Chapter 17, Sec. 1 Progressivism: Objectives
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To explain the four goals of progressivism
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To summarize progressive efforts to clean up local
government
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To identify progressive efforts to clean up state
government, protect workers and reform elections
Define Progressivism
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Reform efforts which aimed to return control of the
government to the people, restore economic
opportunities, and correct injustices in American life
It attracted middle class city dwellers who included whites,
teachers and scholars
Wanted to cure many social problems caused by
industrialization
For example: business regulation, reform city governments,
making laws to protect workers, closing saloons
However all progressive reform movements had at least one
of the following four goals
Four Goals of Progressivism
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Protecting Social Welfare
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Promoting Moral Reform
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Creating Economic Reform
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Improving the Efficiency of American society
Protecting Social Welfare
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The Social Gospel and settlement houses continued their
efforts to soften some of the harsh effects of
industrialization
YMCA – (Young Men’s Christian Association) opened
libraries, sponsored classes, built swimming pools &
handball courts
The Salvation Army – fed poor people in soup kitchens,
cared for children in nurseries, helped immigrants to
achieve middle class values of hard work
Protecting Social Welfare: Florence Kelley
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Florence Kelley – divorced mother of 3 moved into a
settlement house & then became an advocate for
improving the lives of women & children
Eventually became chief inspector of factories in
Illinois
Helped win passage of the Illinois Factory Act in
1893
The act prohibited child labor and limited women’s
working hours & became a model for other states
Promoting Moral Reform
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Some believed that morality not the work place held the
key to improving the lives of poor people
Reformers offered a host of programs to uplift immigrants and
poor city dwellers by improving personal behavior
Prohibition: the banning of alcoholic beverages was one such
program
Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) –
promoted the goal of prohibition. Members would
enter saloon singing, praying & urging saloonkeepers
to stop selling alcohol
Francis Willard transformed this group from a small town
group into a powerful national organization. 25,000 members –
largest in the nation
Francis Willard: What the WCTU
accomplished
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Opened up kindergarten for immigrants
Visited inmates in prisons & asylums
Worked for the suffrage movement:
Provided women with expanded public roles
Biggest reform the WCTU worked on was Prohibition
Formed the Anti-Saloon League in 1895
This angered many immigrants
The saloon served cheap meals, cashed checks &
provided rooms for gatherings & union meetings
Why Prohibition?
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Prohibition groups feared that the combination of foreign
cultures, alcohol and machine politics would undermine
American culture and democracy
Economic Reform
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Economic panic in 1893 prompted some Americans to
question the capitalist economic system
Writer Edward Bellamy called the capitalist ideal of competition a
“brutal and cowardly slaughter of the unarmed and overmatched by
bullies in armor.”
He also criticized the laissez faire theory that says government
should leave the economy alone & not get involved
Some American workers embraced socialism: political theory or
system in which the means of production and distribution
are controlled by the people and operated according to
equity and fairness rather than market principles
Eugene Debs believed big business received favorable treatment
from government officials & politicians
Muckrakers: journalists who wrote about the corrupt side
of business in mass circulation magazines
Improving Efficiency
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These reformers tried to increase the efficiency of
American society
Frederick Winslow Taylor popularized the concept
of scientific management – the effort to improve
efficiency in the work place by applying scientific
principles to make tasks simpler & easier
Workers became more productive & more goods &
services were made available to the people
Examples: time & motion studies, assembly lines
Efforts at improving efficiency were targeted not just
towards industry, but towards government as well
Reforming Local Government
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Efforts to reform city politics stemmed from the desire to
make government more efficient and responsive to its
constituents
Efforts also grew from distrust of immigrants’ participation in
politics
Board of city commissioners came about from a natural
disaster (hurricane/tidal wave) in Galveston, TX. It destroyed
much of Galveston
A five- member commission of experts were hired after the
city council batched relief efforts.
The city commission rebuilt Galveston & by 1917 500 cities
had replaced their city councils with commissioners
Council managers came about after a flood in Dayton, OH
over 250 cities followed
Reform Mayors: Hazen Pingree
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Hazen Pingree – Mayor of Detroit, concentrated on
economic reforms for Detroit
Instituted a fairer tax structure
Lowered fares for public transportation
Rooted out corruption
Lowered gas rates
Set up a system of work relief for unemployed people
City workers built schools, parks & a municipal lighting
plant
Reform Mayors: Tom Johnson
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Tom Johnson – Mayor of Cleveland: believed citizens
should play a more active role in city government
Was a socialist
Held meetings in a large circus tent & invited citizens to
question officials about the city
Set up a fairer tax structure
Appointed competent & honest employees
Established public ownership
Reform at the State Level
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Local reforms coincided with progressive efforts at the
state level
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Spurred by progressive governors, many states passed
laws to regulate railroads, mines, mills, telephone
companies & other large businesses
Reform Governors: Robert M. La Follette
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Led the way in regulating big business
Served 3 terms as governors then entered the U.S. Senate
Targeted the railroad industry
Taxed railroad property at the same rate as other
business property
Set up a commission to regulate rail rates
Forbade railroads to issue free passes to state
officials
Protecting Workers
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Progressives lobbied for regulations to protect workers
One of the most important efforts was the movement to
end child labor
1890: 1.5 million children under age 15 worked in
industrial jobs
In 1910 2 million
Benefits to hiring children: low wages, worked faster,
more agile
People outraged: diseases, child accidents in factories,
stunted growth, low weight, fatigue
Protecting Workers: National Child Labor
Committee
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Wanted to end child labor
Sent teams of investigators to gather evidence of children working
in harsh conditions
Organized exhibitions with photographs & stats to dramatize the
plight of these children
Joined by labor unions
Pressured national politicians to pass the Keating-Owen Act in 1916
Prohibited the transportation of goods produced with child labor
across state lines
3 years later the Supreme Court declared the act as
unconstitutional because it interfered with interstate commerce
By 1920, the number of child laborers were almost cut in half from
1910
Reforming Elections
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In Oregon, William S. U’Ren prompted his state to adopt the
use of secret ballots, the initiative, the referendum & recall
Initiative: a bill originated by the people rather than
lawmakers.
Referendum: voters accepted/rejected the initiative
not lawmakers by vote
Recall: enabled voters to remove public officials from
elected positions by forcing them to face another
election before the end of the term if voters asked
By 1920, 20 states had adopted at least one of these
techniques
Wisconsin adopted the primary in 1903: voters instead of
political machines would choose candidates for public office
Direct Election of Senators
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Progressives pushed for popular election of senators
More states began choosing senators by means of the
direct primary
17th amendment: direct election of Senate in 1913
Questions:
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Complete question 3 & 4 on page 500 (old book)
Section 2: Women in Public Life
Objectives
1. To trace women’s growing presence in the turn of the
century work force
2. To summarize women’s leadership in reform
movements and the effort to achieve women’s suffrage
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Women in the Work Force
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In the late 19th century, mid to upper class women felt
obliged to make her home a place of refuge from the
excitement of the outside world
Job was to keep their children safe, make sure
their husbands were well rested
Poor women had no choice but to work hard
whether it be inside the home or outside of it
Women in the Work Force: Farm Women
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On farms in the south & mid-west women & children
remained a critical part of the economic structure
of the family in the early 20th century
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Did it all: cooked, clean, sewed, plowed the fields &
planted/harvested the crops
Women in the Work Force: Domestic
Workers
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Many women without a formal education or industrial
skills contributed to the survival of their family’s
economic survival by being a domestic servants,
cooks, laundresses, maids & scrubwomen
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Many of these jobs went to unmarried immigrants
and black women
Women in the Workforce: Industry
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In 1900, 1 in 5 women worked, 25% of them in manufacturing
Usually young, white city dwellers
Most were born in a foreign country or children of
immigrants
The garment trade claimed about half of all women
industrial workers
Women performed the least skilled work & received the
lowest pay
However, when job opportunities expanded women begin
filling new jobs in offices, stores & classrooms
Middle class American born women received jobs as
stenographers, typists, bookkeepers & teachers
Women’s Leadership in Reform
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Many women who became active in public life had
attended the new women’s colleges
Women’s colleges sought to grant women an excellent
education, but female graduates were still expected to
fulfill traditional domestic roles.
However, now that more women were attending college,
marriage no longer was a woman’s only alternative
About half of college educated women never married
Many put their efforts into social reform
Women & Reform
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Because women were not allowed to vote or run for
political office, women reformers strove to improve
conditions at work and at home
Targeted unsafe factories, labor abuses, promoted
housing reforms, educational improvement and
food and drug laws
African American women founded the National
Association of Colored Women (NACW): “the
moral education of the race with which we are
identified.”
Managed nurseries, reading rooms and
kindergartens
Women & the Fight for the Vote
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Winning suffrage (the right to vote) had been a focus
of women reformers
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The National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA) formed in 1890
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Prominent leaders included: Susan B Anthony,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone & Julia Ward
Howe
Women’s Suffrage: Three Part Strategy
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1st they tried to convince state legislatures to grant
women the right to vote – territory of Wyoming
granted the vote to women, then Utah, Colorado & Idaho
followed suit – efforts soon stalled
2nd, women pursued court cases to test the 14th
amendment-which declared that states denying male
citizens the right to vote would lose congressional
representation.
Women were citizens too & they wanted the Supreme
Court to recognize that
Supreme Court said, yes you are citizens – but citizenship
did not automatically confer the right to vote.
Women’s Suffrage: Three Part Strategy
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3rd, women pushed for a national constitutional
amendment that would grant women the vote in
1878
Activists lobbied for 18 years and each time the Senate
committee killed the amendment
It would take another 40 years before it passed & was
ratified in 1920
Suffragists achieved only modest success in the 1800s, but
after the turn of the century other women reform efforts
started to pay off
Women gained improvements in the treatment of
workers, and safe food & drug products