• 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 (mugwumps)
Reformers wanting to regulate/control big business
Reformers worried about the welfare of the urban poor
(settlement houses)
• The return of prosperity fueled the progressive
movement
• The comfortable middle-class more tolerant and
generous
• Change was now harmonious with middle-class
values of social improvement
• The Muckrakers
 Progressive journalistic fad
 Articles showed the fundamental
immorality at all levels of
American society
 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
• 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
• “Radical” Progressives
 The depression of the late 1800’s and its impact
on the poor turned many to Marxian socialism
 Eugene V. Debs – socialist candidate for
president
 1905 – Industrial workers of the World (IWW)
established by several socialist leaders
 Others used new European ideas such as
Freud’s to advocate a new morality including
sex education and birth control
 These “Bohemians” congregated in sections of
cities that catered to artists such as New York’s
Greenwich Village
• Political Reform: Cities
As cities grew corruption became more disgraceful
Muckrakers exposed corrupt city administrations
Progressives mounted an assault on corrupt city government
including using position as mayor
Political machines were attacked using new political institutions
such as “home rule” charters and elected commissions
(Galveston)
Commissions established city managers
Progressive used city office to improve society such as
minimum wage laws, parks, transportation systems, and
tenement housing
• Political Reform: The States
 Municipal reforms depended on state reforms
 Corrupt state government had to be reformed too
 Best example was Wisconsin under Governor Robert M. La Follette
• Not above using “machine” politics to obtain reform such as patronage
• Called upon universities for advice and service
• Established a direct primary system for elections
• Wisconsin served as model for other states
• Oregon set example by establishing initiatives and referendums
• State Social Legislation
 Some states passed laws
attempting to alleviate
social problems including
the restriction of working
hours for women & children
 Other laws established
rules for hazardous
industries and New York
established a law that set
higher standards for
tenement construction
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
 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
 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
• Political Reform: Woman Suffrage
Movement
 Many women bitter over failure of 14th
and 15th Amendments to give women
vote
 Feminists split
• American Woman’s Suffrage
Association (AWSA) focused on the
vote alone
• More radical National Women’s
Suffrage Association concerned
with various issues including vote
(Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan
B. Anthony)
Women handicapped by lack of unity and Victorian morality
Women confused as to relationship to men – superior or equal?
1890 both groups combined to form the National American
Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) – Stanton and
Anthony were first presidents
Women concentrated on suffrage state-by-state
Women could vote in Wyoming in 1869, Utah, Colorado, and
Idaho by 1896
 Women gained support from many
males
 1911 California gave women the vote
 Suffrage moved to the national level
led by the Congressional Union
 Wilson’s refusal to support suffrage led
to demonstrations
 Congress approved by 1919 and the
Nineteenth Amendment passed in
1920
• 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
House of representatives reformed by limiting the
power of the House Speaker – committees formed by
vote not whim of Speaker
• Theodore Roosevelt
 Ascended to presidency upon
assassination of McKinley in 1901
 Distrusted by conservatives
 More trust-regulator than trust-buster
 Went after the Northern Securities
Company- a holding company for JP
Morgan, James Hill, and EH Harriman
 Also went after 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 Coal Strike
1902 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
 Roosevelt brought both sides to
Washington but management refused
to deal with the union
 With public support behind him
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
• 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
• 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
• 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
 Signed the Manns-Elkins Act of 1910
giving more power to the ICC
• 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
 Pinchot was a close friend of TR’s
 Pinchot as well as other
leaders such as Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge
complained to TR about
Taft
 The friendship between Taft
and TR was ruptured – a
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
 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
• 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
 Goal to break the trusts and
control business
 Republican split gave victory to
Wilson
• 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
 Federal Reserve Board in Washington had
some control over interest rates and
member banks which could influence
money supply during inflation and
recession
 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
• 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
second-class citizens
 1902 Dead Indian Land Act made it
easier for Indians to sell lands
 Segregation for blacks became
even stricter
 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
• 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
• Attracted some sympathy from descendents 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