1. Ch. 21: The Progressive Era, 1900-1917

2. How did intellectuals, novelists, and journalists help lay the groundwork for the progressive movement?
What problems of the new urban-industrial order particularly disturbed progressives, and how did they address these problems?
How did progressive reform affect ordinary Americans, including workers, women, immigrants, city dwellers, and African Americans?
As progressivism emerged as a national movement, which politicians and issues proved most important?
How did progressivism change Americans’ view of the proper role of government?

3. The Many Faces of Progressivism
The rapid growing middle class (native-born, white, and Protestant)
White-collar work jumped from 5.1 to 10.5 million between
Professional societies began to emerge (Bar, Advertising, Professors)
People had new allegiances, certification, licensing, membership and standardization
With these new identities came an effort to make their influence felt

4. Even the urban political machines got involved later
College educated women tripled and the divorce rate crept up – the “New Woman” emerged
The initial push for reform came from women’s clubs, settlement houses, and private groups, not from political parties
Even the urban political machines got involved later
No matter, progressivism was a series of political and cultural responses to industrialization and its by- products
They were journalists, academics, social theorists, urban dwellers; reformers, not radicals

5. They sought the following:
Regulation of business
Protection of workers and the urban poor
Government reform
Improved morality
All with the use of science and expert knowledge

6. Intellectuals Offer New Social Views
Thorstein Velben - The Theory of the Leisure Class
William James – Pragmatism
Herbert Croly – The Promise of American Life and the New Republic
Jane Addams – Democracy and Social Ethics
John Dewey – Democracy and Education
Oliver Wendell Holmes – The Common Law

7. conspicuous consumption

8. truth comes from experience, not theorizing

9. Call for an activist government

10. Each individual’s well-being depends on the well-being of others

11. The key institution for a more humane and cooperative social order was the public school (7 mil.- 23 mil.: )

12. Law must evolve as society changes

13. Novelists, Journalists, and Artists Spotlight Social Problems
Frank Norris – The Octopus
Theodore Dreiser – The Financier
McClure’s and Collier’s
Lincoln Steffens – Shame of the Cities
Ida Tarbell – The History of Standard Oil
Lewis Hines photographs
Muckrakers

14. California’s railroad vs. wheat farmers

15. Tycoon who lacks social conscience

16. Muckraking journalists

17. Exposing city corruption

18. Obvious

24. Reforming the Political Process
Samuel M. (Golden Rule) Jones of Toledo, OH
Profit sharing in factories, playgrounds, free kindergarten, lodging for transients
New styles of governing like the city manager system (many times changing after natural disasters)
These new systems brought in experts to run the city like a business
However, government changes sometimes reduced the power of the immigrant classes

25. Electoral reform was popular
Secret ballot
direct primary
initiative
referendum
Recall
All of these weakened party loyalty and voter participation (individual activity decreases while interest group activity increases)

26. Regulating Business, Protecting Workers
J.P. Morgan’s U.S. Steel Company owned 80% of the nation’s production; he also had the one major farm-implement company, International Harvester
Workers wages did increase from $532 to $687 by 1915 (annual wage)
However, whole families had to work
Average work day: 9 ½ hours
1907 – 4,534 railroad workers died; 3,000 miners

27. Wisconsin’s Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette led the way
Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Scientific Management focuses on efficiency: standardization
Reformers felt that since business benefited from government’s high tariffs, government should regulate these businesses
Wisconsin’s Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette led the way
Direct primary, railroad regulatory commission, increased corporate taxes, limited campaign spending, legislative reference library

28. By 1907, thirty states had child labor laws
1903, Oregon limited the work-day of women to 10 hrs.
Political bosses even got involved, especially after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

29. Making Cities More Livable
By 1920, the urban population surpasses 20%
There are campaigns for parks, streetlights, laws against billboards and electric wires
Concern for public health (they had a social- class agenda)
Typhoid Mary (Irish cook)
Infant mortality drops
Antismoke campaign

30. Progressivism and Social Control
Self-righteous nature of the Progressive Movement (pitted native-born vs. immigrant)
Alcohol
Prostitution
Mann Act (1910) – can’t transport a woman across state lines for “immoral purposes”
Drugs
Narcotics Act (1914) – also known as the Harrison Act, bans the distribution of morphine, cocaine, and other addictive drugs

31. Immigration Restriction and Eugenics
NW vs. SE Europeans
Immigration Restriction League and the American Federation of Labor fear job competition and endorse restriction
Literacy bills passed then vetoed repeatedly; overridden in 1917
Sterilization of “inferior” genetic stock
Proposal: Eugenics gave a scientific justification to anti-immigrant sentiment

32. Racism and Progressivism
The Great Migration to the Northern cities
1.4 million African American in the North by 1920
Fed up in the South; growth of the cities;
Birth of a Nation (glorifies the KKK); 75 lynchings occur yearly
W.E.B. du Bois vs. Booker T. Washington
1905- Niagara Movement (meet annually and eventually form the NAACP)

33. Revival of the Women’s Suffrage Movement
1910- Women can vote in WY, CO, UT, and ID
Middle-class women upset that immigrant men can vote
GB movement helped fuel U.S. women
California campaign
Municipal reforms, public-school issues
Joined with labor leaders and male progressives
1911 – suffrage in CA
“Organized Womanhood” however had limits
Elite and middle-class women mostly

34. National American Woman Suffrage Association
Susan B. Anthony retires and Carrie Chapman Catt takes over
They adopted the Winning Plan: grassroots organization with tight central coordination
Lobbied legislatures, held parades, ran newspaper ads, put up posters, held fundraisers, arranged photo ops, distributed items emblazed with suffrage message
1917- NY approved a woman-suffrage referendum

35. NAWSA membership was mostly white, native-born and middle class
“Antis”
Alice Paul (who studied the British approach) grew impatient with the state by state method
She formed the Women’s Party
She targeted the White House and the Democratic Party
Accused Wilson of being a hypocrite

36. Enlarging “Woman’s Sphere”
Women were active in Progressive reforms (it was natural)
Contraception and birth-control information were key issues
1914- Margaret Sanger began her crusade
Her journal The Woman Rebel was “obscene”
1916- she opened the first birth control clinic
1921- founded the American Birth Control League

37. Mary Ware Dennett’s The Sex Side of Life was declare obscene
It was a pamphlet for youth
She lobbied efforts to amend obscenity laws
She argued that contraception should by free (Sanger thought you should have them prescribed)

38. Workers Organize; Socialism Advances
American Federation of Labor (AFL) grew to 4 million by 1920; but only in skilled trades and only 20% of the workforce
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW; Wobblies), led by Big Bill Haywood; mostly western miners, lumbermen, fruitpickers and itinerant laborers
Socialism gains followers
End to capitalism
Public ownership of factories, RR, utilities, communications systems
1900- Socialist Party of America
The Masses – radical magazine
Height was in 1912: Debs receives 900,000 votes

39. National Progressivism Phase I: Roosevelt and Taft, 1901-1913
1905: La Follette goes to Washington as a Senator
TR – cowboy, state assemblyman, New York City police commissioner, U.S. civil serviceman, Asst. Sec. of the Navy
1902 Pennsylvania Coal Strike: United Mine Workers Union; arbitration and the threat of a govt. takeover; miners get 10% wage increase and a reduction of hours to 9

40. Trustbusting
Suit against the Northern Securities Company (5- 4 in favor of dissolution)
He announced his “square deal”
During his presidency, 43 antitrust lawsuits; Standard Oil is broken up and American Tobacco Company is reorganized
During TR’s second term he turned to RR regulation
Hepburn Act (1906) – set maximum RR rates and free passes; govt. could examine financial records

41. Consumer Protection and Racial Issues
Pure Food and Drug Act
Meat Inspection Act
Booker T. Washington to the White House
Brownsville Incident
Dishonorable discharge of three companies, without due process
Rescinded in 1971

42. Environmentalism Progressive-Style
million acres of public lands for national forests had be set aside
Boy Scouts formed in 1910; Girl Scouts in 1912
Gifford Pinchot (head of U.S. Forest Service) stresses conservation
John Muir stresses preservation
1902- National Reclamation Act: water management in arid western regions; construction of dams and irrigation projects
Newlands Act required farmers to repay the construction costs

43. Antiquities Act (1906) - protected archeological sites
TR helps create 53 wildlife reserves, 16 national monuments, and 5 national parks
1916- National Park Service set up

44. Taft in the White House
Running on a conservative ticket, he beats William Jennings Bryan
Taft actually prosecutes more anti-trust cases than TR, but he doesn’t garner the publicity
Reform turns to Congress and the Insurgents (La Follette is one)
Payne-Aldrich Tariff makes them mad
Ballinger-Pinchot Affair: makes matters worse
TR returns and supports Insurgent Candidates in and proposes the New Nationalism

45. Election of 1912
Taft (R), TR (Bull Moose Progressive), Wilson (D), and Debs (S)

46. National Progressivism Phase II: Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1917
Tariff and Banking Reform
Underwood-Simmons Tariff lowers rates by 15%
Federal Reserve Act of regional banks and the FRB
Regulating Business; Aiding Workers and Farmers
Federal Trade Commission Act – FTC is a watchdog
Clayton Antitrust Act- listed actions that would bring a lawsuit such as price discrimination and exclusive dealings (was ineffective due to business links)
Federal Highway Act – matching funds to states
Keating Owen Act – banned from interstate commerce products manufactured by child labor (but declared unconstitutional)

47. Progressivism and the Constitution
Muller v. Oregon – women’s 10-hr. workday
Louis Brandies was the first Jewish Supreme Court justice
16th Amendment – income tax
17th Amendment – direct election of Senators
18th Amendment – Prohibition
19th Amendment – Women’s right to vote

48. Ch. 21 Notes Quiz 1. What were three goals of the Progressives?
2. What book did John Dewey write? Describe its content.
3. What was the significance of McClure's and Colliers?
4. What is a referendum?
5. What were the limits of the women’s suffrage movement? Give two (not just men didn’t like them)
6. Who opened America’s first birth control clinic?