1. Chapter 21
The Progressive Era

2. Introduction
How did intellectuals and writers prepare the way for progressive reform?
What conditions in the cities and states bothered progressives and what did they do about them?
How did progressive reform reach national politics and which leaders and issues were involved?
What impact did progressive reform have on the lives of women, immigrants, the urban poor and African Americans?
Did Progressivism alter people’s views on the proper role of government in America’s society and economy?

3. The Many Faces of Progressivism
Progressives included much of the new urban middle class- mostly white native born Protestants
Middle class women, often college educated, working through the settlement houses and private organizations such as the National Consumers League played an important role.
Urban immigrant political machines and workers began to demand improved labor conditions
Unlike the Populist movement, the progressives were in the urban areas and drew the support of the middle class

4. The Many Faces of Progressivism cont.
There was never any one unified movement
Some wanted regulation of business, some wanted laws to protect workers, some wanted to cure social ills.

5. Intellectuals Offer New Social Views
Thorstein Veblen, Herbert Croly, William James and Jane Addams called for government to regulate unfair business practices and protect poor workers.
John Dewey wanted schools to teach democracy and cooperation
Oliver Wendell Holmes wanted judges to allow the law to evolve as society changes

6. Novelists, Journalists and Artists Spotlight Social problems
Muckrakers tried to expose to middle class Americans political corruption and corporate wrongdoing
Lincoln Steffens wrote about political machines and party bosses
Ida Tarbell wrote about the abuses of Standard Oil in McClures and Collier’s magazines
Frank Norris and Theidore Dreiser wrote about business abuses and political corruption
Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis took pictures of the Urban Poor
Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle about the meatpacking industry

7. Reforming the Political Process
Hazen Pingree of Detroit, Samuel Jones of Toledo were examples of progressive mayors who brought about change in their communities
Commission and city-manager forms of government were experiments of reform governments
Secret ballot, direct primary, initiative, referendum and recall

8. Regulating Business, Protecting Workers
1901b JP Morgan consolidates several steel companies into US Steel- controlled 80% of the steel in America
million youngsters worked full time
Average 9 ½ hours per day
No health and safety regulations
Governor Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin convinced the legislature to create a state railroad commission, increase corporate taxes and limited business contributions to political campaigns. This became known as the : Wisconsin Idea”
States passed maximum work hours for women and factory safety codes. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Worker’s compensation and ban on child labor

9. Making Cities More Livable
Cities continue to grow between
Progressives called for parks, playgrounds, housing codes, garbage collection, street cleaning, water and sewer systems, reduction of air pollution and regulation of food and milk standards

10. Moral Control and the Cities
Reformers moved to censor movies and prostitution
Mann Act 1910 closed the red-light districts in many cities

11. Battling Alcohol and Drugs
Prohibition was the biggest moral crusade of the Progressive Era
Ant-Saloon league
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union’
Carrie Nation
Laws passed regulating Morphine, Heroin and Cocaine

12. Immigration Restriction and Eugenics
17,000,000 immigrants mainly from southern and eastern Europe poured into the country between
Nativists believed that immigrants caused poverty and immorality
Henry Cabot Lodge formed the Immigration Restriction League
1917 Congress passes law restricting illiterate immigrants from entering the country
Eugenicists claimed to control society by controlled breeding.
Laws were passed allowing forced sterilization of criminals and sex offenders

14. Racism and Progressivism
Million African Americans still lived in the South, most as sharecroppers
Great Migration- escape of Jim Crow, poverty, disenfranchisement and violence
African Americans encountered de-facto segregation and discrimination in the North
African Americans developed their own communities, culture and music- beginnings of the Harlem Renaissance
Southern Progressives such as James K. Vardaman and Ben Tillman fought for economic and political reform for poor whites
Lillian Wald and Mary Whitte Ovington decried racial injustice and helped found the NAACP

15. African-American Leaders Organize Against Racism
Booker T. Washington advised blacks to concentrate on economic advancement- “Everybody’s money is green”
Washington advocated vocational training
William Monroe Trotter, W.E.B. Dubois and Ida Wells Barnett urged blacks to fight for economic, political and educational equality
1905 W.E.B. Dubois and others formed the Niagara Movement
1909 Dubois and others in the Niagara Movement joined with White Progressives to form the NAACP and rejected Booker T. Washington’s advice

17. Revival of the Woman-Suffrage Movement
1900- Carrie Chapman Catt led the National American Woman Suffrage Association in lobbying, demonstrating and distributing literature
They convinced several states to allow women to vote
Alice Paul organized the Woman’s Party to bring direct pressure to the Federal Government
They picketed the White House and went on a hunger strike

18. Enlarging Woman’s Sphere
Feminists challenged the traditional role of women.
Florence Kelley, Alice Hamilton and Margaret Sanger led the progressive drives to abolish child labor, protect the health of workers and consumers, establish day care centers and birth control clinics

20. Workers Organize; Socialism Advances
Employers often hired immigrants as scabs to replace striking workers
AFL craft unions grew but most factory workers were unorganized
International Ladies’ Garment Workers and Industrial Workers of the World (western miners, lumberjacks and migratory farm workers) led several successful strikes
Government restrictions of labor unions during WWI eventually caused the IWW to decline
Socialist Party of America sought to end capitalism in America through the ballot box instead of by revolution and Eugene Debs received 900,000 votes in 1912 for the Presidency

21. Roosevelt’s Path to the White House
Theodore Roosevelt enters the White House after William McKinley is assassinated in 1901
Roosevelt was a progressive that turned the Presidency into a bully pulpit and a center of legislative initiative

22. Labor Disputes, Trustbusting, Railroad Regulation
Roosevelt induced the management and United Coal Mine Workers to sit for arbitration during the 1912 coal strike. The commission granted workers higher wages and shorter hours
Northern Securities vs. US
Defeated Democratic Candidate Alton B. Parker in 1904 election
1906 strengthened corporate regulation through the Hepburn Act which extended the Interstate Commerce Act

24. Consumer Protection and Racial Issues
Upton Sinclair- The Jungle
Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass The Pure Food and Drug Act
Brownsville, Texas incident- The Brownsville Affair, or the Brownsville Raid, was a racial incident that arose out of tensions between black soldiers and white citizens in Brownsville Texas, in When a white bartender was killed and a police officer wounded by gunshot, townspeople accused the members of the 25th Infantry, a unit of Buffalo Soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Brown. Although commanders said the soldiers had been in the barracks all night, evidence was planted against them.
As a result of a US Army Inspector General's investigation, President Roosevelt ordered the dishonorable discharge of 167 soldiers of the 25th Infantry, costing them pensions and preventing them from serving in civil service jobs. A renewed investigation in the early 1970s exonerated the discharged black troops. The government pardoned them and restored their records to show honorable discharges but did not provide retroactive compensation.

26. Environmentalism Progressive Style
1890’s land use was a political issue
Roosevelt’s Forest Service chief was Gifford Pinchot
Roosevelt signed the Newlands Act in 1902 which set aside 200,000,000 acres of forests and mineral rich lands for government managed use rather than for sale to business. Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act and set aside land for National parks

27. Taft in the White House
William Howard Taft won the Republican nomination and the election of 1908 over William Jennings Bryan
Taft prosecuted mote trusts than Roosevelt but lacked Roosevelt’s flair for publicity and political skill
Taft sided with the conservative side of the Republican party over the progressives
Taft signed the Payne-Aldrich tariff, fired Gifford Pinchot and supported Joseph Cannon for Speaker of the House
Theodore Roosevelt returned from a world tour in 1910 and immediately started trying the restore the progressive wing of the Republican party

28. The Four-Way Election of 1912
Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination and lost.
Roosevelt’s backers formed the Progressive party that became known as the “Bull Moose” Party
Democrats chose Woodrow Wilson
Socialists ran Eugene Debs
Wilson’s New Freedom rejected big government in Washington in favor of small competing business enterprises.
Roosevelt and Taft spilt the Republican vote turning the White House and Congress over to the Democrats

30. Tariff and the Banking System
Wilson convinced Congress to pass the 1913 Underwood-Simmons Tariff which reduced import taxes by 15%
1913 Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law- banking is private with federal regulation
Federal Reserve is empowered to expand the nation’s money supply by using Federal Reserve notes under the supervision of the Federal Reserve Board
Tariff and the Banking System

31. Regulating Business; Aiding Workers and Families
Federal Trade Commission law and the Clayton Anti-trust Act were empowered to uncover unfair business practices and strengthen the Sherman Anti-trust Act
The Clayton Anti-trust Act also exempted union strikes, boycotts and picketing from prosecution under anti-trust laws
Keating-Owen Child Labor law and Adamson Act limited child labor and cut the working day to 8 hours for railroad workers
Workingmen’s Compensation Act- Federal Employees
Wilson also signed into law legislation for low interest loans for farmers

32. Progressivism and the Constitution
Supreme Court- Louis Brandeis (Jewish)
16th Amendment- Federal Income Tax)
17th Amendment- Direct Election of Senators
18th Amendment- Prohibition
19th Amendment- Women’s suffrage

33. 1916 Wilson Edges Hughes Election of 1916
Wilson- “He kept us out of war”
Charles Evans Hughes- reunited Republicans