1. The Progressive Era, 1900–1916 Norton Media Library Chapter 18
Eric Foner

2. I. Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire

3. II. An Urban Age and a Consumer Society
Farms and Cities
For the last time in American history, farms and cities grew together
American agriculture entered what would later be remembered as its “golden age”
The city became the focus of Progressive politics and of a new mass consumer society
New York was the largest
The city captured the imagination of artists, writers, and reformers

4. II. An Urban Age and a Consumer Society (con’t)
The Muckrakers
A new generation of journalists writing for mass-circulation national magazines exposed the ills of industrial and urban life
Lincoln Steffens
Ida Tarbell
Major novelists of the era took a similar unsparing approach to social ills
Theodore Dreiser
Upton Sinclair
The Immigrant City
Between 1901 and 1914, 13 million immigrants came to the United States
Ellis Island
Asian and Mexican immigrants entered in fewer numbers

5. II. An Urban Age and a Consumer Society (con’t)
The Immigrant Quest for Freedom
Progressive-Era immigration formed part of a larger process of worldwide migration set in motion by industrial expansion and the decline of traditional agriculture
Like their nineteenth-century predecessors, the new immigrants arrived imagining the United States as a land of freedom
Some immigrants were “birds of passage,” who planned on returning to their homeland
The new immigrants clustered in close-knit “ethnic” neighborhoods

6. II. An Urban Age and a Consumer Society (con’t)
Consumer Freedom
The advent of large department stores in central cities, chain stores in urban neighborhoods, and retail mail-order houses for farmers and small town residents made available to consumers throughout the country the vast array of goods now pouring from the nation’s factories
Leisure activities also took on the characteristics of mass consumption
Vaudeville

7. II. An Urban Age and a Consumer Society (con’t)
The Working Woman
Traditional gender roles were changing dramatically as more and more women were working for wages
Married women were working more
The working woman became a symbol of female emancipation
Charlotte Perkins Gilman claimed that the road to women’s freedom lay through the workplace
Battles emerged within immigrant families of all nationalities between parents and their self-consciously “free” children, especially daughters

8. II. An Urban Age and a Consumer Society (con’t)
The Rise of Fordism
Henry Ford concentrated on standardizing output and lowering prices of automobiles
Ford revolutionized manufacturing with the moving assembly line
Ford paid his employees five dollars a day so that they could buy his car

9. II. An Urban Age and a Consumer Society (con’t)
The Promise of Abundance
Economic abundance would eventually come to define the “American way of life,” in which personal fulfillment was to be found through acquiring material goods
The desire for consumer goods led many workers to join unions and fight for higher wages
A Living Wage
Earning a living wage came to be viewed as a “natural and absolute” right of citizenship
Father John A. Ryan
Mass consumption came to occupy a central place in descriptions of American society and its future

10. III. Changing Ideas of Freedom
The Varieties of Progressivism
Progressives wished to humanize industrial capitalism
Industrial Freedom
Frederick W. Taylor pioneered “scientific management”
Eroded freedom of the skilled workers
White-collar workers also felt a loss of freedom
Many believed that union embodied an essential principle of freedom—the right of people to govern themselves

11. III. Changing Ideas of Freedom (con’t)
The Socialist Presence
The Socialist Party brought together surviving late-nineteenth-century radicals
Socialism flourished in diverse communities throughout the country
New York
Milwaukee
Eugene Debs was socialism’s loudest voice

12. III. Changing Ideas of Freedom (con’t)
AFL and IWW
The AFL sought to forge closer ties with forward-looking corporate leaders willing to deal with unions as a way to stabilize employee relations
A group of unionists who rejected the AFL’s exclusionary policies formed the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
William “Big Bill” Haywood

13. III. Changing Ideas of Freedom (con’t)
The New Immigrants on Strike
Immigrant strikes demonstrated that while ethnic divisions among workers impeded labor solidarity, ethnic cohesiveness could also be a basis of unity
Lawrence strike demonstrated that workers sought not only higher wages but the opportunity to enjoy the finer things of life
New Orleans dockworker strike showed interracial solidarity
Ludlow strike ended soon after many strikers were killed

14. III. Changing Ideas of Freedom (con’t)
Labor and Civil Liberties
The courts rejected the claims of labor
Like the abolitionists before them, the labor movement, in the name of freedom, demanded the right to assemble, organize, and spread its views
The Free Speech Fights
Labor had to fight to get the right to assemble and speak freely

15. III. Changing Ideas of Freedom (con’t)
The New Feminism
Feminists’ forthright attack on traditional rules of sexual behavior added a new dimension to the discussion of personal freedom
Heterodoxy was part of a new radical “bohemia”
The lyrical left made freedom the key to its vision of society
The Rise of Personal Freedom
Issues of intimate personal relations previously confined to private discussion blazed forth in popular magazines and public debates
Sigmund Freud

16. III. Changing Ideas of Freedom (con’t)
The Birth Control Movement
Emma Goldman lectured on sexual freedom and access to birth control
Margaret Sanger placed the issue of birth control at the heart of the new feminism
The birth control issue became a crossroads where the paths of labor radicals, cultural modernists, and feminists intersected

17. IV. The Politics of Progressivism
Effective Freedom
Progressives assumed that the Modern era required a fundamental rethinking of the functions of political authority
Drawing on the reform programs of the Gilded Age and the example of European legislation, Progressives sought to reinvigorate the idea of an activist, socially conscious government
Progressives could reject the traditional assumption that powerful government posed a threat to freedom because their understanding of freedom was itself in flux
John Dewey

18. IV. The Politics of Progressivism (con’t)
Progressive Politics
State and local governments enacted most of the era’s reform measures
Gilded Age mayors Hazen Pingree and Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones pioneered urban progressivism
The most influential Progressive administration at the state level was that of Robert M. La Follette, who made Wisconsin a “laboratory for democracy”

19. IV. The Politics of Progressivism (con’t)
Progressive Democracy
Progressives hoped to reinvigorate democracy by restoring political power to the citizenry and civic harmony to a divided society
But the Progressive Era also witnessed numerous restrictions on democratic participation
Voting was seen more as a privilege for a select few

20. IV. The Politics of Progressivism (con’t)
Government by Expert
The impulse toward order, efficiency, and centralized management was an important theme of Progressive reform
“Mastery” required applying scientific inquiry to modern social problems

21. IV. The Politics of Progressivism (con’t)
Spearheads for Reform
Organized women reformers spoke for the more democratic side of Progressivism
Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago
The “new woman” was college-educated, middle-class and devoted to providing social services
Settlement houses produced many female reformers
The Campaign for Suffrage
Campaign for women’s suffrage became a mass movement
By 1900, over half the states allowed women to vote in local elections dealing with school issues

22. IV. The Politics of Progressivism (con’t)
Materialist Reform
Ironically, the desire to exalt women’s role within the home did much to inspire the reinvigoration of the suffrage movement
Muller v. Oregon upheld the constitutionality of an Oregon law setting maximum working hours for women
Louis Brandeis
A breach in liberty of contract doctrine
The Idea of Economic Citizenship
Brandeis argued that the right to government assistance derived from citizenship itself

23. V. The Progressive Presidents
The process of nationalization was occurring throughout American life
Theodore Roosevelt
Roosevelt regarded the president as “the steward of the public welfare”
The Square Deal attempted to confront the problems caused by economic consolidation by distinguishing between “good” and “bad” corporations

24. V. The Progressive Presidents (con’t)
Roosevelt and the Trusts
Roosevelt used the Sherman Antitrust Act to dissolve Northern Securities Company
Roosevelt helped mine workers during a 1902 coal strike
Roosevelt improved the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and regulated the food and drug industry

25. V. The Progressive Presidents (con’t)
The Conservation Movement
Roosevelt also moved to preserve parts of the natural environment from economic exploitation
John Muir and the Sierra Club
Conservation also reflected the Progressive thrust toward efficiency and control
Taft in Office
Taft pursued antitrust policy even more aggressively than Roosevelt
Taft supported the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution
Progressive Republicans broke from Taft after the Ballinger-Pinchot affair

26. V. The Progressive Presidents (con’t)
The Election of 1912
The election was a four-way contest among Taft, Roosevelt, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs
It became a national debate on the relationship between political and economic freedom in the age of big business

27. V. The Progressive Presidents (con’t)
New Freedom and New Nationalism
Wilson insisted that democracy must be reinvigorated by restoring market competition and freeing government from domination by big business
Roosevelt called for heavy taxes on personal and corporate fortunes and federal regulation of industries including railroads, mining, and oil
The Progressive Party platform offered numerous proposals to promote social justice
Wilson’s First Term
Wilson proved himself a strong executive leader

28. V. The Progressive Presidents (con’t)
With Democrats in control of Congress, Wilson moved aggressively to implement his version of Progressivism
Underwood Tariff
Clayton Act
Wilson abandoned the idea of aggressive trust-busting in favor of greater government supervision of the economy
Federal Reserve system
Federal Trade Commission

29. Socialist Towns and Cities • pg. 693

30. The Presidential Election of 1912 • pg. 715

31. Table 18.1 • pg. 679

32. Table 18.2 • pg. 682

33. Table 18.3 • pg. 685

34. Table 18.4 • pg. 685

35. Table 18.5 • pg. 688

36. fig18_02.jpg
Page 677: Policemen stare up as the Triangle fire of 1911 rages, while the bodies of factory workers who plunged to their deaths to escape the blaze lie on the sidewalk.
Credit: Brown Brothers.

37. fig18_06a.jpg
Page 681 (left): A photograph by Lewis Hine, who used his camera to chronicle the plight of child laborers, of “breaker” boys who worked in a Pennsylvania coal mine (1911).
Credit: Bettmann/Corbis.

38. fig18_06b.jpg
Page 681 (right): A photograph by Lewis Hine, who used his camera to chronicle the plight of child laborers, of a young spinner in a Georgia cotton factory (1909).
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, National Child Labor Committee Collection, LC-USZC

39. fig18_08.jpg
Page 683: An immigrant from Mexico, arriving around 1912 in a cart drawn by a donkey.
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ

40. fig18_09.jpg
Page 684: Mulberry Street, part of the densely populated immigrant neighborhood on New York’s Lower East Side, in a turn-of-the-century photograph.
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection, LC USZC

41. fig18_11.jpg Page 686 (top): Women at work in a shoe factory, 1908.
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ

42. fig18_12.jpg
Page 686 (bottom): The Return from Toil, a drawing by John Sloan for the radical magazine The Masses, pictures working women not as downtrodden but as independent-minded, stylish, and self-confident.
Credit: John Sloan, cover of The Masses, July 1913.

43. fig18_14.jpg
Page 689: Cars entering the Holland Tunnel, which links New York City with New Jersey, in Most of the cars appear to be standardized Fords.
Credit: Bettmann/Corbis.

44. fig18_16.jpg
Page 692 (top): A Socialist Party campaign poster from 1904, with images of labor and technology and the party’s candidates.
Credit: Corbis.

45. fig18_18.jpg
Page 692 (bottom): Roller skaters with socialist leaflets during a New York City strike in A “scab” is a worker who crosses the picket line during a strike.
Credit: Corbis.

46. fig18_19.jpg
Page 695: Striking New York City garment workers carrying signs in multiple languages, 1913.
Credit: Brown Brothers.

47. fig18_20.jpg
Page 696: Striking textile workers at Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912, carrying American flags, were confronted by the state militia.
Credit: Reproduced from the Collections of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ

48. fig18_28.jpg
Page 707: Two well-dressed Cincinnati women putting up a poster for women’s suffrage, 1912.
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ

49. fig18_29.jpg
Page 711: Theodore Roosevelt and the conservationist John Muir at Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, California, in Yosemite was set aside as a national park in 1890.
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZC

50. fig18_30.jpg
Page 712: The Monopoly Brothers Supported by the Little Consumer, a cartoon from the New York American, April 2, 1912, shows the consumer supporting bloated monopolies and political bosses. Theodore Roosevelt marches by with a group of governors who had urged him to run for a third term, one of whom has abandoned him to support President Taft. Taft himself watches the performance on the upper left, seated next to a sheep representing the high tariff on woolen goods.
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ

51. Go to website

52. Give Me Liberty! An American History
End chap. 18
W. W. Norton & Company Independent and Employee-Owned
This concludes the Norton Media Library
Slide Set for Chapter 18
Give Me Liberty!
An American History by
Eric Foner