Progressivism
Development Of Progressives
Problems and Solutions
Industrialization
▶ Urbanization
▶ Commercialism and
Consumerism
▶ Laissez-faire Policies
▶ Radicalism
▶ Upper-Class
▶ Lower-Class
▶ Social Darwinism
▶
Middle Class
▶ Social Gospel
▶ Populism
▶ Education and
Academics
▶ Journalism and
Literature
▶
Muckrakers
▶
Purpose
 Exposure of urban problems and political
and economic corruption and exploitation
 Targets
▶
▶
▶
▶
monopolies/trusts/corporations (steel, oil,
railroads)
political bosses and machines
poor living and working conditions
(tenements)
Mainstream
 Mass media (newspapers, magazines)
▶
Journalists and Authors
 Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
▶
Meat-packing industry
 Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives
▶
Tenement living
 Ida Tarbell’s Mother of Trusts
▶
Rockefeller and Standard Oil Trust
Progressive Social Reform
Temperance to Prohibition
▶
Anti-Saloon League (1895)
 “the Church in action against the
saloon”
 Pressure politics
▶
▶
▶
Grassroots campaigning and mass
media
Coalition included Democrats,
Republicans, suffragists, KKK,
industrialists, IWW, NAACP,
Progressives, Populists,
Protestants, American Catholics
Eighteenth Amendment (1919)
 Prohibited the manufacturing, sale,
and transportation of alcohol
 Volstead Act
Progressive Labor Reforms
Labor Unions
American Federation of Labor
(AFL)
▶ Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW) (1905)
▶
 The Wobblies
 Mother Jones, “Big Bill”
Haywood
 “one big union”
 Platform
“an injury to one is an injury to
all”
▶ Industrial unionism
▶ All inclusive membership
▶ Direct Action
▶
 Strikes, boycotts, propaganda,
violence
Labor Union Membership, 1897-1920
Progressive Labor Reforms
Labor Strikes
▶
Anthracite Coal Strike (1902)
 147,000 miners strike
 President Theodore Roosevelt
mediates
 Victory for union and membership
soared
▶
Lawrence Textile Strike (1912)
 IWW organized 23,000 worker
strike
 Media used to appeal to public
sympathies
▶
Ludlow Massacre (1914)
 Led to political, corporate, and
public support for labor unions
and worker demands
Progressive Labor Reforms
Labor - Working Hours
▶
Lochner v. New York (1905)
 10-hour day/60-hour week
unconstitutional in violation of
right to contract per 14th
Amendment
▶
Muller v. Oregon (1908)
 Limited working hours for
women based on health and
maternity
▶
Ford Motor Company
 Doubled pay to $5/day and 8hour work days
▶
Profits and productivity
increased
Progressive Labor Reforms
Labor - Working Conditions
▶
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
(1911)
 146 garment workers killed
 Led to massive push for
worker/factory safety
regulations and accident
insurance
Progressive Labor Reforms
Child Labor
▶
▶
By 1900, 1.7 million 5-10 year olds
(1 in 6) were wage earners
Keating-Owen Act (1916)
 Prohibited interstate shipment of
goods manufactured or processed
by child labor
▶
Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)
 Federal regulation of child labor not
within Congress’s interstate
commerce power
 Only states could establish child
labor laws through intrastate
commerce
Progressive Social Reforms
Blacks in America
▶
Supreme Court
 Civil Rights Cases of 1883
Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional
▶ Segregation may be practiced by private
individuals and businesses
▶
 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
▶
▶
Established “separate but equal”
Jim Crow Laws
 Established by white Redeemer state
governments
 Legitimized by Plessy v. Ferguson
 Segregated public facilities and
accommodations
▶
Disenfranchisement
 Grandfather clauses
 Poll taxes
 Literacy tests
Progressive Social Reforms
Black Americans - Booker T. Washington
Advocated economic progress to
secure civil rights
▶ Tuskegee Institute (1881-1915)
▶
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Atlanta Compromise (1895)

▶
In the South, blacks would submit to
white political rule in exchange for
education and due process of law
Up From Slavery (1901)

▶
Vocational institution, primarily teaching
Depicted his struggle and rise from
slavery to educational leader
White House Dinner


First black person ever invited to a White
House dinner with Theodore Roosevelt
White reaction and backlash
▶ "I am just as much opposed to Booker T.
Washington as a voter as I am to the
cocoanut-headed, chocolate-colored
typical little coon who blacks my shoes
every morning. Neither is fit to perform the
supreme function of citizenship." –
Mississippi Governor James K. Vardaman
Progressive Social Reform
Black Americans - W.E.B. Du Bois
▶
▶
Advocated social and political
equality to secure economic
progress
Niagara Movement (1905)
 Opposed disenfranchisement and
segregation
 Dismissed accommodation and pursued
more direct action and struggle
▶
National Association for the
Advancement for Colored People
(NAACP) (1909)
 A group of blacks and whites, males and
females established an effective civil
rights organization
Progressive Social Reforms
Blacks in America
▶
Lynchings
 Ida B. Wells
▶
Muckraking articles and pamphlets to expose lynchings
against blacks in the South
 “We of the South have never recognized the right of
the negro to govern white men, and we never will.
We have never believed him to be the equal of the
white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his
lust on our wives and daughters without lynching
him.” - Senator Ben Tillman (D-SC), 1900
▶
Great Migration (1910-1930)
 Escape segregation, disenfranchisement, lynchings
 1.6 million Southern blacks migrated to Northeast
and Midwest cities
The Great Migration
Progressive Social Reforms
Women Suffrage
▶
Political Progress
 Frontier life promoted equality
among women
 Western states fuel suffrage
movement
 Jeanette Ranking (R-MT)
▶
▶
First woman elected to U.S.
House (1916)
National American Woman
Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
(1900)
 Carrie Chapman Catt
▶
Silent Sentinels
 Alice Paul and Lucy Burns
Suffrage by States
Nineteenth Amendment
▶
▶
The right to vote cannot be
denied based on sex/gender
Ratified August 18, 1920
 9 southern states did not ratify until
1941-1984 after originally rejecting
it
▶
Legacy
 League of Women Voters
▶
Develop political efficacy among
women
 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
▶
Equal opportunity, pay,
recognition, and benefits
Progressive Social Reforms
Immigration
▶
Progressive Era Legislation
 Anarchist Exclusion Act (1903)
 Gentleman’s Agreement (1905)
Desegregate California schools for
Japanese children
▶ Japan prevents further emigration of
unskilled laborers
▶
 Dillingham Commission (1907-1911)
Southern and Eastern Europeans
threatened American character
▶ Recommended literacy requirements
▶
 Immigration Act of 1917
Extended list of “undesirables”
(homosexuals, alcoholics, illiterate)
▶ Asiatic Barred Zone
▶
Asiatic Barred Zone
Migration
American Leisure
▶
Causes
 Decreased working hours
 Higher average wages
 Convenience and Infrastructure
▶
Entertainment

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Jazz
Records
Dance halls
Movie theaters
▶ Birth
▶
of a Nation (1915)
Recreation
 Baseball
 Football
▶ National
Collegiate Athletic Association
(NCAA) (1910)