Cover Slide
The American
Pageant
Chapter 28
Progressivism and
the Republican
Roosevelt, 1901-1912
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Breaker Boys and Headline
Breaker Boys and Headline
The coal mines of Pennsylvania employed more than ten thousand boys under the
age of 16. Known as "breaker boys," they sorted coal. Such work was dangerous and
sometimes fatal, as attested by this 1911 headline. (Library of Congress)
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Cinco de Mayo parade in Mogollon, New Mexico, 1914
Cinco de Mayo parade in Mogollon, New Mexico, 1914
Mexican immigrants, like other immigrants, brought their homeland customs and
holidays with them to the United States. Every year on May 5 (Cinco de Mayo), they
commemorated the Mexican victory over French troops in the Battle of Puebla on
May 5, 1862, with events such as this parade. (Library of Congress)
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Cover of 1911 Modern Homes Catalogue--Sears, Roebuck and Company
Cover of 1911 Modern Homes Catalogue--Sears, Roebuck and Company
Along with mass-produced consumer goods such as clothing and appliances, Sears,
Roebuck and Company marketed architectural plans for middle-class suburban
housing. This drawing, taken from the Sears catalogue for 1911, illustrates the kind
of housing developed on the urban outskirts in the early twentieth century. (Sears,
Roebuck and Company)
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Judge Lindsey with children
Judge Lindsey with children
Judge Ben Lindsey (1869–1943) of Denver was a Progressive reformer who worked
for children's legal protection. Like many reformers of his era, Lindsey had an
earnest faith in the ability of humankind to build a better world. (Library of
Congress)
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Luna Park, Coney Island
Luna Park, Coney Island
Electric street lights, illuminated buildings, and the headlights of automobiles and
streetcars added to the excitement of early-twentieth-century urban nightlife. (Picture
Research Consultants & Archives)
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Patent medicine
Patent medicine
Makers of unregulated patent medicines advertised exorbitant results from using
their products. This ad, while warning against "fraudulent claims," asserts that a wide
belt can cure a variety of ailments. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 did not ban
such products but tried to prevent manufacturers from making such unsubstantiated
statements. (Picture Research Consultants & Archives)
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Photograph from The White Slave Hell
Photograph from The White Slave
Hell
In addition to crusading against
drunkenness, moral reformers stirred up
emotions over accusations that evil men
were seducing innocent young women
into prostitution--or white slavery, as it
was called. In this posed photograph
printed in a 1910 antivice publication,
The White Slave Hell: or, With Christ at
Midnight in the Slums of Chicago, the
man supposedly has gotten the woman
drunk and is about to lure her into a life
of sin. (Collection of Perry R. Duis, from
The Saloon)
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Poor neighborhood, Philadelphia, 1915
Poor neighborhood, Philadelphia, 1915
Scenes like this in the immigrant wards of America's great cities stirred middle-class
reformers to action at the turn of the century. (Philadelphia City Archives)
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Postcard with Taft cartoon
Postcard with Taft cartoon
This postcard depicts how President Theodore Roosevelt, in command of the
Republican Party, persuaded his friend William Howard Taft to run for president in
1908. Taft was not eager for that office, but Roosevelt succeeded in convincing him
to seek it. With Roosevelt's strong support, Taft was elected, but he proved a
disappointment to Roosevelt. (Collection of Janice L. and David J. Frent)
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Shoe line--Bowery men with gift from Tim Sullivan, February, 1910
Shoe line--Bowery men with gift from Tim Sullivan, February, 1910
"Big Tim" Sullivan, a New York City ward boss, rewarded "repeat voters" with a new pair of
shoes. Sullivan once explained, "When you've voted ‘em with their whiskers on, you take ‘em
to a barber and scrape off the chin fringe. Then you vote ‘em again…Then to a barber again,
off comes the sides and you vote ‘em a third time with the mustache…[Then] clean off the
mustache and vote ‘em plain face. That makes every one of ‘em for four votes." (Library of
Congress)
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Socialists parade
Socialists parade
Though their objectives sometimes differed from those of middle-class Progressive
reformers, socialists also became a more active force in the early twentieth century.
Socialist parades on May Day, such as this one in 1910, were meant to express the
solidarity of all working people. (Library of Congress)
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Stamp--"US Inspected and Condemned"
Stamp--"US Inspected and Condemned"
Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, published in 1906, prompted President Theodore
Roosevelt to order an investigation of Sinclair's allegations about unsanitary
practices. Roosevelt then used the results of that investigation to pressure Congress
into approving new federal legislation to inspect meatpacking, including a stamp
such as the one shown here for condemned meat. (Chicago Historical Society)
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Suffrage parade
Suffrage parade
Suffrage leaders built support for the cause by using modern advertising and
publicity techniques, including automobiles festooned with flags, bunting, banners,
posters, and--in this case--smiling little girls. (Library of Congress)
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Tenement clotheslines
Tenement clotheslines
Inner-city dwellers used indoor space as efficiently as possible as well as what little
outdoor space was available to them. Scores of families living in this cramped block
of six-story tenements in New York strung clotheslines behind the buildings. Notice
that there is virtually no space between buildings, so only rooms at the front and
back received daylight and fresh air. (Library of Congress)
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Textile worker
Textile worker
Young children like this one were often used in the textile mills because their small
fingers could tie together broken threads more easily than those of adults. (Library of
Congress)
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The Awakening
The Awakening
This cartoon, entitled "The Awakening," shows a western woman, draped in a golden robe,
bringing the torch of woman suffrage from the western states that had adopted suffrage to
enlighten the darkness of the eastern states that had not done so. In the dark eastern states,
women eagerly reach toward the light from the west. Yellow had become closely associated
with the suffrage movement, and western suffrage advocates often depicted suffrage as a
woman in a golden robe. (Library of Congress)
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The Masses cover, 1912
The Masses cover, 1912
This socialist publication, edited in New
York's Greenwich Village, denounced
the abuses of capitalism, including child
labor. (Library of Congress)
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The Tenement Question--Inside and Out!
The Tenement Question--Inside and
Out!
Many city dwellers, especially
immigrants, typically lived in tenements
that were crowded and unsanitary.
(Library of Congress)
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Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot
Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford
Pinchot
The two friends and allies in the
conservation cause aboard the steamboat
Mississippi on a 1907 tour with the
Inland Waterways Commission. (Library
of Congress)
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Theodore Roosevelt cartoon "A nauseating job, but it must be done"
Theodore Roosevelt cartoon "A nauseating job, but it must be done"
Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, published in 1906, prompted President Theodore
Roosevelt to order an investigation of Sinclair's allegations about unsanitary
practices. Roosevelt then used the results of that investigation to pressure Congress
into approving new federal legislation to inspect meatpacking. (Utica Saturday
Globe)
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Theodore Roosevelt with John Muir at Yosemite, 1903
Theodore Roosevelt with John Muir at
Yosemite, 1903
In 1903, at Yosemite National Park,
Theodore Roosevelt met with John Muir,
a leading advocate for the preservation
of wilderness. While Roosevelt made
important contributions to the
preservation of parks and wildlife
refuges, he was more interested in the
careful management of national
resources, including federal lands.
(Yosemite Museum)
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Tuskegee Institute class in shoemaking
Tuskegee Institute class in shoemaking
Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute helped train young African Americans in
useful crafts such as shoemaking and shoe repair, as illustrated here. At the same
time, however, Washington's intentions and the Tuskegee curriculum reinforced what
many whites wanted to believe: that blacks were unfit for anything except manual
labor. (Tuskegee University Library)
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Yard of tenement at Park Place
Yard of tenement at Park Place
(Library of Congress)
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Map: The Panama Canal
The Panama Canal
The Panama Canal could take advantage of some natural waterways. The most difficult part of the construction, however,
was devising some way to move ships over the mountains near the Pacific end of the canal (lower right). This was done
through a combination of cutting a route through the mountains and constructing massive locks.
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Map: The United States, 1876-1912
The United States, 1876-1912
A wave of admissions between 1889 and 1912 brought remaining territories to statehood and marked the final creation of
new states until Alaska and Hawaii were admitted in the 1950s.
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Map: Woman Suffrage Before 1920
Woman Suffrage Before 1920
Before Congress passed and the states ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, woman suffrage already existed, but mainly in
the West. Several midwestern states allowed women to vote only in presidential elections, but legislatures in the South and
Northeast generally refused such rights until forced to do so by constitutional amendment.
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