SOL Review Materials for Unit Six: Reforms of the Progressive Era

1. Labor Unions Struggled for Workplace Reforms Higher Wages for workers.

Reduced working hours

Restrictions placed on child labor.

Improved safety conditions.

1. Labor Unions were progressive organizations seeking better living

and working conditions for their members. Groups like the American Federation of Labor, the Knights of Labor, and the

I.W.W. sought higher pay, more leisure time, and safer working

conditions, among other things. progressive groups seeking positive

changes.

2. Progressives made efforts to help immigrants adjust to the United States of America.

Although some Nativists acted as bigots towards immigrants, many American tried to help immigrants make the transition to American life:

Settlement houses were created. Jane Addams’ Hull House in Chicago was the most famous.

Political bosses tried to satisfy the needs of immigrants – in exchange for their votes! Political machines that gained power by providing food, clothes, jobs, or other aide for immigrant families.

Writers tried to shed light on the difficulties of immigrants lives in America, like How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis or The Jungle – Upton Sinclair.

3. The Women’s Suffrage Movement succeeded in passing the 19th Amendment to the Constitution – allowing women the right to vote. And women achieved other rights as well! Educational opportunities – equal

access to colleges and universities. Women like Susan B. Anthony

sought both suffrage rights and property rights.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the leader of the Seneca Falls Movement, a conference for women’s rights that demanded suffrage, the right to divorce, the right to have custody of their children, and access to the legal system.

4. The temperance movement was an effort to abolish alcohol abuse in the United States.

Groups like the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League were opposed to the distilling of and drinking of alcohol.

Individuals like Carry Nation and Frances Willard sought an amendment to forbid the manufacturing of, the transportation of, and the sale of alcoholic beverages.

5. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution made Prohibition of alcohol the law of the land.

Although Prohibition was the law of the land, not everyone followed the law. Bootleggers, Rumrunners, and Moonshiners all profited from the illegal trade in alcohol.

5B. Remember that the 21st Amendment to the Constitution repealed the 18th Amendment.

6. African-Americans rarely benefitted from Progressive Reforms, but Booker T. Washington nevertheless fought for equality.• Booker T. Washington believed that

equality could be achieved through vocational education.

• He founded Tuskegee Institute in order to educate African-Americans in job skills – vocations – and self-reliance.

• Booker T. Washington was a gradualist, meaning that – in the short term, he accepted social segregation. He thought that whites would be more generous with African-American when they were better educated.

7. W.E.B. DuBois demanded immediate social, political, and economic equality for African-Americans. • DuBois was the founder of the Niagara

Movement, a group of African American businessmen who sought to trade profitably.

• He founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

• He wrote The Souls of Black Folk, a book describing the African-American experience in the late 19th Century.

• He believed that all barriers to equality for African-Americans – including segregation, bigotry, hate-crimes, violence, and discrimination – must be removed with the help of the government.

8. The Supreme Court Case of Plessy V. Ferguson (1896).

In the case of Plessy V. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was legal, as long as the facilities in question were “separate but equal.” The decision would allow segregation and “Jim Crow” laws to exist for the next fifty-eight years.

The Plessy V. Ferguson case would remain the law of the land until 1954, when the Brown V. Board of Education, Topeka, KS case would make segregation illegal.

Homer Plessy was not allowed to sit in a first class seat, because he was black. The East Louisiana Railroad Company, owned by E.S. Ferguson, was allowed to keep up its racist, segregationist policy.

9. “Jim Crow” laws enforced racial segregation across America.

“Jim Crow” laws were used to promote racial segregation in all public places in the South.

Segregation also existed in the Southwestern States (usually separating Latinos from whites) and in the Pacific Coast states (where Chinese, Japanese, or Filipinos were segregated from whites.)

10. Native Americans were not even considered citizens of the United States until 1924. Another failure of the Progressive Era was the abandonment of Native American tribes on the reservations. Since they were unable to practice their traditional lifestyles, and they were confined to the reservations, many Native American communities declined during this period. They were also taken advantage of by government agents. It wasn’t until 1924 that Native American were granted American citizenship.

Native Americans on reservations were often dependent upon the government for food and supplies. Government agents often took advantage of these tribes to make money for themselves.