Progressivism
Causes





Journalists expose corruption in govt
Journalists expose unhealthy working
conditions
Intellectuals qt dominant role of large
corporations
Reformers want to be more responsive
to citizens
Number of educated citizens increase
Effects





Working conditions improve
Business regulation increases
City govt becomes more efficient
State govt becomes more democratic
New amendments are added to the
Constitution
Progressive Movement Goals




Promoting Social Welfare
Promoting Moral Improvement
Creating Economic Reform
Fostering Efficiency
Promoting Social Welfare

Aimed to help the poor through
community centers, churches, social
services




YMCA
Salvation Army
Florence Kelly
General Security of the National Consumers
League
 Investigating conditions under which goods
are made and sold
 Outlaw child labor and protect workers
Promoting Moral Improvement



Morality not the workplace held the
key to improving the lives of poor
people
Prohibition
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU)
Economic Reform



Began to embrace socialism b/c of uneven
balance under capitalism
Muckrakers
Henry George


Poverty arose b/c some people bought property
and held on to it until price rose
Edward Bellamy

Looking Backward: 2000; US transformed into a
place of harsh working conditions, poverty,
corruption
Fostering Efficiency


Make society & workplace more
efficient
Scientific Management

Henry Ford
City Level Reforms

Natural Disasters


Led to adoption of city level officials; city
council, city manager
goal was to stop corruption
State Level Reforms


Progressive governors passed states
laws regulating RR, mines, mills,
telephones companies
Robert M. La Follette: governor of
Wisconsin, led way in regulating big
business
Child Labor





Performed unskilled jobs for lower wages
Small body parts
Every member of family needed to work
Forming serious health problems
National child Labor Committee


Keating-Owen Act
Muller v Oregon
http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/what_is
_child_labor.html
http://www.labor.ky.gov/LaborInternet/Templates/MainTemplate_file.aspx?N
RMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=%2fows%2femploymentstandards%
2fchildlaborlaw%2f&NRNODEGUID=%7b94D8F9DA-60B5-47C7-A6620E23E510CF10%7d&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest#Age_14_&_15

Gains made by Voters





Direct Primaries: cast ballots to select
nominees for upcoming election
17th Amendment: allowing voters to pick their
Senators
Initiative: citizens can propose new laws by
obtaining a certain % of voters signatures on
petition
Referendum: gave voters a more direct role
in legislation
Recall: gave voters more ability to remove
public officials from office before next
election
Women’s Reform






Options in finding a job
½ pay for equal work
Colleges
Marriage
NACW (National Association of
Colored Women)
Women’s Suffrage

Susan B. Anthony
Teddy Roosevelt



modern Amer required a powerful govt
Square Deal: progressive reforms
designed to protect the common people
against big business
1902 Coal Miners Strike

Federal govt would now step in to settle
disputes when welfare was threatened
Trust Busting


Trusts lowered prices to drive out
competition, then rose prices
Regulate trusts that were harmful to
public interest
Railroad Regulation

Interstate Commerce Act



ICC (set up maximum rail rates)
Elkins Act
Hepburn Act
Upton Sinclair


Wrote “The Jungle”; horrors of
meatpacking industry
Led to creation of Meat Inspection Act


Dictated strict cleanliness requirements
for meatpackers and created the program
of federal meat inspection
Pure Food and Drug Act

Truth in labeling
Natural Resources


Established National Parks
Some wilderness would be preserved
and others would be developed for the
common good
Civil Rights



Failed to support
Booker T. Washington: head of
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute
WEB Du Boise: blacks should accept
segregation; helped form the NAACP
William Howard Taft

Payne-Alrich Tariff


Ballinger-Pinchot Affair


Compromise on tariff rate, angered progressives
Ballinger allowed private group of business people
to obtain several million acres of Alaskan public
lands (rich w/ coal deposits); Pinchot thought
Ballinger showed special treatment, Taft fired
Pinchot, Rep revolted against Taft and began to
vote Democratic; Ballinger resigned
T. Roosevelt wanted to run for re-election;
incumbent nomination went to Taft
Bull Moose Party



Progressive party; candidate was T. R.
Platform: tariff reduction, women’s
suffrage, regulate business, end child
labor, popular election of Senators
TR shot in chest
Election of 1912






Roosevelt: Bull Moose Party
Eugene Debs: Labor Party
Woodrow Wilson: Democrat Party
Taft: Republican Party
Wilson won election
http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/1483/1518969/DIVI492.jpg
Woodrow Wilson

Clayton Anti-trust Act


Underwood Tariff


Strengthened Sherman Anti-Trust;
prohibited corporations from acquiring the
stock of another if doing so would create a
monopoly
Substantially reduced tariff rates
16th Amendment

Legalized income tax; graduated tax
Banking

Federal Reserve System


Reorganized federal banking system
Federal Reserve Act


Divided country into 12 regions; created 12
regional Federal Reserve Banks, all national
banks in district are affiliated with this
bank
Allow members to borrow money to meet
short term demands, allowed to issue
paper money in emergencies
Voting Rights
1919: passage of 19th Amendment
Wilson and Civil Rights
- opposed anti-lynching legislation
- Capitol and Federal Offices were
segregated
Limits of Progressivism
- successful with economic and political
reform, hesitant about social
-promised to help A.A., but didn’t
Progressive movement came to a halt as a
result of WWI