SOL: VUS.8d
Progressives: Americans who want to improve
the “system” by working together with the
government
Many social problems arose from industrialization
(i.e. poor living/working conditions, corrupt business practices,
government controlled by the wealthy)
Dangerous conditions
 Child labor
 Long hours, low wages, no benefits or security
 Company towns
 Employment of women

Towns based on a single factory-the
company often supplied all aspects
of living
The First Company Town was in Lowell
MA. All aspects of life were conducted
in the company-owned town, including
its own church!
writers who brought attention to
corruption
Muckraking literature told of the
abuses of child labor
Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle
exposed the meatpacking industry
 Government
controlled by the people
 Guarantee economic opportunities through
government regulation
 Eliminate social injustices
 In

local governments
New forms to meet needs of increasing
urbanization (commission and council manager)
 In
state governments

Referendums-laws submitted to the people for a
vote

Initiatives-laws can be originated by the people

Recall-removing an official from office by the
people’s vote
 In



Primary Elections-people choose candidates for
public office
17th amendment- direct elections of Senators
Secret Ballot
 In

elections
Child Labor
Child labor laws
 Purpose:
protect workers rights by banding together
as a Union
 Organizations




Knights of Labor (1st large labor union for all races)
American Federation of Labor (Skilled craftsmen led by Samuel Gompers)
American Railway Union (Railroad workers led by Eugene Debs)
Industrial Ladies’ Garment Workers Union

Haymarket Square


Homestead Strike


1886- confrontation between
striking workers and police
resulted in several deaths
1892- steel workers against
Carnegie fought hired “thugs”
Pullman Strike

1894- Debs’ workers were
attacked by “strike breakers”
resulting in President Cleveland
sending out troops
Union Gains
Limited work hours
 Regulated work conditions

 Antitrust
laws

Sherman Anti-Trust Act: prevents any
business structure that “restrains
trade” (no monopolies)

Clayton Anti-Trust Act: expands
Sherman Act; outlaws price-fixing;
exempts unions from Sherman Act
 Forerunner
of modern
protest movement
 Benefited
leadership
from strong
(Susan B Anthony)

Encouraged women to
enter labor force during
WWI

Resulted in 19th
amendment
Women celebrate the passage of the
19th Amendment granting them the
right to vote: Aug 26, 1920.
•16th Amendment: Income Tax
•18th Amendment: Prohibition
•Meat Inspection Act
•Pure Food & Drug Act
•Conservation (National Parks)
Carry Nation worked for prohibition by
walking into saloons, destroying bottles
of liquor with her hatchet, and scolding
the customers
She led an anti-lynching
crusade and called on
the federal government
to take action.
 Congress failed to make
such a law, however a
great deal of public
awareness was raised!

Photo credit Library of Congress



Photo credit Library of Congress
Born into slavery shortly before
emancipation, Wells was raised in a wellrespected and politically active family. She
moved to Memphis and became an editor
of a local paper, and she regularly reported
racial injustice. This led to her later
crusades.
Lynching became far too common of an
offense for Wells to take lightly. She
denounced it as mob rule and a violation of
rights, including the crime of murder. Ida
B. Wells led an anti-lynching crusade and
called on the federal government to take
action.
While many times the issue came before
Congress, anti-lynching laws were never
enacted at the National Level.
He believed the way to equality was through
vocational education and economic
success; he accepted social separation.
 Economic success would precede social
equality!

Photo credit: Library of Congress

Booker T. Washington was a former slave. He believed that racism
would end once African Americans acquired useful labor skills and
proved their economic value to society. Washington, who was born a
slave in Virginia, graduated from Hampton Institute after his
emancipation. He opened his own school in Alabama, the Tuskagee
Normal and Industrial Institute. Washington pushed curriculum based
on farming and technical training.

"No race can prosper until it learns that there is as much dignity in
tilling a field as in writing a poem."

Booker T. Washington believed the way to equality was through
vocational education and economic success; he accepted social
separation and discouraged animosity between the races. He urged
cooperation between the races. Washington did not want to "rock the
boat" as he feared racial backlash would take back the few gains
already made in the Civil Rights movement.
Photo credit: Library of Congress
He believed that education was
meaningless without equality.
 He supported political equality for
African Americans by helping to form
the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP).


W.E.B. Du Bois became the first African American to receive a
Ph.D. from Harvard in 1895. "The honor, I assure you," he said,
"was Harvard's". Born to a middle-class family in
Massachusetts, Du Bois believed blacks should seek a liberal
arts education so that the African American community would
have well-educated leaders. Toward this end, Du Bois proposed
that a group of educated blacks, the most "talented tenth",
would achieve immediate inclusion into mainstream American
life. This would then pave the way for others to follow.

Du Bois was much more militant than Washington, advocating
non-compliance with laws and openly defying the authority
which was in place.

W.E.B. Du Bois believed that education was meaningless without
equality. He supported political equality for African Americans
by helping to form the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.