Progressivism
& Reform
THEMES
1. The Origins of the Progressive Movement
2. Local Progressive Political Reform
3. Minorities and Progressive Reform
4. National Progressive Political Reform
Theme 1: The Origins of the
Progressive Movement
What is Progressivism?
Progressives…
1. Believed in progress…Duh!
2. Are “Anti-monopoly”—fear of concentrated power and desire to
limit and disperse wealth and power.
3. Want Social Cohesion—needs of the many outweigh the needs of
the few or the one.
4. Scientific Managment—science, urbanization, planning, making
the government more efficient will help society.
5. Want government to play a positive and important role in the
process of improving and regulating society.
Theme 1: The Origins of the
Progressive Movement
Who were the Progressives?
▪ People who wanted societal changes through the action of government
▪ Progressives were …
– Protestant church leaders
– Union leaders
– Urban middle class/Professional class
(doctors, lawyers, business people)
▪ Most Progressives considered themselves PRAGMATISTS— people who take a
practical approach to life, their decisions and the actions of industry and the
government.
– Their conclusion using pragmatic thinking was…if its better for me…then it must be better
for everyone, and if its better for them…it must be better for me.
Theme 1: The Origins of the
Progressive Movement
Who Started/Fueled the Progressive
Movement?
The Muckrakers
▪ Journalists who directed public attention towards social, economic,
and political injustices.
▪ First investigative journalists.
▪ Move away from Yellow Journalism in their search for the truth.
▪ Urged people to take a role in government and public life.
▪ Created the popular progressive movement.
▪ Took a pragmatic approach to reporting— tell the story as it is to
make people want to reform
Theme 2: Local Progressive
Political Reforms
Voter Participation
▪ Progressives believed that if more people could honestly participate
in the election process at the local level, honest officials would win
elections and power would be taken away from political bosses.
▪ They reformed the election process locally by…
– SECRET BALLOTS—now voters could cast their vote privately in a booth
without being watched by party officials
– DIRECT PRIMARIES—Governor Robert La Follette of the great cheesy state of
Wisconsin changed the way candidates were chosen taking it away from party
conventions and giving it to the voters through primary elections
– DIRECT ELECTIONS OF US SENEATOR—17th Amendment required all Senators
to be elected by popular vote not by state legislatures.
– REFERENDUM AND RECALL—Referendums allowed voters to vote on a
particular law and recall votes allowed voters to vote to fire a politician
Theme 2: Local Progressive
Political Reforms
Total Recall (HA! Get it!!!!)
Theme 2: Local Progressive
Political Reforms
City Reform
▪ Since most Progressives lived is cities, much of
the movement focused around fixing the
problems of urban life
▪ PUBLIC CONTROL OF UTILITIES —reformers
pushed for laws that required public utilities to
be controlled and owned by the government to
prevent price gauging and miss-management
▪ CITY MANAGERS —To combat the spoils system
in local politics, reformers called for all city
officials to be elected (police/fire commissioners,
city planners, sanitation, etc.)
Sorry Flint 
Theme 2: Local Progressive
Political Reforms
State Reform
The Settlement House Movement
▪ The Hull House—opened in 1889 by Jane
Addams in Chicago
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Became a model for the urban poor
Community center for poor urban immigrants
Staffed by socially conscious middle class women
Mission: to educate and incorporate immigrants into
American life.
Goal was to create more “middle class people”
Many college women got their start in Hull Housing
Created the profession of Social Work
This began government involvement in SOCIAL
WELFARE— government expenditures to help the poor
Theme 2: Local Progressive
Political Reforms
The Crusades
▪ THE TEMPERACE CRUSADE—led by
Protestant women who felt that
alcohol was a root of evil
– Partly motivated by anti-Catholic
sentiment
– Wanted alcohol to be illegal
– Led to Prohibition
▪ WOMENS SUFFRAGE—started at the state level
– Women, who played a big roll in welfare projects wanted a roll in government too
▪ CIVIL RIGHTS—as more urban African American’s became educated, they
became more demanding for social equality
– Only a small fraction of the urban poor were African American
Theme 2: Local Progressive
Political Reforms
Workplace and Labor Reform
Progressives advocated for the
urban/industrial laborer demanding:
▪ eight-hour work days
▪ improved safety & health
conditions in factories
▪ workers compensation laws
▪ minimum wage laws
▪ unionization
▪ child labor laws
▪ Triangle Shirtwaste Fire
“Breaker Boys” Pennsylvania, 1911
State Social Reform: Child Labor
Child Laborers in Indiana Glass Works, Midnight, Indiana.
1908
Child Laborer, Newberry, S.C. 1908
Shrimp pickers in Peerless Oyster Co. Bay St. Louis,
Miss., March 3, 1911
Theme 3 : Minorities and
Progressive Reform
WOMEN
▪ “women’s professions”
▪ “new woman”
▪ clubwomen
A local club for nurses was formed in New York City in 1894.
Here the club members are pictured in their clubhouse
reception area. (Photo courtesy of the Women's History and Resource Center, General
Federation of Women's Clubs.)
The Women's Club of Madison, Wisconsin conducted classes in food,
nutrition, and sewing for recent immigrants. (Photo courtesy of the Women's History and Resource Center, General Federation of
Women's Clubs.)
Theme 3 : Minorities and
Progressive Reform
Women’s Suffrage
▪ National American Woman
Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
▪ Carrie Chapman Catt
Ohio Woman Suffrage Headquarters, Cleveland, 1912
Woman suffrage before 1920
Theme 3: Minorities and
Progressive Reform
Women’s Suffrage
▪ National Woman’s Party
▪ Nineteenth Amendment
▪ Equal Rights Amendment
Suffragette
Banner 1918
19th Amendment
National Woman’s Party members picketing in front of the White House, 1917
(All: Library of Congress)
Black Population, 1920
Theme 3: Minorities and
Progressive Reform
African-Americans
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Booker T. Washington
W.E.B. Du Bois
Niagara Movement
“talented tenth”
NAACP
W.E.B. Du Bois
Booker T.
Washington
Theme 4: National Reform
Assassination of President McKinley, Sept 6, 1901
Theme 4: National Reform
Theodore Roosevelt:
“accidental President”
Republican (1901-1909)
(The New-York Historical Society)
the
Theme 4: National Reform
Roosevelt’s “Square Deal”
▪ 1902 Anthracite Coal Miners Strike
▪ “Square Deal”—Roosevelt’s philosophy to
give an even deal in negotiations between
Labor and Business
Anthracite miners at Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1900
Theme 4: National Reform
Roosevelt the “trust-buster”
▪ Northern Securities
Company (1904)
▪ “good trusts” and
“bad trusts”
▪ Hepburn Railroad
Regulation Act
(1906)—Roosevelt’s law
that allowed the
government to regulate
railroad fares
“ONE SEES HIS FINISH UNLESS GOOD GOVERNMENT RETAKES THE SHIP”
Theme 4: National Reform
The Birth of REGULATORY COMMISSIONS
and Consumer protections
▪ Muckrakers and progressive
reformers demanded the
government create
REGULARTORY
COMMISSIONS that oversaw
and enforced safe working
conditions and food
production in factories
▪ Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
about the meatpacking plants
in Chicago led to:
– Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
– Meat Inspection Act (1906)
Theme 4: National Reform
Roosevelt &
Conservation
▪ Used the Forest Reserve Act of 1891
▪ U.S. Forest Service (1906)
▪ Gifford Pinchot
▪ White House conference on conservation 1908
▪ John Muir— naturalist who befriended
Roosevelt and pushed for conservation
Theodore
Roosevelt & John
Muir at Yosemite
1906
Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford
Pinchot, 1907
CONSERVATION:
National Parks and Forests
William Howard Taft
President 1909-13
Republican
Postcard with Taft cartoon
Taft’s Progressive Accomplishments
▪ TRUST-BUSTING –more
trusts busted than Roosevelt
▪ forest and oil reserves
▪ SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT—
Senate elected by direct
election
Why
me?
BUT: CAUSED SPLIT IN REPUBLICAN PARTY
– Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909) –Republican
congress broke Taft’s campaign
promise to lower the tariff then
publically supported it angering
progressives.
– Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy— a
debate between members of Taft’s
cabinet (one a conservative and the
other progressive) forced Taft to take
sides…he sided with the conservative
Ballinger and fired Pinchot further
angering progressives
Theme 4: National Reform
Taft and Dollar Diplomacy
▪ Taft believed that the best way
to expand American influence
was to encourage American
Business to expand their source
of resources and their markets
to foreign lands…this was
called DOLLAR DIPLOMACY
▪ Taft used Dollar Diplomacy in
China by inviting American
railroad tycoons to meet with
Chinese officials and offer their
services in building railroads in
China
Theme 4: National Reform
Election of 1912
▪ Woodrow Wilson
▪ Progressive Party (“Bull Moose party”)
▪ “New Nationalism”
Third and Fourth Parties—Progressives and
Socialists
▪ Socialist Eugene V. Debs enters the race as a
new party
▪ Socialists—were a pure labor party who
advocated for more radical progressive reforms
– Like having the government own the railroads,
Woodrow Wilson
Theodore
Roosevelt
cartoon, March
1912
1912 Presidential
Election
Theme 4: National Reform
Woodrow Wilson
▪ “New Freedom”
▪ Underwood Simmons Tariff (1913)
▪ Sixteenth Amendment (1913)
▪ Federal Reserve Act (1913)
▪ Federal Trade Commission Act (1914)
▪ Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)—helped the
government break up monopolies and trusts and provided
specific language NOT allowing unions to be considered
trusts
▪ Keating-Owen Act (1916)
Wilson at the peak of his power
Theme 4: National Reform
Federal Reserve Act—Federal
Reserve System