WARMUPWhat does the word ‘progressive’ mean?

What changes are we going to see during the Progressive Era?

What were the problems of the Gilded Age?

How can they be fixed?

The Progressive Era

1890-1920

What were the issues of the Gilded Age?Disparity of wealthWorkers rights Working conditions

Wages, hours, child labor, danger, etc.Poverty in cities – Tenements, poor

sanitationRacial discrimination – Immigrants &

African Americans Corruption in Social Justice

Immigrants, Women, African Americans, Children

Progressive EraOccurred in reaction to the extreme

corruption, workplace conditions, and injustice of the Gilded Age

Popular Presidents of the Progressive Era include Teddy Roosevelt & Woodrow Wilson

Progressivism

Movement based on the idea that new ideas and

honest, efficient government could bring

about social justice

Progressive Beliefs· Move away from laissez faire with

government regulating industry· Make US government responsive

to the people (voting)· Limit power of the political

bosses.· Improve worker’s rights,

conditions for poor and immigrants

· Clean up the cities· End segregation and Jim Crow

Areas to ReformSocial Justice

Political DemocracyEconomic Equality

Conservation

Social Justice Improve working

conditions in industry, regulate unfair business practices, eliminate child labor, help immigrants

and the poor

Political Democracy Give the government

back to the people, get more people voting and

end corruption with political machines.

Economic Justice •Fairness and opportunity in the

work world, regulate unfair trusts and bring about

changes in labor. •Demonstrate to the common people that U.S. Government

is in charge and not the industrialists.

CONSERVATION

Preserve natural resources and

the environment

Populists vs Progressives

Populists---rural Progressives---cities

Populists were poor and uneducatedProgressives were middle-class and

educated.

Populists were considered too radicalProgressives stayed politically

mainstream.

Populists initially failedProgressives had more success

What is a muckraker?

Writer/journalist who exposes the problemsof society in order to bring about reform

Lincoln Steffens (magazine editor) The Shame of the Cities Political corruption in

Philadelphia Link between big businessand crooked politicians

Jacob Riis (photographer,

NY Evening Sun) How the Other

Half Lives Poor living conditions in tenements

Muckrakers

Ida Tarbell The History of Standard Oil Robber baron business

practices of Rockefeller Described the firms cutthroat methods of eliminatingcompetition.

John Spargo The Bitter Cry of the Children Child Labor

Also, Lewis Hine

Muckrakers

Lewis Hine and Child Labor

Lewis Hine was a school teacher turned muckraker during the Progressive era.

In 1908, Hine became a photographer who was interested in exposing the ills of society.

From 1908-1912, he targeted the abuses of child labor in American Industry.

He produced a photo essay on child labor in 1909

Frank NorrisThe OctopusUnfair business practices of the Southern Pacific Railroad

Muckrakers

Upton Sinclair The Jungle Working conditions for

immigrants; unsanitary conditions in meat-packing plants

Frances E.W. Harper Iola Leroy Struggles of African Americans

Muckrakers

Who are the Progressives?In addition to Muckrakers, they were also Religious

Groups

1. Preaching of the "social gospel."

2. Create acts of god, churches should work to improve conditions for workers and the poor.

3. Religious organizations like the YMCA, YWCA, concentrated efforts on helping newcomers adjust to life in the big cities. Investigates slum conditions, provided food and clothing and set up settlement houses.

Who are the Progressives?Radical Groups 1. Socialist Party a. Organized in 1901 by labor leaders

including Eugene V. Debs.

b. Wanted govt. takeover of some big businesses, laws regulating business as well as a minimum wage and laws setting the length of the work week to 40 hours.

African Americans in Progressive Era

What increased segregation?

Jim Crow Laws (1876-1965)

Legalized segregation

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

“Separate but equal”

Segregation

How did African Americans face discrimination in voting?15th AmendmentPoll TaxLiteracy TestsGrandfather Clauses

How?Southern states evade 15th Amend.Required money to voteMust pass a test to voteIf your ancestors could vote prior to 1866, then so could you

How did these discriminate African Americans?

Booker T. WashingtonHard work“Pull yourself up by your

bootstraps”Tuskegee Institute, vocational education

W.E.B. DuBoisDisagreed with WashingtonWanted blacks to demand

full equality

Opposing Discrimination

NAACP National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People

Founded in 1909Springfield, IllinoisFounded by W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, Florence Kelly, and other progressive reformers

NAACP

The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois and resting place of President Abraham Lincoln.

Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice.

Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln's birth.

source naacp.org

NAACP

The NAACP's principal objective is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of United States and eliminate race prejudice. The NAACP seeks to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through the democratic processes.

This group helps pave the way for continued work towards civil rights for African Americans.

Tuskegee Institute

Who opposed discrimination, and how?

Ida B. WellsWorked to stop lynchingNationalAssociation ofColored Women

http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

“Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.”

Wrapup

1.What were the goals of Progressives during this era?

2.Name three key problems facing the nation during this time period.

3.What is a muckraker and what do they have to do with the Progressive Era?

4.Name two significant muckrakers and theissues they exposed.