The Progressive Era1890s-1920

The Progressive Era

• A period in history, from 1890 to 1920, where Americans responded to the economic, social and political problems that existed as a result of industrialization and urbanization and sought to reform these poor conditions.

• Reform: to change

Who were the Progressives?

Progressives: people who fought to reform problems in society• Aka reformers

Reform: to change

• Mostly educated, middle-class Americans • Muckrakers: journalists

who uncovered dirt (“muck”) in society in order to draw attention to problems

What the Progressives want to reform (change)?

• Economic problems- regulate big business and protect the consumer; establish a fair tax system

• Social problems- make life safer and more comfortable by fixing issues that affect day to day life for different groups of people (housing, voting, worker’s rights, etc…)

• Political Problems- increase participation in democracy, improve efficiency

Early Political Reformers

• The Populist Party(“The People’s Party”: a political party formed in 1892 to address the problems faced by many farmers

• Main goals:• Wanted the government to help raise

farm prices

• Regulate railroad rates• An income tax• An Eight hour workday

• Limits on immigration• Coin money with silver

Economic Reform

• Industrialization à bosses abused workers by paying them very little yet working them very hard in unsafe conditions

• Laissez Faire economics caused these problems- allowed big business to go unregulated

• Trustbuster: someone who fought to break up big trusts (Teddy Roosevelt)

• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890):• Any business that limited trade between

customers and other businesses was illegal

• Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914):• Strengthened the Sherman Anti-trust

Act and allowed the government to further enforce anti-trust laws

Other Economic Reforms

• Interstate commerce: trade or business that crosses state lines. The Constitution gives the Federal government the right to regulate interstate commerce.

• Interstate Commerce Act (1887): It forbade practices such as pools and rebates, and said that shipping rates had to be “fair and just.” • Pool: joint action of rival companies to avoid competition• Rebate: partial refund of money given to valued customers (even though they gave back

money, they gained a steady source of business [i.e. Rockefeller])

• Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC): organization established to oversee the railroads.

The 16th Amendment:The Graduated Income Tax

• Congress has the right to tax a person’s income

• Graduated Income Tax: An income tax which rises in steps with the amount of money you make:• The more you make, the more you are

taxed. The less you make, the less you are taxed.

Gilded Age Politics = Corruption

THE PROBLEMS• Political machines ran the cities-

took advantage of immigrants by providing for their needs in exchange for votes

• Spoils System: the practice of rewarding political supporters with jobs. Also known as patronage.

THE SOLUTION• Civil Service Commission:

federal jobs are given out based on merit (ability), not politics. Candidates must take a test to demonstrate skill or knowledge for a position first.

Increasing the Federal Government’s Role in the Economy

• Federal Reserve Act (1913): Established the Federal Reserve System, an organization that controls the supply of money to the US and regulates federal interest rates

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC): a “watchdog” agency that investigates companies to ensure they are not using unfair business practices to eliminate competition

Political Reform:The Problems

• Ordinary people did not have a say in government• Laws benefited big businessmen and did not protect the average

person• Laissez faire economics allowed big business to control the

government• Government corruption: the spoils system regarded unqualified

people with government jobs, tax money was used to pay salaries

Political Reform:The Solutions- Empowering THE VOTER

• Primary elections: the people elect candidates• Initiative: the people propose bills to become laws• Referendum: the people can vote directly on bills• Recall: the people can remove an elected official from office• Civil Service Commission: people must prove they are

qualified for a job• 17th Amendment: Direct election of senators by the people

SOCIAL REFORM WAS NEEDED

• Crowded cities• No garbage disposal or clean water

• Dangerous neighborhoods• Tenements- unsafe, unsanitary

• Workplace dangers• Child labor

• Women’s rights

JACOB RIIS

• Photojournalism- How the Other Half Lives

• Exposed the living conditions in tenements

• Lead to building codes, zoning laws, landlord requirements, clean water efforts for cities

LINCOLN STEFFENS AND IDA TARBELL

• Muckrakers- journalists who uncovered problems in society to draw attention to them• Both used magazines to reach wider audiences

• Lincoln Steffens: The Shame of the Cities-exposed political corruption in cities

• Ida Tarbell: The History of Standard Oil- exposed corrupt and cutthroat business tactics used by monopolies

UPTON SINCLAIR- THE JUNGLE

• Revealed disgusting conditions in meatpacking plants:• Rats, poison, spoiled meat, mold, dirt. Meatpackers would dye meat to look fresh and

mix it with spoiled ingredients

• Lead to the Pure Food and Drug Act- a consumer protection law that required the proper labeling of food and drugs. Prevented the manufacture, sale, or transportation of poisonous or dangerous foods, drugs and liquors.

Thomas Nast

• Political cartoonist- used art and satire to expose political “dirt”• Satire: the use of humor, irony,

exaggeration to prove a point

• Created the familiar donkey for Democrats, elephant for Republicans, and Uncle Sam

• Went after Boss Tweed and the Tammany Ring

Carrie Nation• Fought for temperance- the prohibition (banning) of

alcohol• Arrested 30+ times, smashed up bars with a a

hatchet• Member of the Women’s Christian Temperance

Union (WCTU):• Focused on health and hygiene, prison reform,

temperance, other reforms• Helped to pass the 18th Amendment- Prohibition-

banning alcohol in the U.S.

Jane Addams and Lillian Wald

• Settlement houses- community centers that offered services to the poor:• Cooking, hygiene, English,

government, sewing, reading, sports and music

• Jane Addams: Hull House in Chicago (1889). Won a Nobel Prize for her work

• Lillian Wald: Henry Street Settlement, Lower East Side NYC (1893)How might the efforts of these settlement

houses be viewed as forced assimilation?

The Fight for Civil Rights

• W.E.B. DuBois- African American activist who wanted equality for all- helped to establish the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)• ADL: Anti-Defamation League- fought to end

discrimination against Jews and to end Anti-Semitism

Worker’s Rights

• Florence Kelley- fought to end child labor and establish laws to limit children in the workplace

• Mother Jones- worked with the Knights of Labor to fight for worker’s rights (especially miners)

Women’s Suffrage

• Suffrage: the right to vote

• Suffragist: Someone who fights for the right to vote

• Suffragette: term used in England to describe someone who fights for the right to vote

Women’s Suffrage

• Not a new battle- women had been demanding the right to vote for generations

• Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, calling for a Constitutional amendment for the right to vote

• American Woman Suffrage Association focused on earning the right to vote one state at a time

• Eventually they merge and become the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA), led by Carrie Chapman Catt

A New Generation of Suffragists

• Alice Paul: spent time in England and witnessed the more militant tactics of the British suffragettes; believed those tactics would be more successful in the U.S.• Pickets, marches, protests, hunger strikes

• 1916: Founds the National Woman’s Party, a single-platform political party: get women the right to vote

NWP Focuses on President Wilson

The 19th Amendment- Women’s Suffrage

• The 19th Amendment (1919) granted women the right to vote.

• Ratified in 1920, just in time for a presidential election

Presidents of the Progressive Era

• Teddy Roosevelt

• Former Rough Rider (Calvary unit of the Spanish-American War)

• Former Governor of NY

• Unlikely president: was added to McKinley’s reelection ticket in 1900 by political machines; McKinley is assassinated in 1901

Teddy’s Square Deal

• Conservation- protect natural resources, set aside millions of acres of land for federal parks and preserves

• Trustbusting- break up bad trusts

• Consumer Protection- pass laws to protect people from being hurt by businesses (Pure Food and Drug Act)

• Foreign Policy (coming soon!)

Presidents of the Progressive Era

• William Howard Taft- 1908• Former Secretary of War• Opposite of Roosevelt: quiet, cautious,

didn’t want power• Supported most progressive efforts, like

trustbusting and the graduated income tax, but still lost the support of progressives

Election of 1912

• Roosevelt decides to run for re-election against Taft for the Republican nomination:• T.R. had more public support, but Taft had the support of the

Republican party leaders = vote was split, the nomination went to Taft

• T.R.’s supporters stormed out of the convention and formed a third party, the Progressive Party (nicknamed the Bull Moose Party), and nominated Roosevelt.• “I feel as strong as a bull moose”

• The Democrats put forward a reform-minded New Jersey governor, Woodrow Wilson.

Presidents of the Progressive Era

• Woodrow Wilson- Democratic nominee. Very progressive, former Governor of New Jersey

• Together, Taft and Roosevelt had more votes than Wilson, but because the Republicans split their vote, Wilson won the election of 1912.

• Wilson’s New Freedom: Wilson’s program for economic reform• Several of the economic reforms of this era were passed under Wilson’s presidency:

Federal Reserve Act, FTC, Clayton Anti-Trust Act, etc…

• Progressive Era basically ends with the U.S. entering WWI- focus shifts to winning the wa

THE LEGACY OF PROGRESSIVISM

WHAT IT DID:• Increased government

intervention in economic, social and political issues

WHAT IT DIDN’T DO• Create equality for all:

• Discrimination still existed, inequality still existed, specially for African Americans and other minority groups