Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
tragedy in New York, where
146 die, most young
immigrant women.
The
Progressive
Era
The Roots of Progressive Reform

Aims of progressives—diverse targets: government,
business, social justice, welfare, vice, immigration



Pragmatism—each reform: does it work?
Behaviorism—people can be shaped
Sociological jurisprudence—law in
light of everyday experience—does past apply?

Brandeis Brief—Muller v.
Oregon: experience over precedent
(102 pp. describing damaging
effects, 15 pp. Supreme Court Justice
Louis Brandeis who
precedent)
practiced “sociological
jurisprudence.”
William
James, most
famous of the
Pragmatists,
wondered,
“Does it
work?”; John
Dewey
believed
environment
shaped
human
thought,
unbolted
desks.
McClure’s Magazine, which ran
muckraking articles by Ida M. Tarbell
(right) exposing practices by Standard Oil
and Lincoln Steffens (below), who
attacked big-city corruption.

Muckrakers—documentation
spurred, educated people

Voluntary organizations—civicmindedness with 400 new organizations in 30 years:
volunteerism, collective action

Professionals—expertise of doctors, engineers,
psychiatrists, city planners to investigate, regulate
The Search for the
Good Society

MIT associate Ellen Richards of the
New England Kitchen, a settlement
house variation that provided cheap,
wholesome food for working poor—at
first, anyway.
Pattern of reform—professionalism to uplift needy
into middle class

Naturalism—effective to portray it just the way it is:
no more, no less—it’s the environment/not the people

Social work—new profession that grew out of
settlement houses didn’t do
things to or for people,
but with them
Muckraker Jacob
Riis and one of his
photographs
portraying city
slum life.
Charlotte Perkins Gillman (top), who wrote
“The Yellow Wallpaper” and condemned
domesticity as enslaving and wanted
communal child rearing and housework,
and (below) Margaret Sanger who
championed birth control.

Women’s organizations—taking good care of
homes meant working outside, too



New woman—find fulfillment: “nurturer professions”
Margaret Sanger—bonds of “chronic pregnancy”
Keating-Owen Act—forbade child-made goods to
cross state lines (fed
action necessary)
Florence Kelley and
Julian Lathrop who
helped shape labor
conditions for women
and children.
League of Women Voters Founder
Carrie Chapman Catt (center, in
white and below) leads a suffragist
march in New York City in 1917.

Militant suffragists
—amendment “at any cost”:
examples

Nineteenth
Amendment
—1920, doubles
enfranchisement
Alice Paul took the campaign for
woman suffrage in a more militant
direction.
Controlling the Masses

Eugenics—selective breeding; “lesser breeds” will “mongrelize”
America: arf, arf!

Americanization—paternalists wanted to teach middle-class
ways while benefiting from the cultural diversity of the immigrants


Literacy test—WWI brings reading qualification for immigrants
Anti-Saloon League—pamphlets discussed insanity, family
crisis, labor accidents and inefficiency; by 1917 three-fourths citizens
live in “dry” counties.
The Politics of Municipal and State Reform


City-manager plan—experts, professionals, not political hacks
Weaknesses of city government—rural
state interests over city interests

Seeds of the welfare state– “urban liberalism”
Fighting Bob
LaFollette of
Wisconsin, also
known as “Battle
Bob,” early in his
career, later, and
making his case
over the radio. He
championed “direct
primaries,” among
many other
reforms.
Progressivism Goes
to Washington

Brownsville incident—discharged
w/o honor on unjust charges


Philosophy of the Square
Deal—big vs. big okay, as long as fair
Anthracite coal strike—intervened
Cartoonists satirize the Booker T. Washington lunch, the Brownsville
incident and the coal strike; miner’s families are evicted after the strike.
Attorney General Philander
Knox, who, under
Roosevelt’s direction,
prosecuted “bad” trusts.

U.S. v. E. C. Knight—Sherman Antitrust applies
only to commerce not manufacturing?

Northern Securities—dissolved Northwest RR
monopoly; prosecuted 44 others

Railroad regulation—tougher ICC; Elkins Act
and Hepburn Railway Act nears “continuous
regulation” of business

Conservation through
planned management—government oversight
of natural resources
Upton Sinclair wrote The
Jungle, which spurred
consumer protection laws.
Teddy Roosevelt, the leading force in American
conservation, with John Muir, a preservationist,
in Yosemite Valley in California.

John Muir and preservation
– “forever wild” vs. conservation

Taft’s accomplishments—preserved
more land, regulated labor safety, created
children’s bureau, set 8-hour day, backed
16th Amendment
Taft’s
campaign ran
him as “Billy
Possum”
taking a handoff from
“Teddy Bear,”
but the job he
really wanted
and got was
Supreme Court
Justice.
Even when Roosevelt was on his African safari after his
Presidency, he started getting impatient with his buddy Taft’s antiProgressive tendencies. When he got back he started developing
his ideas for a “New Nationalism.” When he decided to run, he
said he was “throwing his hat in the ring” and he felt “as fit as a
bull moose.

New Nationalism
—protect individual interests
through big government:
defiantly progressive, almost
liberal

Progressive, or “Bull
Moose,” party
—progressives splinter off
from Republican party

Woodrow Wilson’s
New Freedom—big is
bad: corporations or
government
Woodrow Wilson had been head of
Princeton University and Governor of
New Jersey before he ran for
President under his “New Freedom”
platform.
Woodrow Wilson and the Politics of Morality

Underwood-Simmons Tariff—finally, a downward revision
compensated by graduated income tax: momentous shift in revenue

Federal Reserve Act—to control credit and money supply with
system controlled by a central board and including 12 regional banks


Federal Trade Commission—to oversee business activity
Clayton Antitrust Act—outlawed ugliest corporate practices:
price discrimination, holding companies, interlocking directorates