LIFE PROGRESSIVE ERA
Chapter 17
How did the progressive movement try to
bring about social change?
THE ORIGINS OF PROGRESSIVISM
Problems of the 1890s
• Huge gap between rich and poor
• Tremendous economic and political power of the rich
• Wealthy were insensitively flaunting their wealth before a poorer public
• Unsafe working conditions and crowded cities
• Unfair business practices
• Little concern for African American population
The Progressives
• Native born, middle or
upper class, and college
educated
• Doctors, engineers,
ministers, small business
owners, social workers,
teachers, and writers
• “I came alive. I felt a sense
of responsibility. I wanted to
change things”
• - Frederick Howe
Women & Progressivism
• Acceptable way for women to
influence politics and society
• Women enrolled in college in
record numbers, but not much
available to them after college
• A way to use knowledge of medicine,
psychology, sociology and other
subjects
• Some made careers of reform,
some just volunteered
Social Welfare
• By 1920, 50% of Americans live in urban areas
• New York has “the most serious tenant house problem in the world”
• 1901 – New York State Tenement House Act
• Tenements built around open court yard…allow light and air
• One bathroom per apartment
• Used at a model in other states
• National Tuberculosis Association
• Death rate from the “white plague” drops significantly
• Referendums to build playgrounds with tax dollars
• City Planning & City Beautification
Moral Improvement
• The Anti Saloon League and the
Women’s Christian Temperance
Union led the crusade against alcohol
• 18th Amendment – Prohibition –
barred the manufacture, sale, and
distribution of alcoholic beverages
• Repealed in 1933 with the 21st
Amendment
Economic Reform
• Muckrakers
• “raked up” and exposed the
muck, or filth, of society
• Ida Tarbell and the “History
of the Standard Oil
Company”
• Limits on Corporate Power
• Call to prohibit monopolies and
make it easier for smaller
business to compete in the
economy
Female & Child Labors
• 1900 – average laborer
works nearly 10 hours a
day, 6 days a week for
about $1.50 a
day…women and
children earn even less
• Call for 8 hour workday,
minimum wage, safer
working conditions, end
to child labor
National Child Labor Committee
• “Capital has neither
morals nor ideals”
• By 1912 – child labor
laws passed in 39 states
• Some 8-10 hours and
barred from working at
night
• Some children required to
know how to read and write
before going to work
Election Reforms
• Tried to put more power in the hands of the voters
• Secret Ballot
• list all candidates on a single, uniform sheet of paper
• Initiative
• Voters have to power to initiate new legislation
• Referendum
• Companion to an initiative, voters approve or veto
• Recall
• Voters can remove an elected official from office by calling for
a special election
Progressive Amendments
• 16th Amendment (1913)
federal income tax
• 17th Amendment (1913)
direct election of senators
• 18th Amendment (1919)
prohibition
• 19th Amendment (1920)
vote for women
Progressivism & Racial Discrimination
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP)
• Organization dedicated to ending racial discrimination
• “The Crisis” – monthly magazine
• Uses court system
• Guinn v. United States…grandfather clause
• Buchanan v. Warley…racially segregated housing
• National Urban League
• 1911 – fought for racial equality. Founded by African Americans and
white reformers
• Improve job and housing opportunities
• Help migrants from the south adjust in the north
Progressivism & Racial Discrimination
• Society of American Indians
• 1911 – 50, middle-professionals
• Improve civil rights, education, health, and local government
• Lobbies against the use of insulting terms for Indians
• Americanization
• Reformers lobbied for laws to improve immigrants’ lives, as well as
conditions in the workplace and the city slums
• Process of preparing foreign born residents for full U.S. citizenship
• Focused on education
• Schools…”a melting pot which converts the children of the
immigrants of all races and languages into sturdy, independent
American citizens”
PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS
Theodore Roosevelt
William Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Theodore Roosevelt
• McKinley’s assassination
• Republican
• Great drive, energy and exciting
•
•
•
•
personality
Reform with enthusiasm and
energy
-The “Bully Pulpit”
Speaks out on vital issues
Fight class distinction
“White House”
Theodore Roosevelt
• United Mine Workers Strike
• Arbitration – 3rd party settles dispute
• Square Deal
• “see to it that every man has a
square deal, no less, no more”
• Balancing the interest of business,
consumers, and laborers.
• Calls for limiting power of trusts,
promoting public health and safety,
and improving working conditions
The “Trust Buster”
• Regulate Large Corporations
• Files 44 lawsuits against business
• Make example of Northern
Securities Company
• Railroad Regulations
• Elkins Act – against shipping
companies and kickbacks (ICC)
• Hepburn Act – sets railroad rates
(ICC)
• Food & Drug Companies
• Additives/chemicals in food
• Worthless medicines
The “Trust Buster”
• Protecting the Consumer
• Upton Sinclair “The Jungle”
• Depicted the wretched and
unsanitary conditions of a
meatpacking plant
• Meat Inspection Act
• Inspect meat shipped across state
lines
• Pure Food and Drug Act
• Forbids the manufacture, sale. Or
transportation of food and patent
medicine containing harmful
ingredients
Theodore Roosevelt
• Protecting the Environment
• Land is being lost to greed and
mismanagement
• 150 million acres as forest reserves
• 16 national monuments
• 51 wildlife refuges
• Reclamation – process of making
damaged land productive again
• National Park Service to help
supervise parks and monuments
William Howard Taft
• Taft does not enjoy being in the
public eye
• “I don’t like politics,” “I don’t like the
limelight”
• Republican
• Continued the Anti-trust lawsuits
• Mann-Elkins Act
• Regulatory powers of ICC to
telephone and telegraph companies
• Department of Labor to enforce
labor laws
• Mine safety, 8 hour day laws
William Howard Taft
• 16th Amendment
• Income Taxes
• Payne-Aldrich Tariff
• Raised tariffs…angers
progressives
• Lower tariffs on imports would
make consumer goods cheaper
• Ballinger-Pinchot Affair
• Private interests vs.
Conservation
• Proves Taft was weak on
conservation
Big Fella
Woodrow Wilson
• Democrat
• True progressive and
dynamic speaker
• “New Freedom”
• Proposals to help small
business
• Free people from the heavy
hand of big business and
government
• Believed government had
become to strong, more
individual freedom
Woodrow Wilson
• Lowered Tariffs
• Underwood Tariff Act – lowest
tariff rates in more than 50 years
• Graduated Income Tax
• Banking Reform
• Federal Reserve Act – creates a
3 tiered banking system
• Clayton Antitrust Act
• Extends and clarifies Sherman
Antitrust Act
• Federal Trade Commission
• Investigate corporations
Woodrow Wilson
• Federal Farm Loan Act
• Lowest interest loans to
farmers
• Adamson Act
• Reduced working day from 8 to
10 hours for railroad workers
• Federal Workman’s
Compensation
• Federal workers hurt on the job
• Attempted to pass child
labor laws
• 19th Amendment – women’s
suffrage