Progressive
Responses:
promoting
moral
protecting social
improvement –
welfare – dealt
morality was
with harsh
key to
conditions of
improving lives
industrialization
of poor people’s
(YMCA,
personal
settlement
behavior
houses)
(WCTU,
Prohibition)
creating
economic
reform –
movement to
socialism or
reform
capitalism
(muckrakers)
fostering
efficiency
REFORMING GOVERNMENT
Reforms would take place in government at the city & state
level:
restructuring or addition of city commissions/managers/mayors (commission plan & council-manager system)
regulation of big businesses to be the same as other businesses (i.e. taxes on business property)
protecting working children (Keating-Owen Act – later unconstitutional)
reduction in the work hours per day (Muller v. Oregon – women, Bunting v. Oregon – men)
reforming elections (secret ballot, initiative, referendum, recall, & state primary system),
direction elections of congressional senators (17th amendment – 1913)
Susan B.
Anthony
Elizabeth
Cady Stanton
pursue court
cases to test the
14th Amendment
Were women citizens
too? YES – U.S.
Supreme Court ruled
YES but that it did not
automatically grant the
right to vote
Women’s
Suffrage
convince state
legislatures
push for a national
constitutional
amendment to grant
women suffrage
Assassinated
September 1901
SEE POLITICAL
CARTOON PG. 170
becomes a “trust buster” – brings
44 anti-trust lawsuits against large
businesses that were trusts or
monopolies to court. Northern
Securities Company v. United States
1904 most successful bust
emphasizes the need for railroad
regulation (Elkins Act – illegal to
give & receive rebates & could not
change set rates without notifying
public; Hepburn Act – limited
distribution of free railroad
passes)
Department of Commerce &
Labor: created to investigate
corporation & publicize their
findings. Investigated U.S. Steel
who offered to open all files in
exchange for the ability to fix
problems first before going public
intervenes as an arbitrator during
the 1902 coal strike as believed it
was his to job to keep society
operating efficiently & intervene
when the public interests & safety
were at risk
Meat Inspection Act 1906: based
from Upton Sinclair’s publication,
The Jungle, where the filth of
slaughterhouses is exposed. Pure
Food & Drug Act 1906: halted the
sale of contaminated foods &
medicines & required truthful
labels on products
Elephant Butte project, a
three-hundred-foot-high
concrete dam, with a
reservoir capable of
storing over two million
acre-feet of water
Pathfinder project - three miles
below the North Platte River’s
junction with the Sweetwater
River. 214-foot-high, 432-footlong arched masonry dam is
made of granite
NEW
FREEDO
M
Underwood Act 1913: lowered tariff rates
16th Amendment: provided a graduated income tax system. This becomes
the main source of revenue for federal government
Federal Reserve Act 1913: divided the banking system into 12 districts
with the power to issue new paper currency in emergency situations,
make loans, & transfer funds to banks in trouble. It required banks to
keep part of their deposits in one of the 12 reserve banks to help against
unexpected financial losses. Indirectly controls the nation’s interest rates
by setting interest rates that they charge other banks. Still in place today.
Federal Trade Commission 1914: set up the Federal Trade Commission to
act a s a “watch dog” that would investigate possible violations of
regulatory statues, require periodic reports from corporations, & put an
end to unfair trade practices. Still in existence today.
Federal
Reserve
Act
Clayton Antitrust Act 1914: Strengthens the Sherman Antitrust Act
by prohibiting corporations from acquiring the stock of another if
doing so would create a monopoly (definition given in the l.aw) &
allowed for labor unions & farm organizations to exist & were not
subject to antitrust laws
Keating-Owen Act 1916: prohibited the employment of children
under the age of 14 in factories that were production interstate
commerce. U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in
1918.
Adamson Act: established the 8-hour workday for railroad
workers. U.S. Supreme Court supported the reduction for men –
Bunting v. Oregon 1917
Federal Farm Loan Act: provides low interest loans to farmers