Progressive Era

Warm-up

What are some of the problems of city life?

Announcements

Theme

Our theme for this unit is about the Role of Government in our lives.

Our Unit question is: ): To what extent does government have a role in your life? In other words what should government be allowed to do and not allowed to do? Why?

Recap

Reconstruction What is it? When was it? What happens next?

Timeline

Reconstruction: 1865-1876 Industrialization: late 1800s: A huge

growth of the economy that made some people very rich but at the expense of workers.

Progressive Era: early 1900s (ends around 1920)

Question of the Day

What problems of society is the government responsible for fixing?

Quote Analysis

A hundred thousand people lived in rear tenements in New York City last year. Here is a room neater than the rest. The spice of hot soapsuds is added to the air already tainted with the smell of boiling cabbage, of rags and uncleanliness all about. It makes an overpowering compound.

- How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis Summarize the quote in one sentence. What did you use to summarize this?

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What problems did these pictures show?

Intro to the Progressive Era: Muckraking

Vocabulary

Progressive Era: The period of time between the 1890s and 1920s when social, political and economic reform occurred in the United States.

Muckrakers: Journalists or photographers who worked to expose the problems of the time like corruption and poverty

Conditions in the Slums

Many urban residents lived in poverty and labored under very hard conditions.

Cities were not set up for the enormous population.› 1 house = 12-16 families› Lack of fire protection

No indoor plumbing, so waste ended up in the streets.› Contagious diseases

spread quickly such as tuberculosis and pneumonia.

Problems in Workplace Sharp blades threatened

meatpackers Cotton dust plagues

textile workers Fire was a risk to

everyone in tight factory conditions.

Children as young as 6 years old were working in factories to help support struggling families.

“Life in a factory is perhaps, with the exception of prison life, the most monotonous life a human being can live”

Unsafe Products: Buyer Beware

Increased production meant that more products were available, but buying them was not always a good idea.

Things found in meat:› Rat dropping› Rats› Borax› Formaldehyde

Medicine consisted of:› Narcotics› Morphine› Opium› Cocaine

What is Progressivism?

The progressives took action in response to these problems.

Wanted to improve society by› Promoting social welfare› Protecting the environment› Making government more efficient and democratic

Wanted government to solve society’s problems.

Progressives were not a unified group but all shared a commitment to progress and the belief that they could improve society.

Who are muckrakers?

Group of journalists within the Progressive Movement

They uncovered the nation’s problems and wrote about them.

“raked the mud of society”› TheodoreRoosevelt

Muckrakers Respond to City Problems

Sought to expose city life problems

Conditions in Slums› Muckrakers blamed city

governments for failing to provide adequate roads, sewage and power systems, and transportation.

› Jacob Riis writes a book to expose “How the Other Half Lives” including disturbing photographs

Response to Problems in the Workplace

Muckrakers exposed terrible working conditions.

Initiative: when everyday American citizens tried to address the problems in the United States by proposing laws & changes

A push for laws where children were required to go to school.

Response to Unsafe Products

In 1906, Upton Sinclar wrote The Jungle.› Unsanitary conditions

in meatpacking plants

Muckrakers protested that big businesses were growing richer, while small businesses and the poor struggled even harder to survive.

B. Features of Progressive Reform (cont.)

Desire to make society more moral and more just

Desire to distribute income more equitably

Desire to broaden opportunities for individual advancement

Women were active in progressivism--Suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony

IV. Progressive Amendments to the Constitution

Progressive reliance on the law

16th Amendment (1913)—federal income tax

17th Amendment (1913)—direct election of senators

18th Amendment (1919)—prohibition

19th Amendment (1920)—vote for women

Document comparison: the Jungle and Fast Food Nation

African Americans during the Progressive Era

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois

W.E.B. Dubois

Founder of the NAACP

Got a Ph.D from Harvard

Believed in political rights over economic rights

Talented tenth

Booker T. Washington

Born into Slavery to a white father and a slave mother

Believed it was more important to gain economic rights

Poem

Your turn

Pretend you are a modern day Muckraker, write an expose on a problem you see in society (at least 1 paragraph)