Chapter 9 Section 1 Notes

The Progressive Era

(1890 – 1920)

Four Goals of Progressives

• 1. Protecting Social Welfare– Helping out poor people with needs

(Food, Clothing, Shelter)– Helping out children

(affordable child care, laws against child labor)

• 2. Promoting Moral Improvement– Mainly Through Prohibition (banning alcohol)

• 1st done in some local areas, then some states, until…• 18th Amendment (1920) = Banned alcohol nationally for

13 years

• 3. Creating Economic Reform (change)– Eliminate the huge difference between lifestyles

• Of the rich (multiple big house, fancy things)• Of the poor (do not have essentials)

• 4. Fostering (Encouraging) Efficiency – Business owners and govts. getting stuff done

quicker.

4 Groups Leading the Movement• 1. Muckrakers

– investigative journalists that expose problems in newspapers and magazines to the public

Ida Tarbell

• Wrote “History of Standard Oil Company”– Led by richest man in the world (John D. Rockefeller)– Resulted in Govt. Investigation that led to the

breakup of the company into “The Seven Sisters”

The Seven Sisters

• 2. Organizations led and funded by college educated people for everyone.– Examples = YMCA, Boy & Girl Scouts, and

Salvation Army

– National Consumers League• Led by Florence Kelley

a. Improved working conditions, wages, & hours for women

b. Worked to prohibit (stop) child labor

– Women’s Christian Temperance Union• Led by Frances Willard

a. 1st National Organization of Women in U.S. (formed in 1873)b. Fought for many things (eliminate prostitution & tobacco, improve health)c. Main Goal = Abolish Alcohold. Still around today! (not as big as it used to be)

WCTU Prohibition Posters

TemperanceMovement Clip on my website

• 3. Innovative Entrepreneurs – Frederick Winslow Taylor

• Developed “scientific management” techniques– Assembly line style work in steel factories in the 1890s

– Henry Ford• Recognized manual labor was hard • Used Winslow’s ideas to make Model T’s

extremely efficiently on assembly lines.• Paid high wages ($5 a day) and cut hours

to keep good employees happy.• Hired minorities• Not a fan of unions

– Didn’t allow them until 1941

The Battle of the Overpass

Henry Ford was famed for doubling his factory workers' pay in 1914 and hiring minorities other companies turned away. But he often wanted a say in how workers lived their lives -- and when the United Auto Workers won its first contracts with GM and Chrysler in 1937, Ford vowed never to bend, hiring people to spy on, intimidate and occasionally attack union organizers. This picture shows the beginning of the end of Ford's resistance. During a May 1937 march at the Rouge River plant, Ford's thugs beat union organizers bloody, and the attack was captured by news photographers who hid the film to get the photos published. The Battle of the Overpass led to federal labor charges that Ford fought for years, but it finally agreed to a contract with the UAW in June of 1941.

• 4. Some Political Leaders around the U.S.– Eugene V. Debs

• Head of American Socialist Party• Ran for President 5 times between 1900 – 1920

– Never came close to winning – (3rd party candidate)

• Main focus was on inequality in our economy – Helped form several major unions

– Hazen Pingree• Mayor of Detroit and Governor of Michigan

Read the plaque and a summary of his life at my website

Mrparana.weebly.com

– Robert La Follette• Governor & Senator of Wisconsin• Presidential Candidate in 1924• Fought against special treatment in railroad

industry– Taxed them the same

as other businesses– No more free rides

(bribes) for politicians– Placed limits on what train

companies could charge people and businesses

4 Major Voting Reforms introduced by La Follette

• 1. Direct Primary – Preliminary election where all voters can choose the

best candidate from each party for a regular election • Narrowing Down the Field

– Before this, candidates were picked in private by the rich

• 2. Initiative– allowing a regular citizen to get a petition started

that supports something. If enough people sign, people vote on the issue in a regular election.

• Before this, all laws had to be proposed by a member of Congress

• 3. Referendum– allows a regular citizen unhappy with a law

passed by the legislature to get a petition started and if enough dislike the law, it will be done away with.

• 4. Recall– allowing regular people to get a petition

started and if enough people signed it, there would be a special election to consider the removal of an elected official.

In June of 2012, 44 year old Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker became the first governor in U.S. history to face a recall election afterangering many members of labor unions around the state. He ended up remaining governor after the special election. He ran for President in 2016.

A National Voting Reform• 17th Amendment (1913)

– People in each state can vote for their own U.S. Senators

• Before this, it was done by state Congresses

All of these voting reforms give more power to regular people and less power to government officials and wealthy businesses

Muller v Oregon (1908)

• Oregon made a law limiting # of hours women could work per day to 10 due to health concerns

• Muller (factory owner) said women should be able to work as long as they want to. He sues… loses… appeals… loses… and eventually…..

• U.S. Supreme Court agrees with Oregon

• States have the right to set laws that protect the health and well being of employees.

• This only applied to certain women (white) doing certain jobs at the time… but it was a start

Justice David Brewer wrote the unanimous opinion

Summary clip of sec 1 on website