Progressive MovementWhite, middle-class, urban, educated
reformers (lots of women)Roots were in the Populist MovementFour goals: social, moral, economic and
political reform.
Seneca Falls Convention
1848
Protecting Social WelfareSocial Gospel Movement,
settlement houses inspire other reform groups
YMCA and Salvation Army are formed
Pass law prohibiting child labor, limiting women’s hours
Children working in NC textile mill
Handwritten draft of confederation of the YMCA circa
1833
Promoting Moral ImprovementSome feel poor should uplift themselves
by improving own behaviorProhibition - banning of alcoholic drinksWoman’s Christian Temperance Union
spearheads prohibition crusade
Newspaper Headline Announcing US states had
approved Prohibition
Woman’s Temperance Crusade: Mother Stewart and her Staff
Creating Economic Reform1893 panic prompts doubts
about capitalism; many become socialists
Expose corruption in politics, business
Many use experts, science to make workplace more efficient
Scientific management - time & motion studies applied to workplace
Assembly lines speed up production, make people work like machines
Turn of the Century Assembly Lines
Political ReformPut power back in the hands of the peopleEnd corruption by political machinesReform at the local, state, and federal
levels.
NY Times Political Cartoon attacking Politicians and Tammany Hall
Immigration and Urban PoorMost poor immigrants are forced to live in
slums because they can’t afford anything else.
Tenements are multi-family dwellings found in the slums and are usually deteriorating.
New York City Tenement Slums
Working ConditionsVery bad: long hours, low pay, dangerous
conditions.Ex: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Fire breaks out
on upper floors of a ten story bldg. Workers can’t escape because all the exterior doors had been locked by owner. Over 200 women died. Owner rec’d small fine.
Police and remains of victims of Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Unequal Distribution of Wealth
The most wealth is held by the smallest number of people. A few very wealthy people, while almost everyone else is poor.
American Most Wealthy including JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt
Activists and ReformersMuckrakers – investigative journalists who
write to expose corruption and bad conditions in hopes of change.
Frank NorrisLincoln Steffens – The Shame of the CitiesIda Tarbell – Standard OilUpton Sinclair – MeatpackingJacob Riis – How the Other Half Lives
(immigrants)
Muckrakers Lincoln Steffens
(above) and Frank Norris
(right)
Muckrakers Ida Tarbell (left) and Upton Sinclair
(below)
Jacob Riis photograph documenting crowded conditions inside NY slums
Social Gospel MovementSociety must be reformed and improved.Settlement Houses – Jane Addams, Hull HouseCarrie Nation – Temperance Movement
Carrie Nation (left) and Food Lines at Hull House (right)
Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal
President McKinley shot; Roosevelt becomes president at 42
Roosevelt works to give citizens a Square Deal through progressive reforms.
The three Cs (goals) of the Square Deal:Control CorporationsConsumer ProtectionConservation Theodore
Roosevelt
Artist’s depiction of
the Assassination
of William McKinley
Controlling CorporationsTrustbustingRoosevelt wants to curb trusts that hurt
public interest – not “good” trusts.breaks up some trusts under Sherman
Antitrust ActU.S. v E.C. Knight & Co.
Cartoon attacking the US
Senate titled “The Bosses of
the Senate.” The banner in back reads “This is a Senate of the
Monopolists, by the Monopolists
and for the Monopolists”
Cartoon depicting Trustbuster
Theodore Roosevelt
Anthracite Coal Mine StrikeCoal reserves low – strike threatens publicTeddy Roosevelt miners, operators to
accept arbitrationFirst time Federal government sides with
workers.
Coal miners evicted from company owned housing, northeast Pennsylvania, 1902 Because mining companies owned their
employees' housing, striking workers risked their homes as well as their jobs.
Railroad RegulationRoosevelt pushes for federal regulation to
control abusesNorthern Securities vs. U.SElkins Act - stops rebates, sudden rate
changesHepburn Act - limits passes, ICC to set
maximum rates
Consumer ProtectionRegulating Foods and DrugsUpton Sinclair’s The Jungle -
unsanitary conditions in meatpacking
Roosevelt pushes for Meat Inspection Act:dictates sanitary
requirementscreates federal meat
inspection program
Cartoon Depicting T Roosevelt leading the investigations of the Meat Industry
Consumer Protection (cont.)Food, drug advertisements make false claims;
medicines often unsafePure Food and Drug Act halts sale of
contaminated food, medicinerequires truth in labeling
Conservation and Natural Resources
U.S. Forest Bureau establishedRoosevelt sets aside forest reserves,
sanctuaries, national parksBelieves conservation part preservation,
part development for publicPres. most noted for conservation
Teddy Roosevelt
and Naturalist John Muir
Taft Becomes PresidentTaft wins with
Roosevelt’s supportCautiously progressive
agenda; gets little credit for successes (actually busts more trusts than Theodore Roosevelt)
William H Taft
American Tobacco v. U.S.Taft signs Payne-
Aldrich Tariff - compromise bill, moderate tariffs
Progressives angry, think he abandoned low tariffs, progressivism
Cartoon depicting Progressives feelings over the Payne Aldrich Tariff
The Republican Party SplitsTheodore Roosevelt wants to be president
againTaft’s people outmaneuver TR’s for
Republican nominationProgressives form Bull Moose Party;
nominate RooseveltRun against Democrat Woodrow Wilson,
reform governor of New Jersey
Democrats Win in 1912Wilson endorses progressive platform
called the New FreedomWants to attack Triple Wall of Privilege:
tariffs, banks, trusts.calls all monopolies evil
Democrats Win in 1912 cont.Roosevelt wants oversight of big business;
not all monopolies badSocialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs
wants to end capitalismWilson wins great electoral victory
Woodrow Wilson on campaign in Ohio
Lower Tariffs
Underwood Tariff Act -- substantially reduces tariffs for the first time since Civil War
Wilson Wins Financial ReformsSixteenth Amendment legalizes graduated
federal income taxFederal Reserve System - landmark
banking reformDecentralizes bankingNation divided into 12 districts; fed.
reserve bank in each districtThis is a bank for banks. Your bank
deposits money here.
Newspaper headlines declaring the approval of the Federal Reserve Act
Stronger Anti-Trust LawsClayton Antitrust Act stops
companies buying stock to form monopolyStronger than Sherman Anti-
trust and can’t be used against labor
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) - new “watchdog” agencyinvestigates regulatory
violationsends unfair business practices
Reforming Local GovernmentTry to make government efficient,
responsive to votersSome cities adopt government by
commission of experts Many use council-manager: people elect
council that appoints manager
Reform at the State LevelGovernors push states to pass laws to
regulate large businessesRobert M. La Follette is 3-term governor,
then senator of Wisconsinattacks big business
Reforming ElectionsDirect Primaries allow voters, not party
machines, to choose candidatesInitiative - bill proposed by people, not
lawmakers, put on ballotsReferendum - voters, not legislature,
decide if initiative becomes lawRecall - voters remove elected official
through off-cycle election
Election Reforms (cont.)Direct Election of Senators
Seventeenth Amendment permits popular election of senators
Secret Ballot (Australian Ballot) – no one is allowed to know how a person votes.
Cartoon portraying the time needed to pass the 17th Amendment allowing the direct election of U.S. senatorsBy Spencer, for the Omaha World Herald, 1912
Women Win SuffrageCarrie Chapman Catt, head
of NAWSA, stresses organization, lobbying
National Woman’s Party aggressively pressures for suffrage amendment
Nineteenth Amendment grants women right to vote
The End of ProgressivismOutbreak of World
War I distracts Americans;
Reform efforts stall
Civil Rights at the Turn of the 20th Century
Roosevelt does not support civil rights for African Americansinvites Booker T. Washington to White
HouseNAACP - National Association for the
Advancement of Colored Peoplegoal is full equality among races
Founded 1909 by W. E. B. DuBois and black, white reformers
W.E.B. DuBois
Booker T Washington
NAACP flag in New York City
African Americans Fight Legal Discrimination
Voting RestrictionsAll Southern states restrict voting, deny
equalitySome limit vote to those who can read;
officials give literacy testsSome have poll tax that must be paid
annually to voteSome add grandfather clause to
constitution to let poor whites votecan vote if self, father, grandfather voted
before 1867
Political Cartoon by Theodore Geisel attacking the Poll Tax
Cartoon depicting Intimidation of Black voters titled "Of course he wants to vote the Democratic ticket!”
African-American Responses to Jim Crow
Booker T. Washington - racism will end if blacks get labor skillsHeads Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute, now a universityW. E. B. Du Bois, first African American to
get Harvard doctorate disagrees with WashingtonFounds Niagara Movement to encourage
liberal arts study
African-American Responses (cont.)
Opposing DiscriminationRacial etiquette -
informal rules for black-white relations
enforce second-class status for blacks
Moderate reformers, like Booker T. Washington, get white support
African-American Responses (cont.)W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B.
Wells think problems too urgent to postpone
Born a slave, Ida B. Wells becomes teacher, newspaper editorcampaigns for racial
justice and anti-lynching laws
ViolenceAfrican Americans who do not follow
etiquette are punished, lynchedmore than 1,400 killed 1882–1892
Lynching and Burning of Black victim in Omaha
on Sept 29, 1919
Discrimination in the NorthUsually de facto segregationMany blacks migrate North for better
paying jobs, social equalityAre forced into segregated neighborhoodsRejected by labor unions; hired last, fired
first by employersCompetition between blacks, working-class
whites sometimes violent
Racist whites lynching 3 African American circus workers in Duluth, MN, in 1920
Black family preparing to move north during the Great Migration
New TechnologiesElectricity – sewing machinesSkyscrapersAirplanes:
Orville & Wilbur Wright use engines to fly “heavier-than-air” craft
first successful flight December 1903 – Kitty Hawk, NC
Airplanes first used for mail and cargo
New York Skyscraper
called the Flat Iron Building
Wright Brothers Airplane 1902
Production ProcessesFord’s innovations:Pays $5/day – more than any other jobFirst to see workers as consumersUses the assembly line to be more efficientModel T is under $300, most Americans
can afford one.
Henry Ford and his Model T
Advertising and ConsumerismAnything that makes us more alike
contributes to mass culture: movies, books, radio, music, fashion, etc.
Montgomery Ward, Sears Roebuck catalogs bring goods to small towns
Rural free delivery (RFD) - post office delivers direct to every home
Rural Free Delivery Wagon
Movies and PhotographyMovie camera – first movie was The Great
Train Robbery – silent films.
Photography ExplosionPre-1880s, photography requires heavy
equipment, time George Eastman develops light-weight
equipment, studio processing1888, introduces Kodak camera, easy to
operatemillions use Kodak camerahelps create field of photojournalism
1923 Advertisement for Kodak Camera
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