The Progressive Era: 1895-1920

Overview

nCalifornia Social Science Standard 11.2.9

nUnderstand the effect of political programs and activities of the Progressives (e.g., federal regulation of railroad transport, Children's Bureau, the Sixteenth Amendment, Theodore Roosevelt).

Origins of Progressivism

Aftermath of Industrialism

nThe Industrial Revolution led to a sharp increase in urbanization

nThis change brought with it with it unsanitary living and working conditions as well as poverty.

nFurther widened the gap between rich and poor.

nMany people of the middle class saw these changes and became inspired to fight for reform and positive changes in society

Origins of Progressivism

nPopulism and Reformers of the 1890s:

            -Increased industry

            -New populations

            -Labor unrest

            -Depression

nForeign Influences:

            -Americans that traveled to Europe were influenced by reforms they saw there, such as old-age insurance, subsidized worker’s housing, city planning, and rural reconstruction.

nSig: students should understand that progressivism was a direct result of previous political and social factors.

Goals of Progressivism

lThree Main Goals:

            -End abuses of power

            -Implement social programs to replace corrupt institutions and reduce inequalities among social classes.  (schools, medical clinics, community programs)

lUse scientific principles to increase efficiency in economic, social, and political institutions.

Important Groups

•Progressives were mostly middle to upper-class, educated white people (with a few exceptions).  Had optimistic view of human nature, but definitely did not view all people as equal.

Sig. – Progressives wanted to help the disadvantaged in the way they saw as best, even if it conflicted with the views of those they were trying to help.

Muckrakers

•Born from journalistic revolutions of the 1890s, wrote about evils and corruption of American

            society. 

•Wrote in widely circulated publications (McClure’s, Cosmopolitan) as well as novels.

•Encouraged by editors to write scandalous, shocking stories as a way to appeal to readers.

•Examples: The Jungle, Treason of the Senate

Upper-class Reformers

•Elite women founded organizations like the Young Women’s Christian Organization (YWCA) and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.  The WCTU was the largest women’s organization of its time.

•Sig: Women were becoming important figures in political activity, before they even had the right to vote.

•Organizations like the WCTU exerted a respectable amount of influence over the political process.

Opponents of Progressivism

•Many people did not agree with the Progressives, and believed that government should not have such a large influence on economic affairs.

•Some Republicans in Washington believed that the Progressive movement contradicted the laws of social Darwinism.

•Tycoons like J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller believed that leaving businesses un-regulated was the only way to ensure progress, and to allow the capitalist system to remain intact.

Major Areas of Focus for Progressives

Children/Education

Government

Women

Labor

Legal Thought

African Americans

Children/Education

•Upset by young children under harsh conditions.

•Florence Kelly: A socialist who became a lawyer to argue against corporations forcing children to work long hours. She won a few cases and lobbied for changes at the state level.

•Edgar Gardner Murphy- He formed the National Child Labor Committee which worked to influence states to change their child labor laws.

•John Dewey- An influential philosopher in the Progressive movement who fought for reform in education. He wanted schools to be child-centered and more flexible.

Children/Education

•Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Felt public schools were corrupt and that the curriculum was an agent in preventing social change.

•New school attendance laws had more success in keeping children out of factories. However, many businesses, politicians, and poor families opposed these laws.

•Juvenile Courts first created in Denver and Chicago to help protect children from adult jail and a life of crime through rehabilitation and probation, although courts did not give children rights to due process. These state-run courts acted as protective parents to children.

Government

•Believed government should counteract inefficiency and exploitation.

•Most importantly, corruption had to be eliminated from the government.

•Installed city manager and commission forms of government and public ownership of utilities.

Women

•Florence Kelly: Wanted women’s working hours to be lowered due to physical vulnerability.

•Muller v. Oregon 1908: 10 hour work days for women. Many states found loopholes and had their female employees work more hours.

•Charlotte Perkins Gilman: She fought for a change in the traditional view of women’s roles, fighting for programs to allow women to more easily combine motherhood and careers.

•Progressives tried to help working women through community programs and services (e.g.. Day care, classes, clubs).

Women

•Margaret Sanger: A nurse who saw the dangers of illegal abortions and founded the birth control movement.  She felt that women could separate sex and procreation, and that birth control methods should be legal. In 1914 she spread these ideas in her magazine The Women Rebel, and in the pamphlet Family Limitation.  However, the Comstock Law of 1873 was still upheld, prohibiting the promotion and use of birth control

Labor

•Progressives sought to protect the working class by trying to give them lifestyles more like the middle-class. They wanted protective legislation, especially for women and children, such as worker’s compensation and unemployment insurance.

•In 1909 the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union was formed, winning strikes when over 300 companies accepted their terms. However, problems with labor and women’s rights in the workplace continued. The 1911 Triangle Fire in New York is an example of tragedy under unsafe working conditions when many women were trapped on the 3rd floor of their factory during a fire, causing many to perish. This incident helped spark the government’s involvement in labor issues.

Beyond the Progressive Labor Movement

•Some people believed that Progressivism wasn’t enough to achieve the important goals of the movement

•Socialism was seen as a way of changing society

•American Railway Union organizer Eugene V. Debs became the leader of this movement.  At the height of his popularity in 1912, he received over 900,000 votes in the Presidential Election.  He was eventually jailed in 1918 for giving an anti-war speech.

•However, most progressives were too reliant on the capitalist system to want to overthrow it.

Legal Thought

•Social Reality should influence legal thinking.

•Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr: “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”

African Americans

•Jane Addams: She fought to get rid of the racial exclusions in the Progressive movement.

•Booker T. Washington promoted the strategy of self-help, in which blacks should work hard to prove to whites that they are worthy or respect.

•The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People established in 1909 by W.E.B.

            Du Bois. The organization was viewed as being too radical for many progressives at this time.

Presidential Politics

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1908)

William Howard Taft (1909-1912)

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1920)

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1908)

Industry

nHe established a Bureau of Corporations, with each individual commission staffed by experts.

nTrust busting (eg. Standard Oil, Northern Securities Company).

nElkins Act of 1903 and Hepburn Act 1906 increased the power of the Interstate Commerce

nCommission (increased the federal government’s role as a national regulator).

nMeat Inspection Act 1906 (Prompted by Sinclair’s The Jungle, 1906).

Theodore Roosevelt

Conservation

n1902 New Lands Act, National Reclamation Act.

nEstablished the Boy scouts in 1910 and the Campfire Girls in 1912.

William Howard Taft (1909-1912)

nRepublican, much more economically focused.

nHe supported the 8 hour work day and legislation to make mining safer.

nMann Elkins Act 1910 worked to dismantle monopolies

nCreated the first tax on corporations’ profits

Election of 1912

nThree party election, between the Democratic, Republican, and Progressive (or Bull Moose) parties.

nRoosevelt intended to run as a Republican, but Taft received the nomination, so Roosevelt and his supporters formed the new Progressive party.

nElection – Roosevelt’s New Nationalism v. Wilson’s New Freedom.  Roosevelt intended to cooperatively regulate big businesses, while Wilson focused on breaking up monopolies.

nResult – Wilson won with 42% of the popular vote.

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1920)

nTariff reform through the Underwood Tariff of 1913.

nWorked to reform the banking system (flexible currency through the Federal Reserve Note,

nEstablished 12 Federal Reserve Banks, created the Federal Reserve Board).

nOpposed women’s suffrage, anti-child labor bill

nClayton Act 1914 (prohibited certain unfair trading practices).

nEstablished the Federal Trade Commission.