The Progressive Reform Era

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The Progressive Reform Era

• Ch 18 Skele Notes

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18.1 The Origins of Progressivism

• Progressive Era 1890-1920, a lot of reform going
  on
• Outgrowth of earlier reform in the Northeast,
  Midwest, and West Coast
• Roots of Reform (reacting to)
• Immigration
• Urbanization low pay, poor housing
• Work environments
• Corruption in the gov
• Included people from all political parties
• Most were of average wealth/middle class

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Goals

• Didnt share same views
• Goals fell into 4 categories
• Social
• Moral
• Economic
• Political
• Some overlapped
• Some conflicted

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Beliefs

• Gov should be more accountable to its citizens
• Gov should curb power and influence of wealthy
  interests
• Gov should be given expanded powers so it could
  become more active in improving lives of its
  citizens
• Gov should become more efficient and less corrupt
  so they could competently handle an expanding role

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Key Writers

• Henry George wrote Progress and Poverty in
  effort to explain why poverty plagued such an
  advanced civilization
• Proposed a single tax on the value of land
• Edward Bellamy published Looking Backward where a
  man wakes up in 2000 and finds the US transformed
  into a utopian country
• Clubs formed supporting both mens works

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More on Writers

• Many became scientific in their work and
  published their findings about our society
• Hoped the public would push legislators to make
  and enforce new laws
• Muckrakers journalists who uncovered information
  in an area of social reform and published their
  findings
• Ex Upton Sinclairs The Jungle (meat packing
  ind), Lincoln Steffens The Shame of the Cities
  (corruption in cities), Ida Tarbell about
  Standard Oil Trusts abuses

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Reform Organizations

• Union Movement 1890s
• If unions succeeded in forming, business leaders
  often used court to issue injunctions (court
  order prohibiting something) preventing strike
• Did have success with collective bargaining
• Socialists public/gov control of property and
  income
• Elect leaders to do this, not through revolution
• Most progressives didnt support such huge
  changes
• Wanted to get rid of corruption and help the poor

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Womens Groups

• National Consumers League (NCL)
• Investigated conditions in which goods were made
  and sold
• Insisted factories obey state inspection laws and
  pay minimum wage
• Women believed they needed the right to vote to
  get gov to create services essential to a
  familys health
• Focused on liquor, workplace conditions, and
  commercialized vice
• Powerless without the right to vote

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Important Women

• Florence Kelley Hull House
• Enforcer of law prohibiting child labor, limiting
  work hours for women, and regulating sweatshop
  conditions in IL
• Earned a law degree
• Involved in NCL general secretary

• Mother Jones Mary Harris Jones
• Worked with Knights of Labor
• Organized unions for workers (men and women)
• Became national speaker on unions and child labor
  laws
• 1905 helped form IWW

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18.2 Progressive Legislation

• Social Welfare Programs
• Ensure minimum standard of living for people
• Ex minimum wage, unemployment benefits, accident
  and health insurance, social security system
• Municipal level reforms city level
• Most early reforms
• Pushed for home rule system that gives cities
  and limited degree of self rule
• Allowed them to escape rule of state level
  political machines
• Dealt with ending corruption (political machines)
• Some political machines worked with reformers

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Why did people want municipal reforms?

• Many tragic events made people want these reforms
• Galveston model of management
• Commission (5) ran things, not just one person
• Dayton first big city to do a council-management
  gov
• Elected city council which sets laws and
  appointed a professional city manager to run city
  services

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City Reforms

• Take over Utilities
• Made efforts to regulate or dislodge monopolies
  that provided city utilities like water, gas, and
  electricity
• By 1915 nearly 2 of 3 cities had some city-owned
  utilities
• Provide Welfare Services
• Some reform mayors led movements for
  city-supported welfare services

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State Reforms

• First worked to oust political bosses then change
  things
• Robert La Follette (Wis.) began direct primary
  voters choose who should run for office
• Initiative citizens can propose new law through
  petition signatures and get it on the ballot
• Referendum citizens can approve/reject a law
  passed by the legislature
• Recall voters can remove person from office
  before the next election

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Workplace Reforms

• Labor depts provide information and
  dispute-resolution services to employers and
  employees
• Went to court with business owners saying gov
  shouldnt get involved in business
• Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court
  struck down a law setting maximum hours for
  bakers
• Muller v. Oregon the Court upheld an Oregon law
  that limited hours for female laundry workers to
  10 hours a day
• Health issues
• By 1907, nearly two thirds of the states had
  abolished child labor
• Minimum wage laws for women and children also
  made headway

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Fighting Bob La Follette

• Ousted party bosses and brought about structural
  changes such as a direct primary and civil
  service reform
• Wisconsin Idea called on academic experts to
  help draft reform legislation. To get it passed,
  he had the voting roll call read publicly in the
  districts of legislators who opposed reform.
• Served in Senate after governor

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Federal Reforms

• Theodore Roosevelt was a powerhouse for reform as
  president
• Square Deal arbitration in mining strike TR
  felt was fair to both sides (check book for
  details)
• Square Deal became slogan for his presidency

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Progressive Reform Legislation
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18.3 Tafts Presidency

• Taft chosen by TR, but disappointed many
• Payne-Aldrich Tariff a protective tariff, not
  supported by Progressives
• Ballinger-Pinchot Affair dispute over lands in
  Alaska and their being sold for business purposes
  (coal), ended in Taft looking bad again

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New Nationalism

• TR campaigned for Progressives in the interim
  elections of 1910
• Called for business regulation, welfare laws,
  workplace protection for women and children,
  income and inheritance taxes, and voting reform
• Progressive Democrats won many seats in Congress

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Election of 1912

• Republicans Taft
• Progressives formed own party Bull Moose Party
  with TR as candidate
• tariff reduction, women's suffrage, more
  regulation of business, a child labor ban, an
  eight-hour workday, a federal workers'
  compensation system, and the direct election of
  senators
• Democrats Woodrow Wilson and New Freedom
  policy- promised to enforce antitrust laws
  without threatening economic competition
• Wilson won because Republican vote was split

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Wilsons Presidency

• Underwood Tariff Act of 1913 reduced average
  tariff rates from 40 percent to 25 percent
• October 1913 Wilson signed into law a federal
  income tax, made legal with ratification of the
  Sixteenth Amendment (to make up for loss in
  revenue)

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Trust Busting

• Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) spelled out
  specific activities that big businesses could not
  do
• Companies could not prevent their buyers from
  purchasing goods from competitors
• Some types of holding companies used to create
  monopolies were banned
• Price cutting in local markets to squeeze out
  competitors was forbidden, as were some rebates.
• Legalized unions as well as their key weapons
  strikes, peaceful picketing, and boycotts

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Federal Trade Commission

• Created in 1914
• To enforce the Clayton Act and set up fair-trade
  laws
• Given the power to order firms to cease and
  desist the practice of business tactics found to
  be unfair
• Later court rulings weakened the Clayton Act

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Federal Reserve Act of 1913

• Created the Federal Reserve System
• Divided the country into 12 districts, each with
  a Federal Reserve bank owned by its member banks
• Supervised by a Federal Reserve Board appointed
  by the President
• Fed. Reserve banks were bankers banks that
  collected and loaned money to member banks
  (helpful in times of crisis)
• Created Federal Reserve Notes (new currency)
• Federal Farm Loan Board in 1916 that made loans
  available to farmers

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Brandeis Appointed to the Supreme Court

• 1916 in middle of many reforms Wilson made to
  attract progressive voters
• Controversial because some thought he was too
  radical, others didnt like him because he was
  Jewish
• Appointed and served until 1939
• Marked the peak of federal progressive reforms

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Wilsons Re-Elected

• TR didnt run again
• Progressives supported Wilson
• Wilson was re-elected in 1916 running on a slogan
  of keeping the US out of WWI which had broken out
  in Europe in 1914

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Limits of Progressivism

• Redefined and enlarged the role of gov
• Little action to make social justice reforms
• Immigrant issues, race and segregation issues,
  even womens rights (although women gained the
  right to vote under Wilson)
• Progressivism died down with concern over WWI
• Womens right to vote was only issue that still
  lived on

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18.4 Suffrage at Last

• Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
  important women in suffrage movement (split in
  movement)
• National Woman Suffrage Association worked toward
  a constitutional amendment
• American Woman Suffrage Association worked toward
  state level suffrage
• Wyoming (1890) was 1st state to grant womens
  suffrage
• Easier to attain in west because women worked
  just as hard as men and were treated more as

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Suffragist Strategies

• Constitutional amendment
• More difficult
• Brought up regularly but stalled, until 1913
• Convince each state to grant women the right to
  vote
• Easier at first, especially in the west

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National American Woman Suffrage Association
(NAWSA) - 1890

• Anthony served as president from 1892-1900
• By this time women had gained many rights and
  were demanding right to vote
• Stanton died (1902) and Anthony died (1906)
• New leaders emerged
• Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul

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Congressional Union (CU)

• Created by Paul
• Tended to be more forceful in its demonstrations
• Aggressive, militant campaign for the
  constitutional amendment
• CU expelled from NAWSA in 1914 because so
  militant

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Catts Winning Plan

• Develop a large group of full-time leaders to
  work in red-hot campaigns for six years
• Focus on getting Congress to re-introduce the
  federal suffrage amendment

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WWIs Effect on Suffrage

• 1918 US involved in WWI
• Women stepped into many traditionally mens roles
  to help out
• 18th Amendment (prohibition) ended liquor
  industrys objections to womens suffrage
• In August of 1920 the 19th Amendment allowing
  womens suffrage was ratified
• Last major reform of Progressive era