LSSC AMH 2020
Chapter 18
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
 Typical sweat shop
 Employed 500 people
 60-72 hour workdays
 $6-7 dollars a week
 Owners kept doors locked
Triangle Factory Fire March 1911
 Textiles flammable
 Gas lighting
 Smoking
Fire started on top floors
-trapped in building
-some jumped from windows
Worst industrial accident in New York history
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Triangle Factory Fire
Trial
 Owners put on trial
 For illegal working conditions
 Acquitted of all charges
 Civil Case
 Families awarded $75.00 per death
Life on the Farm
 1920
 1/3 of American lived on a farm
 Feeling less isolated
 Crops are selling for more money
 Remains difficult for share croppers
Investigative Journalism
 “Muckrakers”
 Report on ills of industry
 Expose corruption in industry
 Investigations in all areas
 Government
 Labor unions
 Big business
 Wall Street
 Ida Tarbell
 Wrote an expose on
Standard Oil
Muckrackers
 Upton Sinclair
 Wrote The Jungle
 Illustrated meat-packing
industry
 Led to food/medicine
regulations
Immigrants in America 1900
 European immigrants
 Eastern European
 Catholic
 Asian
 Foreign
Many Americans wanted strict immigration laws
Immigrants
 Mexicans
 1900- 2,000
 1920- 54,000
Civil war in Mexico, many flee to U.S.
Chinese and Japanese immigrants in West
anti-Chinese laws slowed immigration
1917- Immigration laws begins to limit immigrants
Rise of Consumerism
 Department stores
 Mail order catalogs
Changing Society
Rural
Urban life
 Eating store bought foods
 Wearing store bought clothing
Department Stores
Mail Order Catalogs
Leisure time
Vaudeville
Women rights
Law of Covertures
 Women do not, by law, have a separate legal existence from
their husbands
 Could not own property
 Lost children in divorce proceedings
 Could not technically own earnings
 A contract could be signed prior to marriage
 This was rare
Women and the workplace
 Becoming self-sufficient
 Usually worked out of necessity
 Demanding more rights
 States began to amend laws
Feminist writers
 Charlotte Perkins Gilman
 Urged women to have
more control over their
lives
Henry Ford
 Founded Ford Motor
Company
 Standardization and mass
production
 Automobiles were made
affordable to most people
The Ford Model T
Ford Model T “Tin Lizzies”
 20 hp engine
 Body of steel
 One color (black)
 First Model T cost $845.00
 By 1925 Model T cost $290.00
 By 1927, 15 million Model T’s on the road
Assembly line
Doctrine of High Wages
 Workers with extra money, could buy more
 1915- Dearborn Michigan, $5.00 a day wage
 40 hour work week
 Work week was 5 days
Business improvements
 Mass production
 Assembly line, focused on speed and productivity
 Increased mechanization
 Systematic record keeping
 Accounting, inventory, and production control
 Sometimes assembly lines ordered to “speed up”
Doctrine of High Wages
 Workers with extra money, could buy more
 1915- Dearborn Michigan, $5.00 a day wage
 40 hour work week
 Work week was 5 days
Business improvements
 Mass production
 Assembly line, focused on speed and productivity
 Increased mechanization
 Systematic record keeping
 Accounting, inventory, and production control
 Sometimes assembly lines ordered to “speed up”
Frederick Winslow Taylor
 The Principles of Scientific
Management
 Improves early business
practices
 Use scientific management
principals to maximize
efficiency
Socialism
 Growing in popularity
 Daniel De Leon
 Failed to gain public support
 Eugene Debs
 American Railway Union leader
 Formed a stronger Socialist Party of America
 Good speaker, poor organizer
Socialism
 Gaining in momentum
 1911
 Socialist mayors in 32 cities
 1/3 of Oklahoma voters Socialist
Most people did not want to overthrow capitalism, but wanted
reform
Popularity of Socalism
Eugene Debs ran with increasing success
1900- 100,000
1904- 400,000
1912- 900,000
Peaks in 1912
Decline of Socialism
 Direct primaries
 Reforms enacted
 Interest groups better at lobbying for specific laws
 Anti-war stance killed rural support
AFL Samuel Gompers
 1904
 1.7 million members
 Skilled workers
 Better wages
 Better conditions
 Wanted to work with management
Women’s Trade Union League
 Staged strikes and walkouts in New York
 Wanted unlocked doors and fire escapes
 Formed arbitration committee for collective bargaining
 Became a model for future labor meetings
Women’s Trade Union League
Owners and Managers
 Had to deal with unions and worker issues
 Some built relationships
 Some “cracked down” on workers who complained
 Many companies attempt to form bonds with workers
Women and reproductive rights
 Birth control
 Controversial
 Margaret Sanger
 Nurse
 Promoted reproductive education and freedom for women
Comstock Law
Designed to curb vice and legislate morality
 Law banned from the mail all material designed to incite lust.
 3,000 arrests made
 Destroyed 160 tons of material
Margaret Sanger
Sigmund Freud
 Father of Psychoanalysis
 Unconscious mind
 Sex a motive for behavior
 Examines dreams
Progressives
 Wanted to reform industry
 Improve the human aspects
 End corruption
 Government
 Corporate
Society
 White Protestant
 Duty to reform
 Social science
 Studying best way to improve
 Professionals
 Encouraging professional development
 Schools opening
Rise of Professionalism
 Educated professions
 Professional organizations forming
 Managers
 Architects
 Technicians
 Accountants
City governments running more efficiently
Social justice movement
 Settlement house movement
 Child labor
 Tenement safety
 Better working conditions
Wanted to “fix” problems in society
Social Work

Social Work schools open across United States

University of Chicago
 “The Standard of Living AmongWorking Men’s Families in NewYork City”
 Loaded with statistics
 Published in 1909
Social Work

Social Work schools open across United States

University of Chicago
 “The Standard of Living AmongWorking Men’s Families in NewYork City”
 Loaded with statistics
 Published in 1909
Women’s Suffrage
1900 – Carrie Chapman Catt
 President of National American Women’s Suffrage Assoc.
 Organized
 Focused on state law’s first
 Called it a “winning plan”
Carrie Chapman Catt
Pragmatism
 Rejected belief that sinfulness was in-born
 Believed people had greater potential for good
 Beginning to examine environment
 People acted poorly because of circumstance
John Dewey
 Theories on education
 Univ. of Chicago
 Learn by doing
 Allowed students more
interacation
Muller vs. Oregon
 A laundry owner challenged labor law
 Louis Brandeis argued for workers
 “Brandeis Brief ”
 Documented damage of working long hours
 102 pages of studies
 2 pages of legal precedents
Louis Brandeis
National Municipal League
 Formed in 1894
 Designed to combat corrupt city governments
 Improve public services
State level
 Protect women and children
 Regulate public works
 Tax
 Improve state institutions
 Workmens comp
 State inspectors for industry
Robert M. La Follettte
 Reformer
 Governor of Wisconsin
 Republican
 Hated corruption
 Had academics/scholars write legislation
“Protect people from selfish interests”
Robert La Follette
 “Wisconsin Idea”
 Est. Industrial commission
 Improved sanitation
 Improved education
 Workmen’s comp
 Adopted state primaries for all offices
Wisconsin became a model for reform.
Robert La Follette
Settlement Houses
 First one was in New York City 1886
 Spread across the country
 Hull House
 Established in Chicago, 1889
 Run by middle-class
 Helped immigrants assimilate
 Offered classes on a variety of different activities
 Offered kindergarten
Hull House
Jane Addams
National Politics in the Progressive
Era
Progress in Washington
September 6, 1901 McKinley is shot
Theodore Roosevelt is now president
-youngest, at 42
Roosevelt is credited with bringing the Progressive movement
to Washington
Teddy Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
 Born to a wealthy New York family
 Physical limitations
 Tragic events in his life
 Worked in New York state assembly
 NYC police commissioner
 Assistant Secretary of the Navy
 Governor of New York
 Vice President under McKinley
Trust Busters
 Regulate good, eliminate bad
Department of Commerce and Labor
-monitor interstate commerce
-enforce regulation
Major trust bust
 Northern Securities Company
 Railroads
 Rockefeller, Morgan, Harriman all upset
 Busted beef, tobacco, trusts, Dupont, Standard Oil
Supreme Court upheld Anti-trust laws
Square Deal
The Square Deal
 TR was a progressive conservative
 Supportive of industry, needed monitoring
 Labor
 1902 Coal strike
 TR intervenes
 Strike is settled
Election of 1904
Food and Drug
 Meat Inspection Act
 1906 sanitary meat packing
 Pure Food and Drug Act
 Danger of patent meds.
 Must list ingredients
Conservation
 1905 National Forest Service
 Protect and manage natural resources
 Federal regulations
 Sierra Club
 John Muir
 Disliked this movement
 Compromised natural beauty
1908
 National Commission on the Conservation of Natural
Resources
 Regulated
 Water
 Forests
 Lands
 mineral
William Howard Taft
Taft
 Republican
 From Ohio
 Lawyer
 Governor of Philippines
 Secretary of War
Ballinger-Pinchot Affair
 Ballinger wanted to loosen regulations on federal lands
 Secretary of Interior under Taft
 Opened millions of acres for public sale
 Pinchot-chief forester
 Furious, found report of improper dealings
 Taft fired Pinchot for insubordination
Progressives now distrusted Taft
Taft and Tr
 Opposite sides of Ballinger-Pinchot
 Taft busted what TR saw as good trusts
 Brought TR back into politics
New Nationalism
 TR back on the national stage
 Help business
 Help labor
 Equal rights for women
 Equal rights for blacks
 TR decides to run again
 This splits the Republican party
 Taft wins the primary
Bull Moose Party
Election of 1912
 Roosevelt campaigned hard as a Progressive
 Democrats nominated Woodrow Wilson
 Taft didn’t bother campaigning
Election of 1912
New Freedom
 Woodrow Wilson
 Free America from wealthy and powerful
 Regulated competition
 Did not like government involved in business
Won the election easily
Woodrow Wilson
 Born in Virginia
 Hated the tariff
 Segregationist
 Did not tolerate differing
opinions
Underwood-Simmons Tariff
 Biggest reduction in tariff since Civil War
 Introduced Income tax
16th Amendment
Income Tax
-graduated amount
-applied to companies
-applied to anyone who made over $4,000
Shift in government revenue
 19th century
 Sale of public lands, alcohol tax, customs, duties
 20th century
 Personal and corporate income tax
Stabilizing banking system
 1913 Federal Reserve Act
 Efficient banking system
 Sound currency
 Paper money
 Central bank
 Federal reserve board
 1914 Federal Trade Commission
 Oversee and regulate commerce
Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914
 Regulated trusts
 Did not “bust”
 Prohibited unfair trade practices
 Approved lawful strikes
