Chapter Twenty-One

1
Chapter Twenty-One

• Urban America and the Progressive Era, 19001917

2
Part One

• Introduction

3
This chapter covers continued urbanization of
America and the social problems that resulted
from rapid unplanned growth of the cities. Both
political bosses and reformers tried to respond
to the reality of industrialized and urbanized
America. Social Darwinism was challenged by the
Progressives who had a new, sometimes
inconsistent, vision of the American community.
They viewed the government as an ally to achieve
realistic and pragmatic reforms. The climate for
reform came from social workers, social
scientists at universities and investigative
journalists. Both political parties would
embrace progressive views. Presidents Roosevelt,
Taft and Wilson based their programs on these new
ideas. Although much was accomplished, the
progressive movement lacked unity and failed to
address issues of class, race or sex adequately.
Legislation was not always enforced or had
unintended negative consequences. In the long
run, politics was affected by the demands for
social justice and attempts were made to confront
the problems of rapid industrialization and
urbanization.
4
Of course our whole national history has been
one of expansion. . . that the barbarians recede
or are conquered . . . is due solely to the power
of the mighty civilized races which have not lost
the fighting instinct. Theodore Roosevelt, The
Strenuous Life When Gandhi was asked about
Western Civilization he responded Its a
good idea.
5
During the 1930s, the governor of the Michigan
territory, Lewis Cass, described the taking of
millions of acres of land from Indians as . . .
the progress of civilization. He also said A
barbarous people cannot live in contact with a
civilized community. True the white man
brought great change. But the varied fruits of
his civilization, though highly colored and
inviting, are sickening and deadening. And if it
be the part of civilization to main, rob, and
thwart, then what is progress? I am going to
venture that the man who sat on the ground in his
tipi meditating on life and its meaning,
accepting the kinship of all creatures, and
acknowledging unity with the universe of things
was infusing into his being the true essence of
civilization. Chief Luther Standing Bear, from
his 1933 autobiography
6
. . . There was not a family in that whole
nation that had not a home of its own. There was
not a pauper in that nation, and the nation did
not owe a dollar. . . It built its own schools
and its hospitals. Yet the defect of the system
was apparent. They have got as far as they can
go, because they own their land in common. . .
There is not enterprise to make your home any
better than that of your neighbors. There is no
selfishness, which is at the bottom of
civilization. Senator Henry Dawes, author of
the act that broke up Indian reservations into
small private possessions todays
privatization? in the 1880s after a visit to the
Cherokee Nation.
7
John Reed

• Writer for the Masses
• Wrote Insurgent Mexico after riding with Pancho
  Villa
• Wrote Ten Days That Shook the World following his
  experiences in Russia during its revolution.
• Died in Russia at age of 33 from illness
• Influences Max Eastman, Emma Goldman, Lincoln
  Steffens, Margaret Sanger, Walter Lipmann

8
Sam Houston

• The Anglo-Saxon race must pervade the whole
  southern extremity of this vast continent. The
  Mexicans are no better than the Indians and I see
  no reason why we should not take their land.

9
On Karl Marx

• Perhaps the most precious heritage of Marxs
  thought is his internationalism, his hostility to
  the national state, his insistence that ordinary
  people have no nation that they must obey and
  give their lives for in war, that we are all
  linked to one another across the glove as human
  beings. This is not only a direct challenge to
  modern capitalist nationalism, with its ugly
  evocations of hatred for the enemy abroad, and
  its false creation of a common interest for all
  within certain artificial borders. It is also a
  rejection of the narrow nationalism of
  contemporary Marxist states, whether the Soviet
  Union, or China, or any of the others. Howard
  Zinn

10
Sources

• Daniel J. Leab (editor), The Labor History Reader
  1985
• Philip S. Foner, Women and the American Labor
  Movement 1979
• Philip Foner (editor), Mother Jones Speaks 1983
  
• Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind
  1967 "Do rocks have rights?"
• Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform From
  Bryan to FDR 1955

11
Chapter Focus Questions

• What were the political, social, and intellectual
  roots of progressive reform?
• What tensions existed between social justice and
  social control?
• What was the urban scene and the impact of new
  immigration?
• How were the working class, women, and African
  Americans politically active?
• How was progressivism manifested in national
  politics?

12
Chronology

• 1889 Jane Addams founds Hull House in Chicago
  http//www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/hull_house.html
  
• 1890 Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half
  Lives
• 1895 Booker T. Washington addresses Cotton States
  Exposition in Atlanta, emphasizing an
  accomodationist philosophy Lillian Wald
  establishes Henry Street Settlement in NY
• 1898 Florence Kelley becomes general secretary of
  new National Consumers' League
• 1900 Robert M. La Follette, governor of
  Wisconsin
• 1901 Theodore Roosevelt succeeds the assassinated
  William McKinley as president
• 1904 Lincoln Steffens publishes The Shame of the
  Cities
• 1905 President Roosevelt creates U.S. Forest
  Service and names Gifford Pinchot head
• Industrial Workers of the World founded in
  Chicago

13
1906 Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposes
conditions in the meat-packing industry
Congress passes Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat
Inspection Act and establishes Food and Drug
Admin. 1908 In Muller v. Oregon the Supreme
Court upholds a state law limiting maximum hours
for working women 1909 Uprising of the 20,000 in
New York City's garment industries helps
organize unskilled workers into unions National
Associations for the Advancement for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded
1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire kills 146
garment workers in New York City Socialist
critic Max Eastman begins the Masses
14
1912 Dem. Woodrow Wilson wins presidency,
defeating Repub. William H. Taft, Progressive
Theodore Roosevelt, Socialist Eugene V. Debs
Bread and Roses strike involves 25,000 textile
workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts Margaret
Sanger begins writing / speaking in support of
birth control for women 1913 Sixteenth
Amendment, legalizing a graduated income tax, is
ratified 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act exempts
unions from being construed as illegal
combinations in restraint of trade Federal
Trade Commission established Ludlow Massacre
1916 National Park Service established
15
OBJECTIVES 1. Trace the process by which largely
female settlement house workers first began and
the community of reform they tried to create. 2.
Summarize the principles of the Progressives,
and the views of its principal proponents in
journalism, social sciences and government, as
well as its legacy. 3. Discuss the aims of and
problems with social control legislation desired
by the Progressives. 4. Explain the problems
of working class communities their attempts to
solve them through unions and reform legislation.
5. Summarize the role of women in the reform
campaigns and the effects it had on their
participation in public life and leadership
positions. 6. Summarize the difficulties of
black Progressives in gaining recognition, but
also their positive effects within the black
community. 7. Explain the attempts by both the
Democratic and Republican parties to respond to
demands that the governments, local, state and
national, address issues of social justice. 8.
Analyze the possible connections between Populism
and Progressivism as social reform movements.
16
Part Two

• American Communities

17
The Henry Street Settlement House

• Lillian Walds Henry Street Settlement began as a
  visiting nurse service.
• At Henry Street, Wald created a community of
  college-educated women who lived among the urban
  poor and tried to improve their lives.
• Most settlement workers did not make a career out
  of this work, but several of the women went on to
  become influential political reformers.
• The workers served the community by promoting
  health care, cultural activities, and, later, by
  promoting reform legislation.

18
Part Three

• The Currents of Progressivism

19
Unifying Themes

• Progressivism drew from deep roots in American
  communities and spread, becoming a national
  movement.
• Progressives articulated American fears of the
  growing concentration of power and the excesses
  of industrial capitalism and urban growth.
• Progressives rejected the older Social Darwinist
  assumptions in favor of the idea that government
  should intervene to address social problems.
• Progressives drew upon evangelical Protestantism,
  especially the Social Gospel movement, and the
  scientific attitude to promote social change.

20
Women Spearhead Reform

• Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago in
  1889.
• Working there served as an alternative to
  marriage for educated women who provided crucial
  services for slum dwellers.
• Florence Kelley worked there and later wrote
  reports that influenced labor legislation.

21
Jane Addams and Hull House

• http//www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/hull_house.html

22
SOME HULL- HOUSE FIRSTS First Social Settlement
in Chicago First Social Settlement with men and
women residents Established first public baths
in Chicago Established first public playground
in Chicago Established first gymnasium for the
public in Chicago Established first little
theater in the United States Established first
citizenship preparation classes Established
first public kitchen in Chicago Established
first college extension courses in Chicago
Established first group work school
Established first painting loan program in
Chicago Established first free art exhibits in
Chicago Established first fresh air school in
Chicago Established first public swimming pool
in Chicago Established first boy scout troop in
Chicago
23
Investigations for the first time in Chicago of
truancy, sanitation, typhoid fever,
tuberculosis, distribution of cocaine, midwifery,
children's reading, infant mortality, newsboys,
social value of the saloon Investigations that
led to creation and enactment of first factory
laws in Illinois Investigations that led to
creation of the first model tenement code First
Illinois Factory Inspector, a Hull-House
resident, Florence Kelley First probation
officer in Chicago, a Hull-House resident, Alzina
Stevens Labor unions organized at Hull-House
Women Shirt Makers Women Cloak Makers Dorcas
Federal Labor Union Chicago Woman's Trade Union
League
24
The Urban Machine

• Urban political machines were a closed and
  corrupt system that
• offered jobs and other services to immigrants in
  exchange for votes
• drew support from businesses and provided
  kickbacks and protection in return
• By the early 20th century, machines began
  promoting welfare legislation, often allying
  themselves with progressive reformers.
• But reformers blamed the machines for many urban
  ills.

25
Political Progressivism and Urban Reform

• Political progressivism arose in cities to combat
  machines and address deteriorating conditions,
  such as impure water.
• They sought professional, nonpartisan
  administration to improve government efficiency.
• Following a tidal wave in Galveston, Texas,
  reformers pushed through a commissioner system.
• Other cities adopted city manager plans.
• Reformers like Samuel Jones of Toledo sought
  municipal ownership of utilities and pursued
  other welfare issues.

26
Progressivism in the Statehouse West and South

• Governor and then Senator Robert La Follette of
  Wisconsin forged a farmer-labor small business
  alliance to push through statewide reforms.
• Oregon passed referendum and initiative
  amendments that allowed voters to bypass
  legislatures and enact laws themselves.
• Western progressives like Californias Hiram
  Johnson targeted railroad influence.
• Southern progressives pushed through various
  reforms such as improved educational facilities,
  but supported discriminatory laws against African
  Americans.

27
New Journalism Muckraking

• A new breed of investigative journalist began
  exposing the public to the plight of slum life.
• Muckrakers published accounts of urban poverty,
  unsafe labor conditions, as well as corruption in
  government and business.
• Upton Sinclairs The Jungle exposed the
  unsanitary conditions in Chicagos meatpacking
  industry.
• Muckraking mobilized national opinion.
• Jacob Riis, Lincoln Steffens, John Reed, Walter
  Lipmann, Jack London The Iron Heel

28
Intellectual Trends Promoting Reform

• The emerging social sciences provided empirical
  studies used by reformers to push for reforms.
• Early 20th-century thinkers like Lester Frank
  Ward challenged some of the intellectual supports
  for the prevailing Social Darwinism.
• John Deweys ideas on education and John R.
  Commons and Richard Elys ideas on labor were
  influential in shaping public policy.
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. attacked
  constitutional interpretations that had prevented
  states from passing legislation that protected
  public interests.
• Sociological jurisprudence was used to support
  points instead of legal arguments.

29
Part Four

• Social Control and its Limits

30
The Prohibition Movement

• Many middle-class progressives worried about the
  increased numbers of urban immigrants and sought
  methods of social control.
• Temperance groups like the Womens Christian
  Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League
  pushed for restrictions or bans on alcohol.
• Native-born, small town and rural Protestants
  generally supported prohibition while recent
  immigrants opposed it.

31
The Social Evil

• Reformers also attacked prostitution, an illicit
  trade that was connected with corrupt city
  machines.
• A national movement used the media to try and ban
  the white slave traffic allegedly promoted by
  foreigners.
• Progressives investigated prostitution and
  documented its dangers, though they were unable
  to understand why women took it up.
• Progressive reform helped close down brothels,
  but they were replaced by more vulnerable
  street-walkers.

32
The Redemption of Leisure

• Reformers were aghast at the new urban commercial
  amusements, such as amusement parks, vaudeville,
  and the most popular venue, the movies.
• New York City reformers and movie producers and
  exhibitors established the National Board of
  Censorship.

33
Standardizing Education

• For many progressives, the school was the key
  agency to break down the parochial ethnic
  neighborhood and Americanize immigrants.
• Expansion and bureaucratization characterized
  educational development as students started
  earlier and stayed later in school.
• High school evolved as comprehensive institutions
  that offered college preparatory and vocational
  education.

34
Part Five

• Working-Class Communities and Protest

35
New Immigrants from Two Hemispheres

• The early twentieth century saw a tremendous
  growth in the size of the working class.
• Sixty percent of the industrial labor force was
  foreign-born, mostly unskilled workers from
  southern and eastern Europe.

36
Immigrants

• Driven out by the collapse of peasant agriculture
  and persecution, the new immigrants depended on
  family and friends to help them get situated.
• Many worked long hours for pay that failed to
  keep them out of poverty.
• Non-European immigrants included
• French-Canadians who worked in New England
  textile mills
• Mexicans who came as seasonal farm workers. A
  large number stayed and established communities
  throughout the southwest.
• The Japanese, who worked in fishing and truck
  farming

37
Urban Ghettos

• In large cities, immigrants established
  communities in densely packed ghettos.
• New York City became the center of Jewish
  immigrants, many of whom worked at piece-rates in
  the ready-to-wear garment industry.
• A general strike by 20,000 workers contributed to
  the growth of the International Ladies Garment
  Workers Union.
• The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York led to
  laws to protect workers.

38
Company Towns

• Some industrial workers lived in communities
  often dominated by a single corporation that
  owned the houses, the stores, and regulated life.
  
• Ethnic groups maintained many cultural
  traditions.
• Factories were dangerous places with high
  accident and death rates.
• Immigrants resisted the discipline of the factory
  by taking time off for cultural activities,
  spreading out the work by slowing down and
  becoming increasingly involved in unions
• In western mining communities, corporate power
  and violent labor conflict occurred.

39
The AFL

• The leading labor organization at the turn of the
  century was the American Federation of Labor.
• With the exception of the mineworkers, most AFL
  unions were not interested in organizing
  unskilled immigrants, women, or African
  Americans.
• The AFL was on the defensive from open shop
  campaigns promoted by trade associations and
  court injunctions that barred picketing and
  boycotting.
• Samuel Gompers

40
Samuel Gompers What does labor want? We want
more schoolhouses and less jails more books and
less arsenals more learning and less vice more
leisure and less greed more justice and less
revenge in fact, more of the opportunities to
cultivate our better natures, to make manhood
more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and
childhood more happy and bright.
41
Show me the country that has no strikes and I'll
show you the country in which there is no
liberty. The worst crime against working
people is a company which fails to operate at a
profit. Doing for people what they can and
ought to do for themselves is a dangerous
experiment. In the last analysis the welfare of
the workers depends upon their own private
initiative. "The labor of a human being is not
a commodity or article of commerce. You can't
weigh the soul of a man with a bar of
pig-iron."   Samuel Gompers, AFL president from
1888 to 1924
42
Frank Lloyd Wright If capitalism is fair then
unionism must be. If men have a right to
capitalize their ideas and the resources of their
country, then that implies the right of men to
capitalize their labor. Franklin Delano
Roosevelt It is one of the characteristics of a
free and democratic nation that is have free and
independent labor unions. Jimmy Carter Every
advance in this half-century-Social Security,
civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one
after another-came with the support and
leadership of American Labor.
43
Joe Hill If the workers took a notion they could
stop all speeding trains Every ship upon the
ocean they can tie with mighty chains. Every
wheel in the creation, every mine and every mill
Fleets and armies of the nation, will at their
command stand still. John L. Lewis The labor
movement is organized upon a principle that the
strong shall help the weak. The strength of a
strong man is a prideful thing, but the
unfortunate thing in life is that strong men do
not remain strong. And it is just as true of
unions and labor organizations as is true of men
and individuals. John L. Lewis Let the workers
organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their
crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and
demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful
citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is
the future of America.
44
Lya Sorano When we talk about equal pay for
equal work, women in the workplace are beginning
to catch up. If we keep going at this current
rate, we will achieve full equality in about 475
years. I don't know about you, but I can't wait
that long. Martin Luther King, Jr. In our
glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard
against being fooled by false slogans, as
'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no
'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions
and the freedom of collective bargaining... We
demand this fraud be stopped.
45
Molly Ivins Although it is true that only about
20 percent of American workers are in unions,
that 20 percent sets the standards across the
board in salaries, benefits and working
conditions. If you are making a decent salary in
a non-union company, you owe that to the unions.
One thing that corporations do not do is give out
money out of the goodness of their
hearts. Mother Jones My friends, it is
solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to
find fault with each other, but to solidify our
forces and say to each other "We must be
together our masters are joined together and we
must do the same thing."
46

• Phillip Randolph The essence of trade unionism
  is social uplift. The labor movement has been the
  haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the
  neglected, the downtrodden, the poor.
• Abraham Lincoln Labor is prior to, and
  independent of, capital. Capital is only the
  fruit of labor, and could never have existed if
  Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to
  capital, and deserves much the higher
  consideration.
• Abraham Lincoln The strongest bond of human
  sympathy outside the family relation should be
  one uniting working people of all nations and
  tongues and kindreds.

47
The IWW

• Radical workers, especially from the mining camps
  in the West, organized the Industrial Workers of
  the World.
• Led by Big Bill Haywood, the IWW tried to
  organize the lowest paid workers.
• The IWW used direct action, including strikes.
• The IWW gained temporary power in the east but
  remained a force in the West.
• Songwriter Joe Hill

48
Rebels in Bohemia

• A small community of middle-class artists and
  intellectuals in Greenwich Village, New York
  City, called Village bohemians supported the
  IWW and other radical causes.

49
Part Six

• Womens Movements and Black Awakening

50
The New Women

• Middle-class womens lives were changing rapidly.
  
• More were receiving an education and joined
  various clubs involved in civic activities.
• Women become involved in numerous reforms, from
  seeking child labor laws to consumer safety and
  sanitation.
• Margaret Sanger promoted wider access to
  contraceptives and opened a birth control clinic
  in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn.

51
Racism and Accommodation

• The turn of the century was an intensely racist
  era.
• Segregation was institutionalized throughout the
  South.
• Violent attacks on blacks were supported by
  vicious characterizations in popular culture.
• Booker T. Washington emerged as the most
  prominent black leader.
• Washington advocated black accommodation and
  urged that blacks focus on self-reliance and
  economic improvement.

52
Racial Justice

• W. E. B. DuBois criticized Booker T. Washington
  for accepting the alleged inferiority of the
  Negro.
• DuBois supported programs that sought to attack
  segregation, the right to vote, and secured city
  equality.
• He helped found the National Association for the
  Advancement of Colored People.
• Editor of The Crisis in 1910
• He proposed developing a talented tenth

53
Part Seven

• National Progressivism

54
Theodore Roosevelt and Presidential Activism

• Roosevelt viewed the presidency as a bully
  pulpit to promote progressive reforms.
• He pressured mine owners into a settlement that
  won better pay for miners.
• He directed the Justice Department to prosecute a
  number of unpopular monopolies, actions that won
  him the sobriquet trustbuster.
• Roosevelt favored passing regulatory laws
  including
• the Hepburn Act that strengthened the Interstate
  Commerce Commission
• the Pure Food and Drug Act

55
Conservation, Preservation and the Environment

• Roosevelt founded the Forest Service and
  supported the conservation efforts of John Muir,
  the founder of the modern environmental movement.
• Gifford Pinchot, government leader in charge of
  forest service

56
Republican Split

• In his second term Roosevelt announced his Square
  Deal program as a way to stave off radicalism
  through progressive reform.
• His Republican successor, William Howard Taft,
  supported some of his reforms.
• But Taft wound up alienating many progressives.
• Roosevelt then challenged Taft for Republican
  leadership.

57
The Election of 1912

• In the 1912 election, Roosevelt ran for president
  on the new Progressive Party touting his New
  Nationalism program.
• The Democrats ran a progressive candidate,
  Woodrow Wilson, who promoted his New Freedom
  platform.
• The Socialist Party, which had rapidly grown in
  strength, nominated Eugene Debs.
• Wilson won 42 percent of the vote, enough to
  defeat the divided Republicans.

58
Eugene Victor Debs

• While there is a lower class, I am in it.
  While there is a criminal element, I am of it.
  While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
• He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for
  encouraging people to avoid the draft during WW
  I.

59
Eugene V. Debs Ten thousand times has the labor
movement stumbled and bruised itself. We have
been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs,
charged by the militia, traduced by the press,
frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by
politicians. But notwithstanding all this and all
these, labor is today the most vital and
potential power this planet has ever known, and
its historic mission is as certain of ultimate
realization as is the setting of the sun.
Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a
fact, cold and impassive as the granite
foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic
elements, identity of interest, clarity of
vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of
purpose, or any of these is lacking, all
sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other
efforts to achieve it will be barren of results.
60
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61
Woodrow Wilsons First Term

• Wilson followed Roosevelts lead in promoting an
  activist government by
• lowering tariffs
• pushing through a graduated income tax
• restructuring the banking and currency system
  under the Federal Reserve Act. He expanded the
  nations anti-trust authority and established the
  Federal Trade Commission
• On social reforms Wilson proved more cautious.

62
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