US History Notes -

Chapter 21 -

Urban America and the Progressive Era, 1900-1917

The Currents of Progressivism

- Progressives could be found in all classes, regions, and races

- Felt that America needed a new social consciousness to cope with problems

- Several key issues behind progressivism:

- Ending political corruption

- More businesslike governing methods

- More compassionate leglislative response to the excesses of industrialism

- Many feel this term is exceedingly vague

Unifying Themes

- Three basic attitudes behind progressive movements:

- Anger over the excesses of industrial capitalism and urban growth

- Emphasized social cohesion and common bonds to understand modern society

- Against social Darwinism

- Felt citizens needed to intervene to improve social conditions

- Progressives offered a combination of social justice and social control

Women Spearhead Reform

- Many middle class women supported the settlement house movement

- Reformers such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley promoted female education

The Urban Machine

- Women had to work outside existing political institutions

- City politics had become a closed and corrupt system

- Machine politics - well organised, dominant political parties catering to specific voters

- Viewed their work as a business, served people who needed assistance

- “Honest Graft” - Making money from inside information on public improvements

- Timothy “Big Tim” Sullivan - embodied the machine politics style

- Gained votes by helping pass reforming legislature, eg. child labour laws, etc

Political Progressives and Urban Reform

- Political progressivism originated in the cities to challenge machine politics

- Governments hardly seemed capable of providing basic essential services

- “Good Government Movement” - led by the National Municipal League

- Fought to make city management a non-partisan process, like a large corporation

- Progressive politicans focused on changing policies, not the political structure

Progressive in the Statehouse

- “Wisconsin Idea” - The application of academic scholarship and theory to public needs

- Adopted by many states

- Western progressives displayed the greatest enthusiasm for institutional political reform

- The Initiative - allowed direct vote on an issue raised by petition

- The Referendum - allowed voters to decide on bills referred to them by the legislature

- These and other measures intentionally weakened political parties

- Southern populism = biracial policies - Southern progressivism = whites only

- Southern progressives supported black disfranchisement as a reform

- “Grandfather clauses” - uneducated whites could vote if their grandfather was able to

- Southern progressives pushed for fully segregated public areas

New Journalism: Muckraking

- Jacob Riis - How the Other Half Lives - first real exposé detailing poor living conditions

- Journals such as McClure’s began uncovering the bad side of American life

- Journalists included Lincoln Steffen (The Shame of the Cities) and Ida Tarbell (History of the Standard Oil

Company)

- Exposure Journalism, as it was called, paid handsomely

- President Theodore Roosevelt coined the term “muckrakers” for these journalists

Intellectual Trends Promoting Reform

- Intellectual thinkers began challenging several core American ideas - this led to reforms

- L. F. Ward - Dynamic Sociology - said applying Soc. Darwinism to society was wrong

- Legal, educational and industrial reformers began speaking out against their fields

- Lochner v. New York - Judge Holmes ruled that a 10-hour day for bankers was wrong

- Holmes affected a new group of lawyers known as the “social jurisprudence”

- Edward A. Ross - Social Control - became a key phrase in progressive thought

- Argued that society needed an elite with the best interests of society at heart

Social Control and Its Limits

- Some progressives felt they were acting for the common good, but were actually racists

- Extreme side of these views supported eugenics (making a supreme race)

The Prohibition Movement

- WCTU provided women with their first political forum to voice their protests

- Core supporteres were generally small-town, Protestant, native-born Americans

- Some “ritualists” protested against prohibition - usually working-class immigrants

The Social Evil

- New movements arose to reform society in general - prostitution, gambling, etc

- Portrayed religious minorities as the cause of these vices

- Huge crackdowns in prostitution districts only led to the transformation of the sex trade

The Redemption of Leisure

- Progressives felt that “commercialised leisure” must be closely watched

- 1909 - NYC movie producers joined to make the National Board of Censorship (NBC)

- 1914 - The NBC reviewed 95% of the nation’s film output

Standardizing Education

- Public schools were seen primarily as agents of “Americanization” - huge melting pot

- 1930 - 47% of kids aged 14-17 were in school

- Progressives led the way in developing specialized fields of study

Working-Class Communities and Protest

- Industrial Rev reached its peak in the early 19th century

- Differences between workers in skill, ethnicity and race proved to be powerful barriers

- Industrial workers began calling for increased social justice

The New Immigrants

- Untrained foreign immigrants became the bottom rank of the American workforce

- Certain industries became dominated by particular ethnicities

- Most immigrants came from Europe, although some came from Asia

- Barrios - Southern communities dominated by Mexican immigrants

Urban Ghettos

- Immigrants moved to ghettos filled with their countrymen, densely packed poor areas

- NYC became the center of the garment trade, which employed many Jews

- Huge work force united as one to strike against the garment manufacturers

- Known as the Uprising of the 20,000

- March 25th, 1911 - huge fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company

- Workers couldn’t escape due to the locked doors, many jumped to their deaths

Company Towns

- Many workers lived in company towns (Hershey, PA, etc) but had no influence there

- Immigrants had higher death rates because they did not understand safety instructions

- Women added to the family income by taking boarders, sewing, doing laundry, etc

- Women struggled with longer hours than the men and the latters’ excessive drinking

- Companies hired “efficency experts” to make sure the workers did as much as possible

- Strikers were met with opposition from the companies as well as the “neutral” army

- In 1913-14, the Colorado coal workers went on a major strike

- State sent in National Guard, who proceeded to side with the company

The AFL: “Unions, Pure and Simple”

- After the 1890’s, the American Federation of Labor emerged as the strongest union

- Unions’ strength gave rise to descrimination from whites against other workers

- Although members of one union, the various industries disliked each other

- National Association of Manufacturers launched a campaign to eradicate unions

- Only in the 1930’s could unions count on legal support

The IWW: “One Big Union”

- Tensions grew between unions and the employers; many strikes turned violent

- Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) formed in Chicago to facilitate the “workers struggle to unite as a class,

take possession of the earth, and abolish the wage system”

- Briefly became a force against the AFL

- Some violent union demonstrations ended up hindering the IWW’s progress

- McNamara brothers bombing the Los Angeles Times’ offices

Rebels in Bohemia

- Reformers gathered in NYC’s Greenwich Village

- Sympathized with labour struggles, liked modern art, were open to socialism

- “Village bohemians”, especially women, challenged social double standards

- Pre-hippie Hippies

- “Bohemian” - anyone who had artistic / intellectual dreams and disregarded social rules

- Bohemian views displayed in the monthly socialist magazine The Masses

- Bohemians organised a reproduction of a NJ silk workers strike displayed at MSG

- Viewed as an artistic triumph

- Village bohemia lasted a few years, but Greenwich Village is still a gathering place for artsy types looking for

experimentation

Women’s Movements and Black Awakening

- New women’s associations gave women a place in public life and more civil influence

- Black progressives fought to preserve rights they had gained during Reconstruction

The New Woman

- 1900 - 7% of Americans went to high schoool - 60% of these were women

- 1890 - General Fed. of Women’s Clubs brought together 200 local clubs of women

- Club activity led members to participate in other reform ventures

- Included “child-saving” reforms, eg. child labour laws, mother’s pensions, etc

- Women’s reform movements introduced quality control

Birth Control

- Margaret Sanger - Coined the phrase “birth control” in 1913

- Threw herself into the bohemian society and became an organizer for the IWW

- Began her own magazine, the Woman Rebel

- After persecution for her views, she fled to Europe in Oct. 1914

- After Sanger was jailed, she gained lots of publicity for her crusade

Racism and Accomodation

- 1900 - 4/5ths of the US’s 10 million blacks still lived in the South

- Most worked in agriculture

- Some whites believed that blacks were genetically predisposed to the evils of society

- Used evolutionary theory to argue blacks could not improve = racial Darwinism

- Thomas Dixon - The Clansman - described the typical black as half man, half animal

Booker T. Washington - The most influential black leader of his time

- Born a slave in 1856, educated at Hampton Institute

- 1881 - Founded Tuskegee Institute, a black school in Alabama

- Accomodationist philosophy - blacks and whites can work together for mutual benefit while remaining distinct from

each other

- Up from Slavery - Washington’s widely-read biography

- Founded the National Negro Business League with Andrew Carnegie to help develop black business in black

communities

- Consulted by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft on some issues

Racial Justice and the NAACP

- W.E.B. Du Bois offered an alternative to Washington’s leadership

- Did not fully accept the values of the dominant white society

- Du Bois criticized Washington for accepting the “alleged inferiority of the Negro”

- Niagara movement - protested the denial of black rights and other descrimination

- Held at Niagara Falls, Canada

- Failed to generate much change

- National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People - NAACP

- Led struggles to overturn legal and economic barriers to equal opportunity

National Progressivism

- Both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson called themselves “progressives”

- National level progressivism animated many perspectives

Theodore Roosevelt and Presidential Activism

- 1901 - Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest president in US History

- Roosevelt won national fame during the Spanish-American war

- Follows the pattern of war heros being elected to office

- Roosevelt felt that administrative agencies run by experts could satisfy everyone

Trustbusting and Regulation

- Roosevelt began breaking up monopolies under the Sherman Antitrust Act

- Included the Northern Securities Co, a railroad merger under J.P. Morgan

- Also included Standard Oil, owned by John D. Rockefeller

- During Roosevelt’s two terms, the government filed 43 cases under the Sherman Act

- After Roosevelt was re-elected, he felt more comfortable pushing for regulations

- Pure Food and Drug Act - established the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

- Tested drugs before they went on the market

- Journalism exposés warned consumers about false meat products, etc

- Some big businesses supported reforms because they drove small companies bankrupt

Conservation, Preservation, and the Environment

- Roosevelt worried about the environment, and created the U.S. Forest Service in 1905

- Headed by Gifford Pinchot, a conservationist

- Pinchot believed in the “wise use” of America’s resources by the govt

- Some radicals such as John Muir wanted much more land preserved

- Many disagreements between conservationists and preservationists

- 1916 - National Park Service created - gave preservationists a voice in Washington

- Newlands Act - established a new federal presence in managing water resources

Republican Split

- 1908 - Roosevelt kept his promise to retire after a second term

- Named Taft as his successor, who easily defeated William Jennings Bryan

- During Taft’s presidency, the gap between Republicans widened

- Taft’s indecisive nature alienated Roosevelt and many other progressives

- When the old guard Republicans would not nominate Roosevelt in 1912, he and his supporters formed the

Progressive Party, where he ran along with Hiram Johnson

The Election of 1912: A Four-Way Race

- The Democrats took advantage of the divisions among Republicans

- Nominated Woodrow Wilson, who had the support of many of the party’s progressives

- Wilson contrasted his New Freedom campaign with Roosevelt’s New Nationalism

- 4th candidate was Eugene V. Debs, a Socialist

- Due to the Republican split, Wilson easily won, with an incredible 435 electoral votes

- Considered the first “modern election”

- Direct Primaries (switching parties)

- Challenging traditional party loyalties

- Issue-oriented campaigns

- A high degree of interest group activity

Woodrow Wilson’s First Term

- Wilson pushed for a greater federal role in regulating business and the economy

- By 1916, Wilson’s reform program looked more like New Nationalism

- 1913 - Underwood-Simmons Act reduced certain tariffs

- Took advantage of new 16th Amendment by imposing the first graduated federal income tax - up to 6%

- By creating federal reserve banks, the power of private banks was weakened

- Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) - replaced the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890

- Exempted unions as illegal combinations

- Federal Trade Commission (FTC) - Gave govt regulation control over corporations