The Progressive Era,
1880-1920
Chapter 22
The Progressive Era, 1880-1920
Main points & Issues
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Origins of Progressivism
Characteristics and Beliefs
Moderate Responses to Extremes in
America
Major Trends and Examples
Successes and Legacies
Origins of Progressivism
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Reaction to “extremes” of modern life
Capitalism & individualism
Urbanization & Industrialization
Labor conflict
Immigration
Environmental exploitation
Social “problems”
Characteristics
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Middle class
morality
Moderation
Scientific
Order and stability
Active government
Collective
responsibility
Characteristics
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Conservation of
resources
Assimilation
Social Gospel
Professional
Organizations
Economic Extremes
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Corporate control of industry,
resources
Rockefeller & Oil (1911)
Carnegie & U.S. Steel
“Big Four” railroads
Political influence
Anti-democratic
Standard Oil, 1906
The Other “Extreme”
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Labor Unions
Strikes & protests
Knights of Labor
AFL
Populist Party
United Mine Workers
I.W.W.
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
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1911 New York City
Locked doors
800 trapped
146 women died
Female labor, bad
working conditions,
immigrant rights,
shop floor laws
Deaths from Fire
Immigration&
Progressivism
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9 million between 1900-1910
The American Dream?
Tenements and sweatshops
Racial hierarchies
Ethnic enclaves
Southeastern Europe, Catholic,
languages and customs
Controlling Immigration
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1882: Immigration Act
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1883: Chinese Exclusion Act
Immigration Act of 1891
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Tax, “idiots, lunatics, convicts, and persons likely to
become a public charge”
Polygamists, moral turpitude, diseases
Office of the Superintendent of Immigration
1894: Immigration Restriction League
1895: Bureau of Immigration
1903: Moved to Department of Commerce &
Labor
1904: Made anti-Chinese laws permanent
1906: Basic Naturalization Act
1917 Immigration Act
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"all idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane
persons; persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity
at any time previously; persons of constitutional psychopathic
inferiority; persons with chronic alcoholism; paupers;
professional beggars; vagrants; persons afflicted with
tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome or dangerous
contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the
foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified
by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically
defective, such physical defect being of a nature which may affect
the ability of such alien to earn a living; persons who have been
convicted of or admit having committed a felony or other crime or
misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists, or persons
who practice polygamy or believe in or advocate the practice of
polygamy; anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the
overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United
States"
Asiatic Barred Zone, 1917
El Paso in the Progressive Era
Using Ringside Seat to a Revolution,
find three examples of events,
issues, debates, controversies,
people, etc., that are related to the
themes of the Progressive Era
 Explain why and how are they
Progressive Era issues.
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El Paso in the Progressive Era
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Housing, prostitution, poll
taxes, drinking, inter-racial
relationships
“Muckraker” journalism &
photography
Revolution, 1910-1920s
Anti-Mexican fears
Radicalism
Defacto segregation &
Segundo Barrio
The Border, The Bridge and
the Bath Riots
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Control the border, orderly immigration
Immigration Law of 1917
1917 shut down the bridge
Mayor Tom Lea
Carmelita Torres
Delousing & the Bath Riots
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Zyklon B
Dozens died in fire
Eugenics & scientific racism
Progressivism in El Paso
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Prohibition
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1918 18th Amend
16 de Septiembre
Prostitution
Vice squads
Jazz & inter-racial
nightclubs
Journalism, film &
photography
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Segregated Schools
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Douglas & Aoy
Segundo Barrio &
Chihuahuita
Destruction of Mexican
adobe homes
Democratic Ring
Poll taxes
Censored newspapers
Settlement Houses
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Jane Addams
Hull House
Employment, health,
education, language
Assimilation and
Americanization
Best and worst of
Progressivism
Public Health and Cities
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No clean water
Sewage systems
Tenements
Ventilation & fire
codes
Zoning & regulation
Tuberculosis &
disease
Jacob Riis, Photographer
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Police photographer
Photography and
social justice
Muckraker
Progressive Journalism
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Corruption and social injustice
Raise the consciousness of America
Morality, democracy, Christianity
Muckrakers
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Ida B. Wells and lynching
Ida Tarbell and Standard Oil
Upton Sinclair and The Jungle, 1906
Progressivism & Eugenics
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Produce superior races
of people
Social Darwinism
No miscegenation
Anti-immigration
Control & organize races
Racial purity
“Intelligence”
Sterilization
“Fitter families & better babies”
Environmentalism
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Exploitation
Natural Resources
as public resources
Preserve & protect
Use but conserve
John Muir
Gifford Pinchot
National Parks
Child Labor
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No regulations
Few public schools
Cotton fields,
factories and coal
mines
People of color
Immigrants
Working class poor
whites, southerners
National Progressivism
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Power of government to
regulate national activities
Theodore Roosevelt
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Trust-busting
Active Gov’t
Global Power
Conservation
Americanization
Eugenics
Woodrow Wilson
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Southerner
New Jersey, Princeton
1912 & 1916
Child labor, FTC, farms,
workers compensation,
anti-monopoly
Reduce Regulation
Opposed women’s
suffrage
Segregation
Reform Legislation
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1906: Pure Food and Drug Act
1913: 16th Amendment (Taxes)
1913: 17th Amendment (Senators)
1913: Harrison Act regulated narcotics
1918: 18th Amendment (Prohibition)
1920: 19th Amendment (Women’s
voting)
Racial Equality
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National Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People, 1909
Society for American
Indians, 1911
League of United Latin
American Citizens, 1929
Japanese American
Citizens League, 1929
Women Progressives
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Organizations
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WCTU
GFWC
WTUL
Feminists Alliance
Issues
 Women’s rights
 Poverty
 Alcoholism
 Child Labor
 Public Education
Women’s Suffrage
Conclusions
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Reaction to extremes of modern life
Middle class reform and regulation
Government activity in economy
A range of reform activities
Assimilation and progressivism
It had a wicked side to it…