Four Goals
Caused by social upheavals
 Progressive Movement -> aimed to
restore economic opportunities and
correct injustices in American Life

 1) protecting social welfare
 2) promoting moral improvement
 3) creating economic reform
 4) fostering efficiency
Protecting Social Welfare





Soften harsh conditions of industrialization
Aimed to help the poor through community
centers, churches, and social services
YMCA -> opened libraries, sponsored
classes, and built swimming pools and
handball courts
Salvation Army -> fed people
Florence Kelly -> improve lives of women
and children
Promoting Moral Improvement

Morality held the key to improving the
lives of poor people
 Improve social behavior

Prohibition
 Banning of alcoholic beverages
 Undermining American morals
 Clash with immigrants -> customs, cash
checks, serving meals
Economic Reform

Began to question capitalist economic
system
 Looking at socialism
 Created uneven balance between business,
gov’t, and ordinary people
 Big business often received favorable
treament from gov’t officials and politicians
○ Muckrakers -> wrote about the corrupt side of
business and public life
Fostering Efficiency
Put faith in experts and scientific
principles to make society and the
workplace more efficient
 Time and motion studies by Frederick
Winslow Taylor

 “Taylorism” was applied to scientific
management studies to see how quickly
each task could be performed
○ Caused high turnover due to injuries suffered
Cleaning Up Local Government
Political bosses rewarded their supporters
with jobs and kickbacks and openly bought
votes with favors and bribes
 Natural disasters play huge role

 Hurricane in Galveston, TX – horrible relief
reforms
 Flood in Dayton, OH – lead to city council
management

Reform mayors
 Lowered transportation costs
 Eliminate greedy private business owners
 Citizens should play more active role
Reform at State Level


States passed laws to regulate railroads,
mines, mills, telephone companies, and other
large business
Reform Governors
 Regulate big business
○ Drive them out of politics

Protecting Children
 End child labor
○ Low skilled jobs = less skilled worker
○ Smaller tools
 Keating – Owen Act = prohibited transportation of
goods over state lines that was produced by child
labor
Limit Working Hours

Muller vs. Oregon
 Said that women required the state’s
protection against powerful employers
 Reduced women’s work hours

Progressives also succeeded in winning
workers’ compensation to aid the
families of workers who were hurt or
killed on the job
The Work Force

Women not wealthy enough to fill
“stereotype” roll
 Began to work for wages
Southern women began to work on the
farm
 Started to work in industry

 Least skilled positions

Domestic jobs
 Cleaning, babysitting, etc.
Reform
Pushed for changes due to dangerous
conditions, long hours, and low wages
 Began to attend women colleges

 Education > marriage
Wanting Suffrage

National Association of Colored Women
(NACW)
 Managed nurseries, reading rooms, and
kindergartens

Susan B. Anthony
 Leading role in women’s suffrage

Men become worried of the woman’s
vote
 Prohibition and child labor laws
3 Part Strategy for Suffrage

3 different approaches
 Convince legislator to grant suffrage
○ Worked in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho
 Pursued court cases to test the 14th amendment
○ Denying men the right to vote = loss of
representation
○ Tested this by trying to vote
○ Supreme Court said women are citizens but not all
citizens have this right
 Pushed for Constitutional amendment
○ Introduced but not successful in California
○ Continuously voted down
Teddy Roosevelt



President McKinley assassinated
Helps negotiate peace between Russia and Japan
 Wants to control political and economic aspects of
East Asia
Wanted to build canal to cut Central America in half for
shorter route
 Panama gains independence from Colombia
 Agrees to allow U.S. to build canal
 Very dangerous work (many people die)
The Roosevelt Corollary

Financial matters drew U.S. further into Latin
American affairs
 Latin America borrows money from Europe to
build roads and railroads
○ Afraid that a loan default would cause
Europeans to intervene
○ Monroe Doctrine (1823) -> Europeans were
to stay out of Latin American affairs
○ Roosevelt Corollary -> U.S. would use force
to protect it’s interests
Square Deal
“It is the duty of the president to act
upon the theory that he is steward of the
people, and … to assume that he has
the legal right to do whatever the needs
of the people demand, unless the
Constitution or the laws explicitly forbid
him to do it.”
 Square Deal -> described the various
progressive reforms sponsored by the
Roosevelt Administration

Using Federal Power


Thought the U.S. required strong federal gov’t
Trusts -> legal body that would control stocks
of a particular company (Standard Oil)
 Controlled about 4/5 of U.S. industries
 Lower prices to drive out competition then raise
them after competition was gone

Roosevelt attacks Northern Securities
Company (controlled northwestern railroads)
 Had Justice Department sue this company leading to
it dissolving.
1902 Coal Strike
140k + coal miners in Penn. strike for
20% raise, 9 hr. workday, right to form
union
 Roosevelt invites both parties to White
House

 Got 10% raise, 9 hr. workday
 Had to give up right to form union and the
ability to strike for 3 years

Federal gov’t now expected to intervene
in future strikes
Railroad Regulation

Roosevelt passes the Elkins Act
 Made it illegal for railroad officials to give,
and shippers to receive, rebates for using
particular railroads

Hepburn Act 1906
 Limited the distribution of free railroad
passes (used as bribery)
 Gave commission the right to set max.
railroad prices
Health + Environment

Food and Drugs
 “The Jungle” leads to Meat Inspection Act
○ Dictated strict cleanliness requirements and
the inspection of meat by the federal gov’t
 Pure Food and Drug Act
○ Halted the sale of contaminated foods and
medicines
○ Called for truth in labeling (accurate labels)

Natural Resource Conservation
 Overuse of natural resources
○ Deforestation, excessive coal mines, overgrazing
plains
 Measures were taken
○ Kept large pieces of federal land from being sold
privately
○ Mediation between conserved land and exploited
land
○ Funded large scale irrigation projects in the West
Roosevelt on Civil Rights

Failed to support civil rights for AfricanAmericans
 Did appoint African-American to head of
custom house in Charleston, S.C.
○ When Mississippi refused to acknowledge
this, Roosevelt shut their office down
 Dismissed African-American regiment from
army on suspicions of protecting someone in
a murder case
○ Fired back by inviting Booker T. Washington to
White House

W.E.B. Du Bois shows opposition
 Attacks Washington
○ Says he accommodates segregationists
○ Blames blacks for their poverty
○ Urges them to accept discrimination
 Quote pg. 325

Du Bois holds rally in Niagara Falls and
forms the NAACP (National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People)
 6,000+ members by 1914
 Progressive ideals focused on middle class
whites
Becoming President

Was Roosevelt’s Secretary of War
 Picked to run against William Jennings
Bryan

Easily beat Bryan who was running for
the 3rd consecutive time
Early Stumbles
Wanted to consolidate previous reforms
 Not very popular in the beginning
 Had trouble with members of his own
party
 Tariffs and conservation become main
focus

Tariffs and Conservation

Payne Bill (H.O.R.)
 Lowered rates on imported manufactured goods

Aldrich Bill (Senate)
 Made fewer cuts and increased many rates

Payne-Aldrich Tariff
 A compromise that only moderated the high rates of the
Aldrich Bill
 Believed that Taft was straying from Progressivism
 Taft calls it the “best tariff bill the Republicans had ever
passed”

Taft appoints Richard A. Ballinger as secretary of the
interior
 Removed 1 mil. Acre of forest and mining lands from the
reserved list and returned it to the public domain
Split of the Republicans

Two types of Republicans
 Progressives who wanted change and those who
didn’t

Joseph Cannon (Uncle Joe) -> Speaker of
House
 Chairman of House Rules Committee (decides which
bills Congress will consider)
 Often ignored progressive bills

With help from Dem. Progressive Rep. called
for the entire House to elect the Committee on
Rules and excluded the Speaker from
membership in the committee
Bull-Moose Party

Roosevelt leaves office, goes to Africa to hunt, comes back
to people wanting him back in office
 Decides to run for 3rd term
 Taft has advantage because he is incumbent
○ His supporters relocate to areas where Roosevelt had supporters

Progressive Republicans refuse to vote and create 3rd
party (Bull Moose Party)
 Wanted direct election of senators and the adoption in all states
of the initiative, referendum, and recall
 Agreed with women’s suffrage , workmen’s compensation, 8 hr.
workday, min. wage for women, no child labor, federal
commission to regulate business

Democrats get great chance to regain White House
 Nominate Woodrow Wilson as their candidate
1912 Election

Wilson runs on “New Freedom” idea
 Demanded stronger antitrust legislation, banking
reform, and reduced tariffs

Roosevelt and Taft fighting each other
 “Don’t’ interfere when your enemy is destroying
himself”
Race between Roosevelt’s progressivism,
Taft’s conservatism, and Wilson’s “New
Freedom”
 Wilson wins election and Roosevelt defeats
Taft as 3rd party candidate

Wilson and the Tariffs
Called for assault on “triple wall of
privilege”: tariffs, banks, and trusts
 Focused first on tariffs

 Called Congress to a special session
 Passed the Underwood Tariff -> provided
reduction of rates (especially import fees)
 Enacted a graduated income tax
Battling the Bankers with the
Federal Reserve System



Still lagging behind post Civil War
Banks located in big cities such as New York ->
difficult to mobilize to smaller areas who were in
financial stress
Federal Reserve Act -> nationwide banking
system of 12 regional banks with their own central
bank
 Issue paper money in emergency situations
 Could create money to make loans
 Could transfer money to member banks to “bail them out”
Wilson and Trusts

Federal Trade Commission -> created
commission to investigate industries
engaged in interstate commerce
 Wanted to “kill” unfair trade, unlawful
competition, false advertisement,
mislabeling, and bribery

Clayton Anti-Trust Act -> lengthened the
Sherman Anti-Trust Act targeting price
discrimination and ending holding
companies
More Reforms for Wilson

Federal Farm Loan Act
 Available credit for farmers at low interest
rates

Workingmen’s Compensation Act
 Granted assistance to federal civil-service
employees during periods of disability

Adamson Act
 8 hr work day for all employees on trains in
interstate commerce with extra pay for
overtime
Women Win Suffrage
Many different organizations begin to
campaign for suffrage (some successful
/ some not)
 Campaigning and WWI lead to the
passage of the 19th Amendment in 1919
and ratification in 1920

Limits of Progressivism

Disappointed Progressives who favored
social reform
 Placed segregation in charge of federal
agencies expanding racial segregation in
federal gov’t and military
○ Southern Democrats happy, Northern whites
and black supporters not so much

Wilson campaigns on equality and antilynching but does not back this in office