Outline #6
The Progressive Era, 1890-1916
I. What were key aspects of progressivism?
A. Reform impulse in response to industrialization
B. Mostly urban middle class reformers, but also supported by some business
farm, labor and immigrant groups
C. Reform, not revolution – forestall radicalism
D. Optimistic about ability to reshape events to their liking
E. Willing to expand gov’t authority to advance their cause
F. Influenced by Protestant moralism, democracy, scientific expertise
II. Muckrakers – Draw public attention to problems
A. Upton Sinclair and meatpacking plants (see attached bio)
1.Meat Inspection Act of 1906
a. Provided for federal inspection of meat
III. The Trusts: Break Up vs. Regulation
A. The Progressive Presidents (see attached bios): Theodore Roosevelt and
“Square Deal”/”New Nationalism” (1901-1909), William Howard Taft (19091913), Woodrow Wilson and “New Freedom” (1913-1921)
1. Prosecutions of “bad trusts” under Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
a. Banned monopolistic practices and restraint of trade
2. Hepburn Railroad Regulation Act (1906)
a. Strengthened Interstate Commerce Commission’s power to
regulate RR rates
3. Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
a. Prohibited adulterated and falsely labeled food and drug products
4. Meat Inspection Act (1906) (see above)
5. Federal Reserve Act (1913)
a. Created Federal Reserve to regulate credit and money supply
6. Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)
a. Executive branch agency to oversee/guide business practices
7. Keating-Owen Child Labor Act (1916)
a. Banned Child Labor
b. Struck down by Supreme Court in 1918
8. Workers’ Compensation Act (1916)
a. Provided compensation to federal workers injured on the job
9. Adamson Act (1916)
a. Mandated 8 hour day for railroad workers
IV. Readings about Progressive Era Reform Movements
A. Race Relations: “Booker T. and W.E.B.”
1. What did Booker T. Washington believe Blacks should do to gain full
acceptance by Whites? Why do you think his view was called the
“’Atlanta Compromise”?
2. What did W.E.B. DuBois believe Blacks should do to gain full
acceptance by Whites?
3. What was the “Talented Tenth”?
4. How did the two individuals’ philosophies influence later developments
in African American history?
B. Social Welfare: Jane Addams and Hull House
1.
2.
3.
4.
Who was Jane Addams?
What was “Hull House”?
Why did Addams and her colleagues create Hull House?
What were some of the Hull House reformers’ accomplishments?
C. Social Control: The Mann Act (1910)
1. What was the Mann Act?
2. Why was it passed by Congress?
3. In what ways was the scope of the act expanded and why?
D. Environmental Issues: Conservation vs. Preservation
1. John Muir is often described as a “preservationist” of the natural
environment, while Gifford Pinchot is often described as a
“conservationist.” What do you think the difference is between those
two points of view?
2. In light of that difference, why do you think Pinchot supported the Hetch
Hetchy dam project while Muir opposed it? What was the significance
of the Hetch Hetchy dam project and the controversy it engendered?
V. Women's Suffrage
A. Gender Bias Against Women in Public Life
B. NAWSA, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
C. Video: "One Woman, One Vote"
1. Harriot (Stanton) Blatch and Equality League of Self-Supporting Women
2. Suffrage Parade
3. Anna Howard Shaw
4. Anti-Suffrage Movement: Business and Liquor
5. Alice Paul
6. Lucy Burns
7. Constitutional Amendment
8. Mary Church Terrell
9. Woodrow Wilson
10. Susan B. Anthony Amendment
11. Split between moderates and radicals
12. Jeannette Rankin
13. Carrie Chapman Catt
14. Maude Wood Park
15. Congressional lobbying
16. World War I and patriotic work
17. National Women's Party
18. picketing, violence, arrests, imprisonment
19. New York Referendum
20. Wilson's endorsement
21. Nat’l Association for Rejection of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment
22. Harry Byrd
23. 19th Amendment ratified, 1920
Questions about the Video
1. How & why did industrialization strengthen the movement for women's suffrage?
2. What were some of the different tactics suffragists used to win the vote?
3. Why was idea of women's suffrage so controversial?
4. Why do you think women's suffrage movement broke down barriers to voting
based on sex while barriers to African American voting were increasing at the same
time? To put it another way: Why did political freedom increase for white women
and decrease for black women?
W.E.B. Du Bois
Booker T. Washington
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/ma2.htm
http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/btw.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/etc/road.html
Two great leaders of the black community in the late 19th and 20th century were W.E.B.
Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. However, they sharply disagreed on strategies for
black social and economic progress. Their opposing philosophies can be found in much
of today's discussions over how to end class and racial injustice, what is the role of black
leadership, and what do the 'haves' owe the 'have-nots' in the black community.
Booker T. Washington, educator, reformer and the most influential black leader of his
time (1856-1915) preached a philosophy of self-help, racial solidarity and
accommodation. He urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and
concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work and material prosperity – an idea
dubbed the “Atlanta Compromise” from an 1895 speech he gave in Atlanta, Georgia. He
believed in education in the crafts, industrial and farming skills and the cultivation of the
virtues of patience, enterprise and thrift. This, he said, would win the respect of whites
and lead to African Americans being fully accepted as citizens and integrated into all
strata of society.
W.E.B. Du Bois, a towering black intellectual, scholar and political thinker (1868-1963)
said no--Washington's strategy would serve only to perpetuate white oppression. Du Bois
advocated political action and a civil rights agenda (he helped found the NAACP). In
addition, he argued that social change could be accomplished by developing the small
group of college-educated blacks he called "the Talented Tenth:"
"The Negro Race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem
of education then, among Negroes, must first of all deal with the "Talented Tenth." It is
the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from
the contamination and death of the worst."
At the time, the Washington/Du Bois dispute polarized African American leaders into
two wings--the 'conservative' supporters of Washington and his 'radical' critics. The Du
Bois philosophy of agitation and protest for civil rights flowed directly into the Civil
Rights movement which began to develop in the 1950's and exploded in the 1960's.
Booker T. today is associated, perhaps unfairly, with the selfhelp/colorblind/Republican/Clarence Thomas/Thomas Sowell wing of the black
community and its leaders. The Nation of Islam and Maulana Karenga's Afrocentrism
derive too from this strand out of Booker T.'s philosophy. However, the latter advocated
withdrawal from the mainstream in the name of economic advancement.
JANE ADDAMS AND HULL HOUSE: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/ja_bio.html
Born in Cedarville, Illinois on September 6, 1860 and graduated from Rockford College in 1882,
Jane Addams founded the world famous social settlement Hull-House on Chicago's Near West
Side in 1889. From Hull House, where she lived and worked until her death in 1935, Jane
Addams built her reputation as the country's most prominent woman through her writing, her
settlement work, and her international efforts for world peace.
Around Hull-House, which was located at the corner of Polk and Halsted Streets, immigrants to
Chicago crowded into a residential and industrial neighborhood. Italians, Russian and Polish
Jews, Irish, Germans, Greeks and Bohemians predominated. Jane Addams and the other residents
of the settlement provided services for the neighborhood, such as kindergarten and daycare
facilities for children of working mothers, an employment bureau, an art gallery, libraries, and
music and art classes. By 1900 Hull House activities had broadened to include the Jane Club (a
cooperative residence for working women), the first Little Theater in America, a Labor Museum
and a meeting place for trade union groups.
The residents of Hull-House formed an impressive group: Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Dr.
Alice Hamilton, Julia Lathrop, Ellen Gates Starr, Sophonisba Breckinridge, and Grace and Edith
Abbott among them. From their experiences in the Hull-House neighborhood, the Hull-House
residents and their supporters forged a powerful reform movement. Among the projects that they
launched were the Immigrants' Protective League, The Juvenile Protective Association, the first
juvenile court in the nation, and a Juvenile Psychopathic Clinic (later called the Institute for
Juvenile Research). Through their efforts, the Illinois legislature enacted protective legislation for
women and children and in 1903 passed a strong child labor law and an accompanying
compulsory education law. With the creation of the Federal Children's Bureau in 1912 and the
passage of a federal child labor law in 1916, the Hull-House reformers saw their efforts expanded
to the national level.
Jane Addams wrote prolifically on topics related to Hull-House activities, producing eleven
books and numerous articles, as well as maintaining an active speaking schedule nationwide and
throughout the world. She also played an important role in many local and national organizations.
A founder of the Chicago Federation of Settlements in 1894, she also helped to establish the
National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers in 1911. She was a leader in the
Consumers League and served as the first woman president of the National Conference of
Charities and Corrections (later the National Conference of Social Work). She was chairman of
the Labor Committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, vice-president of the
Campfire Girls, on the executive board of the National Playground Association, the National
Child Labor Committee and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(founded 1909). In addition, she actively supported the campaign for woman suffrage and the
founding of the American Civil Liberties Union (1920).
In the early years of the twentieth century Jane Addams became involved in the peace movement,
becoming an important advocate of internationalism. This interest grew during the First World
War, when she participated in the International Congress of Women at the Hague in 1915. She
maintained her pacifist stance after the United States entered the war in 1917, working through
the Women's Peace Party, which became the Women's International League for Peace and
Freedom in 1919. She was the WILPF's first president. As a result of her work, she was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. Jane Addams died in Chicago on May 21, 1935. She was buried
in Cedarville, her childhood home.
Mann Act (1910)
http://www.pbs.org/unforgivableblackness/knockout/mann.html
One of the landmarks of Progressive Era legislation was the White Slave Traffic Act —
better known as the Mann Act for its author, Illinois congressman James Robert Mann.
The Mann Act made it a crime to transport women across state lines "for the purpose of
prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose." While designed to combat
forced prostitution, the law was so broadly worded that courts held it to criminalize many
forms of consensual sexual activity, and it was soon being used as a tool for political
persecution….
The Mann Act was born during the "white slavery" hysteria of the early 20th century.
Along with other moral purity movements of the period, the white slavery craze had its
roots in fears over the rapid changes that the Industrial Revolution had brought to
American society: urbanization, immigration, the changing role of women, and evolving
social mores. As young, single women moved to the city and entered the workforce they
were no longer protected by the traditional family-centered system of courtship, and were
subjected to what Jane Addams called the "grosser temptations which now beset the
young people who are living in its tenement houses and working in its factories."
As Progressive Era social reformers (many of whom did not distinguish between sexually
active women and prostitutes) began to call attention to what they saw as a widespread
decline in morality, foreigners emerged as an easy target. Unfettered immigration
provided an endless supply of both foreign prostitutes and foreign men who lured
American girls into immorality. Muckraking journalists fueled the hysteria with
sensationalized stories of innocent girls kidnapped off the streets by foreigners, drugged,
smuggled across the country, and forced to work in brothels. Borrowing a term from the
19th-century labor movement, muckraker George Kibbe Turner called prostitution "white
slavery," and in a 1907 article in McClure's Magazine claimed that a "loosely organized
association... largely composed of Russian Jews" was the primary source of supply for
Chicago brothels. Pulp fiction and movies (then a novelty) fanned the flames even more.
Politicians seized upon the "crisis" for political gain. Edwin W. Sims, the U.S. district
attorney in Chicago, claimed to have proof of a nationwide white slavery ring…
Sims was never able to produce his "evidence," but his friend James Robert Mann,
chairman of the powerful House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
quickly drafted a bill to show the public that Congress was doing something about the
"crisis." It was also intended to bring the United States into compliance with a 1904
international treaty on forced prostitution, but much of the wording was drawn from a
section of the 1907 Immigration Act, which banned the "importation into the United
States of any alien woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral
purpose." Introduced in Congress in June 1909, the bill was quickly passed with little
opposition and President William Howard Taft signed it into law later that same month.
While intended as a specific response to commercialized vice, the ambiguity of the "or
for any other immoral purpose" clause of the Mann Act (and the similarly worded 1907
Immigration Act), and the fact that the Justice Department's new Bureau of Investigation
(now the Federal Bureau of Investigation) was simply unable to find evidence of a
widespread "white slavery" network, led prosecutors to begin using it against other forms
of sexual conduct.
The Supreme Court repeatedly held these prosecutions to be constitutional. In United
States v. Bitty (1911), the Court ruled that the 1907 Immigration Act applied in the case
of a man, John Bitty, who had brought his English mistress into the United States. Justice
John Marshall Harlan wrote in the opinion that "the words, 'or for any other immoral
purpose,' after the word 'prostitution,' must have been made for some practical object.
Those added words show beyond question that Congress had in view the protection of
society against another class of alien woman other than those who might be brought here
merely for purposes of 'prostitution.'"
Two years later, in Hoke v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the Mann Act did
not unconstitutionally limit the right of free travel. In Wilson v. United States (1914), the
Court declared that travel across state lines with the intention to commit an immoral act
was grounds for conviction, even if the immoral act was not executed…
… [T]the law in effect criminalized all premarital or extramarital sexual relationships that
involved interstate travel. With behavior that was so commonplace now illegal, federal
prosecutors had a weapon that could very easily be abused in order to prosecute
"undesirables" who were otherwise law-abiding citizens…
Environmental Issues in the Progressive Era:
Conservation vs. Preservation
John Muir (1838-1914)
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/sontag/muir.htm
John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838 and died in Los Angeles, California, in
1914. His family emigrated to Wisconsin in 1849 to work a series of hardscrabble farms
under the direction of a religious zealot father, whose fire and brimstone was tempered by
a loving and good humored mother. He studied the natural sciences at the University of
Wisconsin, but did not take a degree. After recovering from blindness caused by an
industrial accident in 1868, he began 40 years of intermittent wandering in the wilderness
of North America, which produced some of the best nature writing in the English
language. His works include The Mountains of California, Our National Parks, My First
Summer in the Sierra, Steep Trails, Stickeen, and others.
Muir's great contribution to wilderness preservation was to successfully promote the idea
that wilderness had spiritual as well as economic value. This revolutionary idea was
possible only because Muir was able to publish everything he wrote in the four principal
monthly magazines read by the American middle class in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries (Scribner's, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and Century). This was the
present day equivalent of being able to control the content of all three major television
networks. As power begets the respect of the powerful, Muir's good will and opinion
were sought by some of the most powerful figures in his time; men such as railroad baron
Edward Henry Harriman and Theodore Roosevelt. The young borax magnate, Stephen T.
Mather was a disciple of Muir's and an early member of Muir's famed Sierra Club.
Although Muir died two years before the creation of the National Park Service, he may
not have been entirely happy with the choice of departments to administer his beloved
national parks. Muir regarded the Department of the Interior of the time to be staffed by
incompetents, if not outright criminals, and much preferred the incorruptibility of the
guardian of the time, the U.S. Army.
Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946)
1st Chief of the Forest Service, 1905-1910
http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/usfscoll/people/Pinchot/Pinchot.html
Gifford Pinchot, was born on August 11, 1865, in Simsbury, Connecticut. His family
[was] well-to-do upper-class merchants, politicians, and land owners. Pinchot, as a young
boy, took advantage of several opportunities to visit foreign countries, as well as gain a
good education at some of the best eastern schools. When he entered Yale in 1885, his
father asked a question, "How would you like to be a forester?" When asked, not a single
American had made forestry a profession. Pinchot stated, "I had no more conception of
what it meant to be a forester than the man in the moon....But at least a forester worked in
the woods and with the woods - and I loved the woods and everything about them....My
Father's suggestion settled the question in favor of forestry."
Neither Yale nor any other university offered a degree or even a course in forestry, so
Pinchot after graduation decided to study the subject in Nancy, France. After a year of
school, he returned to the United States to prepare for his lifelong work and interest. He
worked as a resident forester for Vanderbilt's Biltmore Forest Estate for three years.
Several years later he became involved with the National Forest Commission created by
the National Academy of Sciences. He and several other members traveled through the
West during the summer of 1896 investigating forest areas for possible forest reserves.
Two years later, he was named chief of the Division of Forestry. His friend Theodore
Roosevelt was elevated into the Presidency by the assassination of President McKinley.
The management of the forest reserves was transferred from the Department of the
Interior to Agriculture and the new Forest Service in 1905. The chief, or forester, of the
new Forest Service was Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot, with Roosevelt's willing approval,
restructured and professionalized the management of the national forests, as well as
greatly increased their area and number. He had a strong hand in guiding the fledgling
organization toward the utilitarian philosophy of the "greatest good for the greatest
number." Pinchot added the phrase "in the long run" to emphasize that forest
management consists of long-term decisions. During his period in office, the Forest
Service and the national forests grew spectacularly. In 1905 the forest reserves numbered
60 units covering 56 million acres; in 1910 there were 150 national forests covering 172
million acres. The pattern of effective organization and management was set during
Pinchot's administration, and "conservation" (an idea he popularized) of natural resources
in the broad sense of wise use became a widely known concept and an accepted national
goal.
Gifford Pinchot is generally regarded as the "father" of American conservation because
of his great and unrelenting concern for the protection of the American forests. He was
the primary founder of the Society of American Foresters, which first met at his home in
Washington in November 1900. He served as chief with great distinction, motivating and
providing leadership in the management of natural resources and protection of the
national forests. He continued as forester until 1910, when he was fired by President Taft
in a controversy over coal claims in Alaska. He was replaced by Henry "Harry" S.
Graves…
The Battle Over Hetch Hetchy
http://www.hetchhetchy.org/catalog/battle_over_hetch_hetchy.html
In the wake of the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, the city of San Francisco
desperately needed reliable supplies of water and electricity. Its mayor, James Phelan,
pressed for the damming of the Tuolumne River in the newly created Yosemite National
Park, setting off a firestorm of protest. For the first time in American history, a significant
national opposition arose to defend and preserve nature, led by John Muir and the Sierra
Club, who sought to protect what they believed was the right of all Americans to
experience natural beauty, particularly the magnificent mountains of the Yosemite region.
Yet the defenders of the valley, while opposing the creation of a dam and reservoir, did
not intend for it to be maintained as wilderness. Instead they advocated a different kind of
development--the building of roads, hotels, and an infrastructure to support recreational
tourism. Using articles, pamphlets, and broadsides, they successfully whipped up public
opinion against the dam. Letters from individuals began to pour into Congress by the
thousands, and major newspapers published editorials condemning the dam. The fight
went to the floor of Congress, where politicians debated the value of scenery and the
costs of western development. Ultimately, passage of the passage of the Raker Act in
1913 by Congress granted San Francisco the right to flood the Hetch Hetchy Valley. A
decade later the O'Shaughnessy Dam, the second largest civil engineering project of its
day after the Panama Canal, was completed. Yet conflict continued over the ownership of
the watershed and the profits derived from hydroelectricity. To this day the reservoir
provides San Francisco with a pure and reliable source of drinking water and an
important source of power. Although the Sierra Club lost this battle, the controversy
stirred the public into action on behalf of national parks. Future debates over dams and
restoration clearly demonstrated the burgeoning strength of grassroots environmentalism.
In a narrative peopled by politicians and business leaders, engineers and laborers,
preservationists and ordinary citizens, Robert W. Righter tells the epic story of the first
major environmental battle of the twentieth century, which reverberates to this day…