Pageant, Chapter 28 Study Guide
Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt
1901-1912
Theme: The strong progressive movement successfully demanded that the powers of government be
applied to solving the economic and social problems of industrialization. Progressivism first gained
strength at the city and state level, and then achieved national influence in the moderately progressive
administrations of Theodore Roosevelt.
Theme: Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor, William H. Taft, aligned himself with the Republican Old
Guard, causing Roosevelt to break away and lead a progressive third-party crusade.
Part 1- (pp. 638-655)
How many Americans were there in 1900? Immigrants made up what fraction? How many immigrants
would enter the U.S. between 1900 and 1914?
Upon what evils did the progressives wage war? According to the authors, what was their single battle
cry? What does it mean?
What were the roots of the progressive movement in the United States?
Why did progressives feel that government involvement was necessary?
What did each of the following attack?
-Bryan, Altgeld and the Populists-Henry Demarest Lloyd/Wealth Against Commonwealth (1894)-Thorstein Veblen/The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)-Jacob Riis/How the Other Half Lives (1890)-Theodore Dreiser/The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914)Explain what the following sought?
-Socialists-messengers of the social gospel-feminists-Jane Addams and Lillian WaldMcClure’s, Cosmopolitan, Collier’s, and Everybody’s
“Muckrakers”
Lincoln Steffens/”The Shame of the Cities”
Ida M. Tarbell
David G. Phillips/”The Treason of the Senate” (1906)
What social evils did the muckrakers attack?
In what ways did the muckrakers signify the nature of the progressive reform movement?
Who were the progressive reformers and what two goals did they seek? What do the authors mean by,
“The truth is that progressivism was less a minority movement and more a majority mood?” (p.641)
What were the political reforms sought by the progressives?
17th Amendment (1913)
Robert M. (“Fighting Bob”) La Follette
“Separate spheres”
-What? How did this influence the tactics women reformers used?
To what issues were women often drawn?
Children’s Bureau and Women’s Bureau
Florence Kelley
Muller v. Oregon (1908)
-In what way did the argument/ruling reflect gender biases of the time?
Lochner v. New York
What judicial victory did the progressive movement achieve in 1917?
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
-What? Impact?
The authors state, “Gradually the concept of employer’s responsibility to society was replacing the dogeat-dog philosophy of unregulated free enterprise. (p.647)” Summarize in your own words.
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
Anti-Saloon League
What percentage of the population lived in “dry” territory in 1914? Why were cities generally “wet”?
18th Amendment (1919)
Teddy Roosevelt and the Square Deal
-Three C’s
Anthracite coal mine strike (1902)
-Issue?
-How did TR use the “big stick”?
-Outcome?
Department of Commerce and Labor
-What was the role of the Bureau of Corporations?
Elkins Act (1903)
Hepburn Act (1906)
-How did it strengthen the ICC?
Roosevelt as trustbuster. What was TR’s view of trusts? According to the authors, what was his real
purpose in assaulting the trusts? What was his objective?
Northern Securities Company and Supreme Court decision
In what areas did Roosevelt’s trustbusting find success?
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair (1906)
Meat Inspection Act (1906)
Pure Food and Drug Act?
What were the first initial steps towards conservation?
Why do the authors believe that a “new day in the history of conservation dawned with Roosevelt?”
Gifford Pinchot
Newlands Act (1902)
Call of the Wild, Jack London (1903)
Boy Scouts of America
Sierra Club (1892)
In what way did the Hetch Hetchy dam expose deep divisions within the conservationist movement?
“Multiple-use resource management”
-What? How did it ultimately benefit large ranchers and timber companies?
Part 2- (pp.655-660)
Why did conservative Republicans consider Roosevelt dangerous?
Why was TR’s announcement that he would not run for a third term a tactical blunder?
Panic of 1907
Aldrich-Vreeland Act (1908)
Election of 1908
-Who?
-Influence of Roosevelt?
-Outcome?
Explain what the authors mean by the following:
-“Roosevelt should be remembered first and foremost as the cowboy who started to tame the
bucking bronco of adolescent capitalism, thus ensuring it a long adult life.” (p.656)
-“His conservation crusade, which tried to mediate between the romantic wildernesspreservationists and the rapacious resource-predators, was probably his most typical and his most lasting
achievement.”
What were TRs lasting contributions?
How do the authors characterize Taft?
“Dollar diplomacy”
Nicaragua (1912)
How did Taft compare with Roosevelt when it came to trustbusting?
“rule of reason”
What factors caused the split in the Republican party?
Makers of America (pp.652-653)
1. What really caused the sudden upsurge in concern for preserving America’s environment at the
beginning of the twentieth century? To what extent was this concern motivated by nostalgia for an older
America, and to what extent by a desire to preserve nature and natural resources for future generations?
2. What were the underlying issues in the debate between rational use environmentalists and the more
thoroughgoing preservationists? How did the rise of modern ecological science tilt that debate?
Part 3-
Expanding the View

Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (1955).
A view of progressives as backward-looking individualists:
“Progressivism, at its heart, was an effort to realize familiar and traditional ideals under novel circumstances.…
At the core of their conception of politics was a figure quite as old-fashioned as the figure of the little competitive
entrepreneur who represented the most commonly accepted economic ideal. This old-fashioned character was the
Man of Good Will, the same innocent, bewildered, bespectacled, and mustached figure we see in the cartoons
today labeled John Q. Public—a white collar or small business voter-taxpayer with perhaps a modest home in the
suburbs.”

Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism (1963).
A view of progressivism as a victory for business conservatism:
“The New Freedom, in its concrete legislative aspects, was little more than the major demands of politically
oriented big businessmen. They had defined the issues, and it was they who managed to provide the direction for
change.… In its larger outlines it was they who gave progressivism its essential character. By the end of 1914
they had triumphed, and to the extent that the new laws were vague and subject to administrative definitions by
boards and commissions, they were to totally dominate the extensive reign of political capitalism that had been
created in the United States by 1915.”

Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (1967).
A view of progressives as forward-looking bureaucrats:
“Experts in administration supported by a variety of professionals sought solutions to the city’s
problems through proper procedures and continuous enforcement.… A blend of many ideas, the new
political theory borrowed its most revolutionary qualities from bureaucratic thought.… Trained,
professional servants would staff a government broadly and continuously involved in society’s
operations.… This revolutionary approach to government, incomplete as it was, eventually dominated
the politics of the early twentieth century.”
1.
According to each of these historians, who were the progressives, and what were their central
values?
2.
How would each of these historians relate the progressive constituency to the basic progressive
approach to government?
3.
How would each interpret the progressive attack on political bosses and the establishment of
independent regulatory commissions to monitor businesses such as the railroads, meat packing, and
banking?