THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

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THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

• 1900-1915
• The Search for Order

What are the origins of the Progressive Era
reforms?
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PROGRESSIVES

• SOCIAL REFORMERS seeking solutions to social,
  economic political problems look to experts,
  not common man
• NOT a political party both Democrats
  Republicans are progressives
• Mostly white, urban, middle-class, many women
• Look to government as agency of social welfare

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Goals of Socialists vs. Progressives

• PROGRESSIVES
• Just trying to improve capitalism
• Sought to regulate big business
• Sought reforms to improve the lives of workers
  attack problem of child labor
• Sought government reforms to give voters more
  control over their government

• SOCIALISM system where govt owns controls
  production distribution of all goods produced
• Socialists want to do away with Americas
  capitalist system and replace it with socialism
• Also will see rise of anarchists, communists
• Red Emma

Emma Goldman
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MUCKRAKERS

• Writers who investigate and expose social
  problems.
• Do not attempt to solve the problems just expose
  them.
• New .10 .15 journals like McClures,
  Cosmopolitan, Colliers
• Term coined by Teddy Roosevelt based on
• Upton Sinclair The Jungle
• Unsanitary conditions in meat-packing plants
• Lincoln Steffens The Shame of the Cities
• Political corruption in city government
• Ida Tarbell History of Standard Oil Company
• Expose of Rockefellers unethical business
  methods
• John Spargo - The Bitter Cry of the Children -
  child labor abuses

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• JACOB RIIS
• How the Other Half Lives
• Photo-journalist
• Exposed problems of the urban immigrants

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Wealth in the Progressive Years
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POLITICAL REFORMS

• GOALS
• To use government to curb trusts
• to stem the Socialist threat by improving the
• common persons condition of life and labor
• WISCONSIN IDEA ROBERT LAFOLLETTE
• Management of public resources will be entrusted
  to non-partisan civil servants EXPERTS, mostly
  from faculty of U of WI
• DIRECT PRIMARY
• People (not bosses) choose who will run for
  office
• INITIATIVE
• Voters/public initiate/propose legislation
• REFERENDUM
• Proposed legislation submitted to voters to
  ratify/approve
• RECALL
• Allows voters to remove an elected official from
  office
• What happened in municipal (city) politics?

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• 17TH AMENDMENT
• U.S. Senators were originally appointed by state
  legislaturesthe Millionaires Club
• 17th Amendment provides for direct election of
  senators

Bosses of the Senate
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CHILD LABOR
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CHILD LABOR

• Problems exposed by John Spargo in Bitter Cry of
  the Children
• 1.7 million children under age 16 were employed
  full-time
• Problems included
• Low pay long hours
• Sweatshops
• Unhealthy conditions
• Dangerous mines

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TEMPERANCE

• Social problems resulting from alcohol
• Money wasted
• Physical abuse
• Health problems / sickness
• Poor performance at work
• Goal of Temperance Movement
• Laws to ban the manufacture, sale or distribution
  of alcohol
• Movement led by women, WCTU, Frances Willard

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Workplace Safety Problems

• No safety regulations
• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire NY, 1911
  employed 500 women
• 150 women trapped in factory
• Doors locked from the outside
• Rear fire escape collapsed
• Burned alive or jumped to their death.in just 15
  minutes
• Reforms resulting from this tragedy
• FIRE ESCAPES!
• Workers compensation laws
• Most vivid symbol of need for govt to ensure a
  safe workplace

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Women's Suffrage

• President Wilson opposed
• Alice Paul National Womens Party
• Picketed the White House
• Blocked Sidewalks
• Chained themselves to lampposts
• Hunger strikes in jail Force-fed
• WYOMING was the 1st state to give women the right
  to vote
• 19th Amendment finally passed in 1920 which gave
  suffrage to ALL women in nation

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Women's Suffrage
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Headquarters of an Anti-Suffrage Group (c.1910)
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Anti-Suffrage Pamphlet (c.1910)
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"Kaiser Wilson"
Paul
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Womens Suffrage Map
WY 1st!
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Women's Voting Rights
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The Courts Industrial Reforms

• Lochner v. New York, 1905
• Supreme Ct. invalidates NY law setting 10 hour
  workday for bakers
• Master employee are free to contract with each
  other
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. dissent if hours too
  long, state CAN regulate private business in the
  interest of health ---- will be used later in
• Muller v. Oregon, 1908
• Ct. upheld OR law limiting of hours women could
  work
• Louis Brandeis, attorney used sociological,
  medical scientific data to show need to protect
  women
• Sexist ruling - Ct. agreed holding that womens
  physical structure performance of maternal
  functions put her at a disadvantageher physical
  well-being becomes an object of public interest
  and care
• First time courts rely on sociological evidence

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CHANGES IN LABOR UNIONS

• Become more radical - reject craft unionism
  advocate socialism
• International Workers of the World (Wobblies)
• Openly anti-capitalist
• Big Bill Haywood (IWW, Socialist Party)
• Mother Jones
• Irish immigrant
• Husband 4 kids died in yellow fever epidemic
• Built up dressmaking business lost everything
  in Great Chicago Fire
• Organizes coal miners union works to get child
  labor prohibited

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Transportation Reforms

• At 7 p.m. on Oct. 27, 1904, the NY subway opened
  to the public, and more than 100,000 people paid
  a nickel each to take their first ride under
  Manhattan.
• Today, some 4.5 million passengers take the NY
  subway each day. New York's subway is the only
  rapid transit system in the world that runs 24
  hours a day, seven days a week.

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LIMITS ON PROGRESSIVISM

• Wages of unskilled workers stay low why?
• IMMIGRANTS!
• Biggest limitation of Progressivism is its
  attitude toward race
• All non-white races still believed to be inferior
• Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 is the law on
  segregation
• Separate but equal doctrine
• Segregation is constitutional so long as separate
  facilities are equal

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Booker T. Washington

• Educator, was a former slave, wrote book, Up From
  Slavery
• Proposed concentrating on economic goals rather
  that legal and political goals for equality.
• Famous speech Atlanta Compromise, urged to learn
  trade, education then fight for full rights

Accomodationist
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Booker T. Washington
Accomodationist
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W.E.B. Dubois
Integrationist Agitation Litigation!
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W.E.B. Dubois
Integrationist Agitation Litigation!
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THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS