Lesson 5

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Lesson 5The Progressive Era, 1900-1917
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Introduction
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An Introduction to The Progressive Era

• Americans looking for a stronger government to
  social and economic ills.
• The Progressive Era
• A period of reform in the late 19th, early 20th
  centuries.

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An Introduction to The Progressive Era

• Progressives
• Could be found in all portions of society.
• Were not unified.
• Shared a fundamental belief
• America needed a new social consciousness in
  order to cope with the problems brought on by the
  economic and social change in the post-Civil War
  era.

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An Introduction to The Progressive Era

• Three basic attitudes underlay the different
  progressive movements
• Anger over the excesses of industrial capitalism
  and urban growth.
• An emphasis on social unity and common bonds as a
  way of understanding how modern society and
  economics worked.
• Believed that citizens needed to intervene in
  order to improve social conditions.
• Therefore they called for an expansion of the
  legislative and regulatory powers of the state.

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An Introduction to The Progressive Era

• Many drew inspiration from
• Protestantism
• The social gospel.
• Applied Christian ethics to social problems.
• Examples inequality, liquor, slums, child labor,
  weak labor unions, poor schools, and the danger
  of war.
• They looked to natural and social sciences to
  develop rational measures for improving the
  human condition.

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An Introduction to The Progressive Era

• Progressives believed that experts in statistics,
  engineering, and in the sciences could make
  government and industry more efficient and set
  new standards for personal behavior.

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Muckraking A New Type of Journalism

• Journalists played an important role in the
  progressive movement.
• Muckrakers
• Progressive Era journalists who wrote articles
  exposing corruption.

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Muckraking A New Type of Journalism

• John Bunyans, Pilgrims Progress the man
  with the Muck-rake.
• McClures Magazine leader in muckraking.
• Exposed corruption in city governments.
• Others exposed fraud in the insurance industry,
  the horrors of child labor, etc.

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Muckraking A New Type of Journalism

• Muckraking books
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
• Exposed the meatpacking industry.
• President Roosevelt appointed a commission to
  investigate the issue.
• The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) made it illegal
  to sale impure wrongly labeled foods or drugs.
• Meat Inspection Act required federal inspection
  of meatpacking plants.

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Reform and Social Darwinism

• During the early 20th century intellectuals began
  to challenge several core ideas in American
  intellectual life.
• Social Sciences were used in the project of
  improving the material conditions of America.
• Engaged in dialogues with European intellectuals.
• Sought new ways to reinforce social bonds in the
  modern era.

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Reform and Social Darwinism

• Social Darwinism
• The application of Charles Darwins theory of
  biological evolution to society.
• The fittest and wealthiest survive.
• The weak and the poor perish.
• Government action is unable to alter this
  natural process.

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Reform and Social Darwinism

• Challenged by intellectuals such as Lester Frank
  Ward.
• Believed biological evolution had been wrongly
  applied.
• Differences in nature (unplanned, etc) and
  society (built on human invention).

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Reform and Social Darwinism

• Philosopher John Dewey
• Believed education needed reforming.
• Advocated, Creative Intelligence.
• Believed schools should be miniature societies
  where students put their creative intelligence
  to work reforming society.
• Inspired generations of educators.

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Reform and Social Darwinism

• Progressive legal scholars challenged the
  conservative view of constitutional law.
• Since 1870s The Supreme Court applied the 14th
  Amendment to corporations.
• Provided protection for big business and became
  an enemy of social welfare methods.

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Reform and Social Darwinism

• Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
• Believed the law needed to
• Take into consideration the changing social
  conditions.
• Avoid invalidating democratically supported
  social legislation.
• Influenced a generation of lawyers who started
  practicing, sociological jurisprudence.
• 1908 The Supreme Court upheld maximum working
  hours for women.

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Women Reformers

• Women reformers emerged during the Progressive
  Era.
• By 1900s, a new ideal for women had formed
• Self-Determination.
• Push for equality and individualism.
• Women formed organizations to advance certain
  causes
• Organizations tried to improve the lives and
  conditions of working women.
• National Consumers League.
• Womens Trade Union League.

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Women Reformers

• 1911 The Triangle Shirtwaist Companys Factory
  Fire.
• 146 workers killed.
• The majority of them were women.
• Trapped by locked exits and a lack of fire
  escapes.

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Women Reformers

• The fire resulted in a state investigation and
  new laws on factory safety.
• Jane Addams Hull House (Settlement House)
• Chicago 1889.
• Bring middle-class and immigrant working class
  together.
• Provided women with home economic courses
  teaching budgeting, nutrition, and preparation of
  American food.
• Some women worked for suffrage.
• Though prominent in reform politics, women could
  not vote or hold office.

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Women Reformers

• By 1896
• Four Western states extended suffrage to women
• Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah.
• No other states gave women suffrage until 1910
• Washington State approved female suffrage.
• 1916 Jeannette Ranking (Montana) became the
  first woman elected to the House of
  Representatives.

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Women Reformers

• The National American Woman Suffrage Association
  (NAWSA)
• Believed a constitutional amendment was needed
  for womens suffrage.
• Carrie Chapman and Anna Howard Shaw
• Developed a national organization to lobby for
  suffrage in D.C.

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Women Reformers

• Womens suffrage movement leaders
• White.
• Middle-Class.
• The cause of womens suffrage ignited a mass
  movement during the 1910s.
• Women from all backgrounds and ages were
  mobilized.

Carrie Chapman
Jane Addams
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Progressives and Urban Reform

• Progressive reformers focused most of their
  attention on local political battles.
• In cities and states across the nation,
  progressive politicians became a powerful force.
• Democratic Party Machines controlled the
  political life of most large American cities.

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Progressives and Urban Reform

• Key to a strong machine A well disciplined
  organization that could deliver essential
  services to immigrant communities and business
  elites.
• Machine politicians offered their voters a
  variety of services in exchange for votes.
• Businessmen routinely bribed machine politicians
  and contributed liberally to their campaign funds
  in order to get valuable franchises and city
  contracts.

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Progressives and Urban Reform

• Political progressivism originated in the cities.
• The good government movement.
• The National Municipal League.
• Fought to make city management a nonpartisan,
  nonpolitical process.
• By bringing the business administration
  techniques into government.
• Reformers
• Revised city charters in favor of strong mayoral
  power.
• Expanded the use of appointed administrators and
  career civil servants.
• Business and professional elites became the
  biggest supporters of structural reform in urban
  government.

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Progressives and Urban Reform

• On the state level
• Progressives focused on two major reform themes
• Western progressives focused on institutional
  political reform.
• Targeted railroads, mining and timber companies,
  and public utilities for reform.
• Direct primaries (allowed voters to cross party
  lines).
• Recall (gave voters the right to remove elected
  officials by popular vote).

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Progressives and Urban Reform

• On the state level
• Progressives focused on two major reform themes
• Southern progressives moved to regulate railroads
  by mandating lower passenger and freight rates.
• Targeted child labor and educational reform.
• For whites only. Believed the disenfranchisement
  of black voters and the creation of legally
  segregated public sphere were necessary for
  reform.
• Stripped African-Americans of any political power.

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The Prohibition Movement

• Many progressives believed they had a mission to
  create laws and regulations for the benefit of
• Immigrants.
• Industrial workers.
• African-Americans.
• Womens Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
• Women who were angered by men who drank alcohol
  and then abuse their wives and children.

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The Prohibition Movement

• The WCTU directed its work towards ending the
  production, sale, and consumption of alcohol.
• Other WCTU missions
• Improving schools.
• Prison reform.
• Child labor.
• Womens suffrage.
• Anti-Saloon League
• Warned of the connection between liquor dealers,
  brewers, and big city machine politics.
• Also tried to end prostitution.

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President Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Activism

• Theodore Roosevelt
• Becomes President in 1901.
• Viewed the Presidency as the bully pulpit.
• A platform from which he could promote change in
  American society.
• Believed in the strenuous life.
• Thought that educated and wealthy people had a
  responsibility to serve, guide, and inspire the
  less fortunate.
• Believed the federal government should play a
  more active role in curbing the power of the
  wealthy and big business.

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President Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Activism

• Theodore Roosevelt
• Pushed for efficient government as the solution
  for many of societys problems.
• Believed that administrative agencies run by
  experts could find rational solutions that
  everyone would find acceptable.
• Public concern with rapid business
  consolidations.
• 1902 Directed the Justice Department to launch
  prosecutions under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
• Passed in 1890 Sought to promote economic
  competition by prohibiting business combinations
  in restraint of trade or commerce.

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President Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Activism

• Theodore Roosevelt The Trust Buster.
• Northern Securities Company (railroads).
• Supreme Court ruled that the merged that had
  created the company was illegal.
• Under Roosevelt, the Supreme Court filed 43
  prosecutions to restrain or dissolve business
  monopolies.
• Roosevelt believed these were needed to publicize
  the issue and assert the federal governments
  authority over big business.

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President Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Activism

• Theodore Roosevelt
• Re-elected in 1904.
• Kept his promise to retire in 1908.
• Two-term limit 1951 (22nd Amendment).
• Selected William Howard Taft as his successor.
• Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan (D) in 1908.
• By 1910, Tafts policies had angered Roosevelt.

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The Election of 1912 Woodrow Wilson

• Roosevelt re-entered politics and challenged
  President Taft for the Republican nomination in
  the 1912 election.
• The Republican re-nominated President Taft.
• Roosevelts supporters walked out.
• The Progressive Party (The Bull Moose Party)
  nominated Roosevelt in 1912.
• Womans suffrage.
• 8 hour workday.
• Prohibition of child labor.
• Minimum-wage for working women.
• Tighter regulation of large corporations.

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The Election of 1912 Woodrow Wilson

• The Democrats selected New Jersey Governor
  Woodrow Wilson.
• Claimed the Democrats were the true
  progressives.
• New Freedom Campaign
• Limited government intervention in the economy to
  restore competition by curtailing the restrictive
  influences of trusts and protective tariffs.
• Gave opportunities for individual achievement.
• Won the 1912 Presidential Election.

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The Election of 1912 Woodrow Wilson

• President Wilson followed Roosevelt in expanding
  the activist dimensions of the Presidency.
• Became a supporter of a greater federal role in
  regulating business and the economy.

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The Election of 1912 Woodrow Wilson

• President Wilson
• Underwood-Simmons Act (1913) Lowered tariff
  rates and levied the first regular federal income
  tax.
• Federal Reserve Act Revised banking and currency
  by extending limited government regulation
  through the creation of the Federal Reserve
  System.
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Sought to give
  the federal government regulatory control over
  corporations.
• As President, Wilson issued an executive order
  that instituted legal segregation in federal
  employment.

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END OF LESSON