Chapter 22THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

America Past and PresentEighth Edition

The Changing Face of Industrialism

• Industrial growth meant more goods at lower prices

• Residue of social problems from 1890s– Poverty & disease persisted

• 20th century began on optimistic note– People believed technology & enterprise

would shape a better life

p.628-629

The Innovative Model T

• Henry Ford transformed auto industry with mass production

• Small profit on each unit, gross of huge profit on high volume of sales

• 1908: Model T introduced– Best example of a mass

produced consumer product in the early 1900s

• 1916: Fed govt began highway subsidies p.629-630

The Burgeoning Trusts

• The trend toward bigness in industry accelerated after 1900– Standard Oil, American Tobacco,

Amalgamated Copper, US Rubber• 1% of industrialized firms producing nearly ½

of all manufactured goods

• Bankers provided integrated control through interlocking directorates

• Trusts controversial– Often denounced as threats to equality– Some defended as more efficient

p.630-631

Business Consolidations (mergers), 1895–1905

p.630

Managing the Machines

• Frederick Taylor pub’d “Principles of Scientific Management, 1911” which advocated work standards & coop

• Worker welfare, morale suffered– Better paychecks– Increased danger, tedium

• 1911 ~ Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire demonstrated risks of factory work

p.631

Triangle Shirtwaist

Company Fire

• Focused attention on unsafe working conditions

• Doors locked to prevent theft & keep out labor organizers

• 146 deaths from stampede, burns, smoke inhalation, & jumping

• Mostly Italians & Jews from Eastern Europe

NYC ~ March 1911

p.632

Protests Against Working Conditions

• Rose Schneiderman, 29 yr old organizer for the Women’s Trade Union, lead numerous protests against factory working conditions.

• Outcry impelled NY’s governor to estab a State Factory Investigating Commission

p.632-633

Society's Masses

• To keep up with the demand for workers, more & more women, African Americans, Asians, & Mexican Americans entered the workforce– Expanded employment increased

production

• For many, life was harsh, spent in slums & working long hours

p.633

Better Times on the Farm

• Isolation reduced by mail and parcel post deliveries to farms

• Tenant farmers remained impoverished

• Western farmers benefited from vast irrigation projects

p.633-634

Irrigation & Conservation in the West to 1917

p.633

Women & Children at Work

• Women resisted ideals of domesticity to enter work force

• Women’s labor unions defended rights of women & child laborers

• Sheppard-Towner Maternity & Infancy Protection Act of 1921: Helped fund maternity & pediatric clinics– Set precedent for the Social Security

Act of 1935

p.634-635

Margaret Sanger

• Nurse & outspoken social reformer, led a campaign to give physicians broad discretion in prescribing contraceptives

• Fed Comstock Law banned interstate transport of devices & information

p.635-637

The Niagara Movement & the NAACP

• Most African Americans were poor sharecroppers, segregated by Jim Crow Laws & at mercy of violent white mobs

• Black workers gained least from prosperity• 1905: W.E.B. DuBois & others rejected

accommodation to racist society• "Niagara Movement" demands immediate

respect for equal rights of all – DeBois head of Niagara Movement

• NAACP & Urban League advocate African American rights

p.635-639

"I Hear the Whistle": Immigrants in the Labor

Force• 1901–1920: Fresh influx of

Europeans, Mexicans, Asians to labor force

• Non-English speakers considered a social problem

• Programs to "Americanize" them

• Immigration limitations– Chinese immigration banned in 1902– Literacy tests used against other

immigrant groupsp.639-641

Immigration to the United States 1900–1920

(by area of origin)

p.639

Mexican Immigration to the United

States, 1900–1920

p.640

Conflict in the Workplace

• Low wages combined with demands for increased productivity led to increase in labor unrest in early 1900s

• Industrial productivity fell

• Union membership soared

p.642

Organizing Labor

• AFL led by Samuel Gompers was the largest union

• 1903 ~ Women excluded from AFL form Women's Trade Union League

• 1905 ~ Those excluded from AFL form Industrial Workers of the World

• Radical organizations win spectacular strikes with small numbers

• Fear of class warfare increases p.642-643

Labor Union Membership, 1897–1920

p.642

Working with Workers• Some employers turned to the new

fields of applied psychology & personnel management to improved working conditions & avoid trouble

• Henry Ford doubled wages, reduced workday ~ Tried many innovations– Plant production increased– Union activity ended

• “Hawthorne Effect” ~ Cicero, IL– Western Electric Plant– NIB

p.644

AmoskeagManchester, NH

• Amoskeag Mills (textile plant), modeled paternalistic approach to labor management

• Company hired whole families

• Benefits included playgrounds, health care, home-buying plans, recreation– A model community

• Japanese system?p.644-645

A New Urban Culture

• For many, life improved significantly between 1900-1920– Jobs were plentiful– Growing middle class consumed new

inventions & entertainment

• Americans increasingly became consumers of the mass production of products

p.645

Production & Consumption• 1900–1920: Advertising agencies

boomed. New techniques created demand for goods

• Goods increased US standard of living

• Middle class expanded & rich grew richer

• New federal Income Tax (1920) provided first accurate accounting of income– 5% of population collected almost 25% of $

p.645-646

Living & Dying in an Urban Nation

• By 1920, the average life span increased substantially, infant mortality (death rate) still high

• Booming cities took on modern form– Giants were NYC, Chicago, &

Philadelphia ~ Turned out every kind of product from textiles to structural steel

• Zoning regulations, first in Los Angles, separated industrial, commercial, residential areas

p.646-647

Popular Pastimes• Ordinary people achieved leisure for

first time in American history• Popular music: Sousa marches,

ragtime, blues, jazz, vaudeville• Light reading included romance,

detective, science-fiction novels• Spectator pastimes included baseball,

football, movies, concerts– 1905 ~ 18 players die playing college

football ~ TR decided to clean it up– National Collegiate Athletic Association

(NCAA) founded in 1910p.647-648

Experimentation in the Arts

• Isadora Duncan transformed dance– Departed from traditional ballet steps &

stressed improvisation

• T.S. Eliot rejected traditional poetic meter & rhyme

p.648-650

Experimentation in the Arts

• Robert Henri & the realist painters –known to their critics as the “Ash Can” School—relished in the excitement of the environment of the cities– Painted the truth with “strength,

fearlessness & individuality”– Note: “Ashcan”

p.648-650

A Ferment of Discovery & Reform

• Racism, labor conflict remained

• Solid social & economic gains made

• Optimism that social experiments can succeed

p.650

Chapter 22THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

America Past and PresentEighth Edition

End