1. The Progressive Era Roosevelt and Taft

2. The Movement
Progressivism: reform movement that grew out of Industrial Age.
Diverse movement w/ many goals:
Fight corruption/inefficiency in government
Regulate big business/Consumer Protections
Labor Reform (child labor, working conditions, etc.)
Welfare for urban poor
Women’s Suffrage
Prohibition
Protect Nature/Conservation/Public Health

3. Government Reforms
City Politics: reduce power of ward bosses/political machines.
City Commissioner Plan
City Manager Plan
Power to the voters:
Initiative: voters propose laws.
Referendum: laws voted on by the people.
Recall: voters may remove public officials.
Direct Primaries: voters select candidates for office.
Secret Ballot: votes kept secret.
City managers system appealed to white-collar progressives, who placed a high value on efficient management and professional expertise.
In the largest cities, the boss system continued to thrive. Jane Addams fought the boss of her Chicago neighborhood, who fought back by providing jobs on the city payroll. In the winter, the boss distributed coal, food and clothing. The voters repaid the boss by electing the candidates he endorsed.

4. Muckrakers: Investigative journalists/authors
Ida Tarbell - Her father's business, and those of many other small businessmen was adversely affected by the South Improvement Company scheme around 1872 between the railroads and larger oil interests. Later, she would vividly recall this situation in her work, as she accused the leaders of the Standard Oil Company of using unfair tactics to put her father and many small oil companies out of business.
Sinclair believed that the main point of The Jungle was lost on the public, overshadowed by his descriptions of the unhealthy conditions in packing plants. The public health concerns dealt with in The Jungle were not as significant to Sinclair as the human tragedy lived by his main character and other workers in the plants. His main goal for the book was to demonstrate the inhumane conditions of the wage earner under capitalism, not to inspire public health reforms in how the packing was done. Indeed, Sinclair lamented the effect of his book and the public uproar that resulted: "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." Still, the fame and fortune he gained from publishing The Jungle enabled him to write books on almost every issue of social injustice in the Twentieth Century. [2]
Sinclair is well-known for his principle: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." This quotation by Sinclair has appeared in many political books, essays, articles, and other forms of media
In The Shame of the Cities, Steffens sought to bring about political reform in urban America by appealing to the emotions of Americans. He tried to make them feel very outraged and "shamed" by showing examples of corrupt governments throughout urban America.
Nellie Bly - Committed to the Blackwell's Island Insane Asylum, Bly experienced its conditions firsthand. The food—gruel broth, spoiled meat, bread that was little more than dried dough—she found inedible. The inmates were made to sit for much of each day on hard benches with scant protection from the cold. The bathwater was frigid, and buckets of it were poured over their heads. They were then told to stand in a line to drip-dry. The nurses were rude and abusive, telling the patients to shut up and beating them if they did not. Speaking with her fellow residents, Bly was convinced that some were as sane as she was. On the effect of her experiences, she wrote:
What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? Here is a class of women sent to be cured. I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 A. M. until 8 P. M. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck.[3]
After ten days, Bly was released from the asylum at The World's behest. Her report, later published in book form as Ten Days in a Mad-House, caused a sensation and brought her lasting fame. While embarrassed physicians and staff fumbled to explain how so many professionals had been fooled, a grand jury launched its own investigation into conditions at the asylum, inviting Bly to assist. The jury's report recommended the changes she had proposed, and its call for increased funds for care of the insane prompted an $850,000 increase in the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections.

5. Progressive Presidents
William McKinley
Republican
Theodore Roosevelt
William H. Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Democrat

6. Roosevelt’s Early Life
Born 1858 in New York
Harvard College, studied American History and Biology
Moved to frontier to become rancher and lawman, 1885

7. Rough Rides at San Juan Hill
Roosevelt’s Politics
Police Commissioner
Roosevelt, 1895
Rough Rides at San Juan Hill
Republican & Progressive
Police commissioner of NYC, 1895
Appointed Ast. Sec. of the Navy, 1897
Advocated war with Spain
Forms 1st U.S. Cavalry “Rough Riders”
Elected Governor of NY,
VP under McKinley,
President following McKinley’s assassination.
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement. He became the youngest President in United States history at the age of 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. Roosevelt is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" persona. His last name, often mispronounced, per Roosevelt, is correctly pronounced "Rosavelt" (IPA: [ˈɹoʊzəvɛlt]).[2][3][4]
As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected Republican governor in He was a professional historian, a lawyer, a naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.[5]
In 1901, as Vice President, Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination. He is the youngest person ever to become President (John F. Kennedy is the youngest elected President). Roosevelt was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved 40 monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show that he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against their corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. Roosevelt lost but pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades.
Roosevelt understood the strategic significance of the Panama Canal, and negotiated for the U.S. to take control of its construction in 1904; he felt that the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War.
Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter."[6] His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from #3 to #7 on the list of greatest American presidents.

8. Roosevelt’s Early Careers

9. Roosevelt’s Later Careers

10. Roosevelt Offers “Square Deal”
“Square Deal” was Roosevelt’s nickname for his Progressive agenda.
Roosevelt’s New Uniform

11. Roosevelt’s Progressive Reforms
“The Trustbuster”: brought 44 anti-trust suits.
Meat Inspection Act (1906): government meat inspection.
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906): bans sale of impure food and medicine.
Hepburn Act (1906): regulation of oil and railroad companies.
National Parks Movement: 200 million acres for parks, forests, monuments, and wildlife refuges; creates U.S. Forest Service.

12. Taft‘s Early Years Born in 1857, in Ohio
Came from political family (father was Grant’s Sec. of War)
Attended Yale University; studied law
William H. Taft

13. Taft’s Political Career
U.S. Circuit Court judge
Governor of the Philippines (1900)
Roosevelt’s Secretary of War (1904)
Handpicked by Roosevelt for 1908 presidency
After presidency: Chief Justice, Supreme Court ( )

14. Taft’s Achievements Brought 90 anti-trust suits
Mann-Elkins Act: enabled the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate communications
16th Amendment: federal income tax
17th Amendment: direct election of senators
Payne-Aldrich Tariff: raised tariff rates, seen as a sellout by Progressives
Roosevelt “The Trustbuster”, even though Taft was more aggressive – Taft aligned with conservative Republicans and is remembers as such
17th Amendment – state legislatures used to appoint Senators, leading to corruption and the “Millionaire’s Club” in the Senate

17. Split in the Republican Party
Feud between Taft and Roosevelt
Taft wins Republican nomination in 1912
Roosevelt splits Republicans (“Bull Moose Party”)
Split vote, Wilson wins

19. Foreign Policy Issues
Roosevelt Corollary: gave the U.S. “policing power” in our hemisphere.
Panama Canal (1904)
Dollar Diplomacy: focused mainly on economic pressure and incentives for interventions. (Taft)

21. Election of 1912