The Rise of Progressivism
Ch. 21
I. The Progressive Impulse
• Direct, purposeful human intervention in
social and economic affairs was essential
to ordering and bettering society. Laissez
faire and Social Darwinism looked upon as
inefficient to maintain order.
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Varieties of Progressivism
Progressives often disagreed
– Spirit of “Anti-monoply”
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– Social cohesion
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– Faith in knowledge
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– Increasing the role of government
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– Incompatible Philosophies?
The Muckrakers
– term coined by TR in accusation that they
were raking up muck
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Muckrakers
– Individuals
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Charles F. Adams (1860s) = railroad
Ida Tarbell (1904) = Standard Oil
Lincoln Steffens = Political Machines
Charles F. Adams
Ida Tarbell
The History of the
Standard Oil Company
Lincoln Steffens
Shame of the Cities
Chapters of Erie
– Other areas of influence
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– Reached peak of influence in first decade of
the 20th century
– Inspired Americans to take action and
echoed progressive ideals
The Social Gospel
– Social outrage combined with a
humanitarian sense of social responsibility
helped produce many reformers who were
committed to social justice
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– Salvation Army
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• committed to offering both material
– Individual contributions
• Charles Sheldon’s In His Steps: 15
million copies
• Walter Rauschenbusch: Darwinism
not survival of the fittest, but rather all
should work to ensure a humanitarian
evolution into the social fabric
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The Settlement House
Movement
– Where Social Darwinists
(William Graham Sumner)
argued that people’s fortunes
reflected their inherent “fitness”,
progressives disagreed…
Ignorance, poverty, even
criminality were not the result of
inherent moral or genetic
failings they were, rather, the
effects of an unhealthy
environment.
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The Settlement House Movement
Continued
– Hull House (1889),
Chicago
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Helped immigrant families adapt
to the language and customs of
their new country
Middle class had a responsibility
to assist and educate immigrants
The Settlement House Movement
Continued
– Role of college women
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– The Birth of Social Work
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The Allure of Expertise
– Progressives placed high value on knowledge and
expertise
– Non-scientific problems could be solved with
science
– Belief that well designed bureaucracies could
create the stability and order America needed
– Whereas S.Darwinism sought to justify the current
system, these progressive intellectuals sought to
create a new society
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– Pros and cons… where progressives disagree
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The Professions
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Birth of a new middle class
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American Medical Association (1901)
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Professional Bar Associations (1916)
National Association of Manufactures (1895)
United States Chamber of Commerce (1912)
Some professionals used admission requirements
to exclude women and minorities
Women and Professions
– Most women were excluded from most of
the emerging professions, but many did find
ways to enter professional careers
– 1900 5% of all physicians were female… a
proportion that remained unchanged until
the 1960s
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Women and Professions Continued
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– the “women professions” common
traits with progressivism in that they
established a professional identity
– differed in that they had a vaguely
“domestic” or “helping” image
Women and Reform
The progressive era represented
both an expansion of women’s
separate sphere and a
confirmation of it
The “New Woman”
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housework taking up less time of the day
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Less Children and longer lives = more time alive
without children around
The “New Woman” Continued
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“Our failures marry”
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many women believe that only by remaining single could
they play the roles they envisioned in the public world
10% of all women never married in the last decades of the
19th century… high proportion of them were middle class
The “New Woman” Continued Again
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“Boston Marriages” in secret
Divorce rates rise
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The role of higher education and women’s colleges
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Un-definable yet shifting identity of woman both
defined and limited their public activities
The Clubwoman
– large network of women’s associations
grew rapidly between 1880s and 1890s
– became the vanguard of many important
reforms
– formed to give women an outlet for
intellectual energies
– General Federation of Women’s Clubs
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Clubwoman Continued
– In the early half of the twentieth century
focus shifts to social betterment
– Many women were from wealthy families
– African American women formed clubs of
their own
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The Clubwoman Continued Again
– Few women actually believed that
traditional gender roles were
“exploitive and obsolete” (Charlotte
Perkins Gilman 1898)
– Much of what they did was
uncontroversial
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… and once again.
– Some of what they did was controversial
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important force is passing state and federal laws
against child labor
And Again
– Alliances formed between women’s
groups
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– Early success depended on male
interest
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Woman Suffrage
Considered the greatest
movement during the progressive
era… one of the greatest in
American history
Why was it considered
“radical”?
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rationale some supporters used to advance it
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Popular belief was that men and women also
believed in separate spheres
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anti-suffrage newspapers, rallies, petitions and
legislatures
How did the tide turn?
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suffragists became better organized
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Leaders began to justify suffrage in “safer” less
threatening ways
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How did the tide turn?
Continued
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Connection to other issues
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Less optimistic reason: If immigrants and black
males could vote, “well born” women should be
allowed to vote too
Supporters played both ends
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Legislative Process
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The West leads the way
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East gets caught up
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Temperance issue: Catholics v. Protestants
1913 Illinois first state East of Mississippi River to
grant women suffrage
1917/1918: New York and Michigan, two of the most
populous states in the Union
Legislative Process Continued
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1920: 19th Amendment guaranteed the
political rights to women throughout the
nation
Feminist Divisions
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