Problems that Led to the Progressive Movement

By: Marrin Tyler and Julian Petrie

Progressive Movement

• Progressive movement- aimed to restore economic opportunities and correct injustices in American life

• Goals of movement:

1) Protecting social welfare

2) Promoting moral improvement

3) Creating economic reform

4) Fostering efficiency

Political Corruption• Muckrakers were active

journalists who exposed many of the things the politicians didn’t want released such as corruption, waste and scandal.

• The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, exposed how terribly and disgustingly the meat in factories was packaged.

•Notable individuals: Ray Stannard Baker, George Creel, Brand Whitlock, Ida Tarbell, and David Graham Phillips (who lashed out heavily on the Senate in 1906)

Trusts and Monopolies• Notable examples include

the Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, and American Tobacco Companies.

• Antitrust laws were passed with the intention of breaking up the trusts and monopolies that were formed, such as the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act.

•A trust is a business that’s created with the intent of monopolizing the industry.

Horizontal Integration

• Horizontal integration is the act of merging to companies or industries together that are in the same industry and the same stage of production.

• A common term is to buy out a company, or take over an industry.

• Usually used by a company that would like to sell their product across multiple markets.

Vertical Integration

• A type of management control where everybody in the supply chain focuses on a different product or service, that, when combined with the others will appease a common need.

• Andrew Carnegie, owner of Carnegie Steel, first brought forth the idea and act of vertical integration.

• Used to boost financial growth and efficiency.

• Much less common than horizontal integration.

Environment

• Pres. Theodore Roosevelt was committed strongly towards the conservation of the environment. He worked with many major figures of the time in order to attempt to save natural resources as much as they could.

• Roosevelt had signed in 5 national parks, established 51 bird reserves, 4 game preserves and 150 national forests.

Food Preparation

• After the release of The Jungle and people knowing how horribly their food was made, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed.

• The Pure Food and Drug Act basically took untested over-the-counter medicines off the shelves and made sure that food processing factories had to meet a certain standard in order to keep making food.

Working Conditions

• Workers embraced socialism

• Muckrakers- journalists who wrote about the corrupt side of business and public life in mass circulation magazines during the early 20th century

• Women factory and laundry workers were limited to ten-hour workdays in 1908; Men were also limited to a ten-hour workday in 1917

• Fredrick Winslow Taylor wanted to improve efficiency of industry by breaking manufacturing tasks into simpler parts

• Assembly line sped up production, but not all workers could work at the same rate

• This caused a high worker turnover due to injuries suffered by fatigued workers

• Henry Ford reduced workdays to eight hours and paid five dollars a day

• Progressives won workers’ compensation to aid the families of workers who were hurt or killed on the job

Working Children

• Businesses hired children because they performed unskilled jobs for lower wages and their small hands made them able to handle small parts and tools

• Immigrants often sent children to work because they viewed their children as part of the family economy

• Wages were so low for adults that every family member needed to work to pull the family out of poverty

• Children were more prone to accidents caused by fatigue in industrial settings

• Many developed health problems and suffered from stunt growth

• National Child Labor Committee (1904), along with other labor union members who argued that child labor lowered wages for all workers, pressured national politicians to pass the Keating-Owen Act in 1916

• This act prohibited the transportation of goods produced with child labor across state lines

• Reformers succeeded in nearly every state by banning child labor and setting maximum work hours

Alcohol• Reformers felt that morality, not the workplace, held the key to improving the lives of poor people and that alcohol was undermining American morals

• Prohibition, the banning of alcoholic beverages, was one program used to help immigrants and poor people life themselves up by improving their personal behavior

• Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) lead the crusade for prohibition in 1874. By 1879, it became a national organization

•Provided women with expanded public roles, which they used to justify giving women voting rights

Suffrage•NWSA united with another group in 1890 to become the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

• The liquor industry feared that women would vote in support of prohibition, while textile industry worried that women would vote for restrictions on child labor

• Suffragist leaders tried 3 ways to achieve their objective: convince legislatures to grant women the right to vote, pursued court cases to test the 14th Amendment, and pushed for national constitutional amendment to grant women the vote

• Suffrage was only granted in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho

•Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Women Suffrage Association (NWSA)• Suffrage- the right to vote