
Naturalists
John Muir and the Sierra
Club
Added to the National
Park System
Bank run and recession blamed on TR’s “mad”
economic policy
J.P. Morgan to the rescue
US Steel purchased Tennessee Coal and Iron Co.
TR promises to look the other way
Crisis averted
Republican conservatives couldn’t stand TR
1904 promise
Taft: trusted ally of TR
Progressives loved him
Easily defeat Bryan in
1908 election
Too lazy and introverted
Status quo
Lacked personality
90 lawsuits in 4 years
Compared to TR’s 44 in 7.5 years
1911: Supreme Court breaks up Standard Oil
1911: Taft brings suit against US Steel for its purchase
of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Co
TR upset
Tariff
Progressives: deep cuts to the “Mother of Trusts”
1909: Payne-Aldrich Bill; betrayal
Ballinger-Pinchot Dispute
Taft replaces Sec. of Interior w/ corporate lawyer
Ballinger
Ballinger accused of turning over public coal land to
company for personal profit
Pinchot went to Taft; Taft said nothing wrong
Pinchot goes public and gets fired
Big business requires big government.
Antitrust lawsuit against
US Steel in Oct. 1911
Robert La Follette’s
nervous breakdown in
Feb 1912
Announces candidacy in
Feb. 1912