DBQ: Progressivism 1875-1925
By John A. Braithwaite
DIRECTIONS:
The following DBQ is based upon the accompanying documents and your
knowledge of the time period involved. This question tests your ability to work
with historical documents. Your answer should be derived mainly from the
documents, however, you may refer to historical facts, materials, and
developments NOT mentioned in the documents. You should assess the
reliability of the documents as historical sources where relevant to your answer.
QUESTION FOR ANALYSIS:
To what extent was the Progressive era (1870-1920) a unified
movement of reform and change in American Society? How
effectively did progressivism manifest itself in national politics on
the federal level of government?
PROMPT:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Formulate a thesis statement
Use documents as well as your own outside knowledge of the period.
Deal evenly with all aspects of the questions
Be sure to cover the time period given
Assess the validity of the documents
Draw effective and specific conclusions whenever possible
TEXTBOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Cherny & Berkin
Gillon & Matson
Boydston & McGerr
Murrin, et.al
Norton, et.al.
Bailey & Kennedy
Boyer, et.al.
Davidson, et.al.
Cherny & Berkin
The Making of a Nation
The American Experiment—Chapter 21
Making A Nation
Liberty, Equality, Power
A People & A Nation
The American Pageant
Enduring Visions
Nation of Nations
The Making of a Nation
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
1
Document A:
It is ... hazardous to describe progressive as static constellation of reforms.
Rather, most reformers---and, it appeared, voters---tended to broaden their concerns
between the mid-1890s and 1917. Many began by denouncing waste and corruption.
Warning to the task of reform, they then demanded an end to "special privilege" the
institutions of progressive taxation, and the passage of political reforms---the initiative,
referenda, and recall of public officials, the direct primary, the popular election of U.S.
Senators.
Many progressive reforms cannot be described easily as either humanitarianegalitarian or repressive-nostalgic. Rather, they equated self-interest with the public
good. In the process, they stressed the desirability of "scientific" efficient administration.
If their organizations were often narrow-based, and their solutions timid, it was
because there were struggling against dimly understood social forces that engulfed much
of the Western world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As the first generation of
Americans to cope seriously with these forces, the progressives acted with perhaps
predictable mixture of altruism and self-seeking, of common sense and fear.
Quint, et.al. Main Problems In American History. (Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1987),
p. 152 & 157.
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document B:
The strength of our republic has always been in what is called our middle
class. This is made up of manufacturers, jobbers, middle men, retail and
wholesale merchants, commercial travelers and business men generally. It
would be little short of calamity to encourage any industrial development
that would affect unfavorably this important class of our citizens.
It seems to me, therefore, that the vital consideration connected with this
problem of the trust is its effect upon middle class---the independent,
individual business man and the skilled artisan and mechanic.
The trust is therefore the forerunner, or rather the creator of industrial
slavery. Honesty to ourselves and loyalty to our country and its free
institutions compel us to face and recognize the situation. . . .
I favor complete and prompt annihilation of the trust,---with due regard for
property rights, of course.
Hazen Pingree, Chicago Conference On Trusts. Chicago: Civic Federation of
Chicago 1900), pp. 263-7.
Document C:
...Their principal enemies were, therefore, all those forces that worked for
instability and unpredictability in society: cutthroat competition among
large producers and shippers, haphazard rape of natural resources by
small business, and chaotic urban government by patronage-glutted
machines. And in search for stability and system... Progressives often
counted the big corporate managers among their leading allies.
David M. Kennedy, Progressivism:The Critical Issues. (Boston:
Little Brown, 1971), p.xi.
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document D:
...Progressive Era legislation such as the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal
Trade Commission Act, the Hepburn Act, the Meant Inspection Act and the
Pure Food and Drug Act was supported and often drafted by businessmen
who look to the government to provide stability and order in a toocompetitive industrial society...
The businessmen became involved in governmental policy-making in order
to protect his own short-run interests: that is, his profits. But he also took
a longer-range view of his self-interest. He became aware that the creation
of a more responsible social order was necessary...
These men became liberals out of a recognition of the need for change for
their own sakes. Their liberalism was neither "anti-big business" nor was it
neutral. It demanded an active, interventionist government that would
provide for an efficient, orderly, stable (and hence profitable) corporate
society. This was corporate liberalism. Within such a context concessions
to other interest groups such as labor and farmer were not only possible--they were essential to the creation of the broad support that such a
corporate order required.
David Eakins, "Ideology That Shaped Reform" from This World
Magazine, San Francisco Examiner.
(28 April 1968), p.36
Document E:
The position of the individual within the nation's increasingly industrialized
society became a major source of concern for many Americans. If
America's greatness was related to individual achievement, what would
happen as freedom and social mobility were more and more circumscribed
by giant corporations with their impersonal machinelike qualities? Did not
the emphasis of corporations on efficient production and material
objectives distort the human qualities that had been responsible for
America's rise to greatness? Was not the growing disparity between rich
corporations and poor workingmen creating a situation akin to that
existing in many European countries where there was open class strife?
These and similar questions led many Americans to advocate reforms that
would restore dignity to the individual and give meaning to his life.
Gerald N Grob and George A Billias Interpretations of American
History.
New York: The Free Press, 1972), Vol. 2, p.160
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document F:
Cartoon: “The Bull Moose”
Gillon pg. 834
Teachers can down-load from
internet or cut-paste a copy of this document.
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document G:
There are in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and
there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be
relentless exposure of and attack upon ever evil man, whether politician or
businessman, every evil practice, whether in politics, in business or in social life.
I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform or
in book, magazine or newspaper, with merciless severity make s such attack,
provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is
absolutely truthful. The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity
takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium
upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or event with hysterical
exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. An epidemic of indiscriminate
assault upon character does not good but very great harm. The soul ever
scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when a
scoundrel is untruthfully assailed.
Hysterical sensationalism is the very poorest weapon wherewith to fight for lasting
righteousness. The men who with stern sobriety and truth assail the many evils
of our time, whether in the public press, or in magazines, or in books, are the
leaders and allies of all engaged in the work for social and political betterment.
But if they give good reason for distrust of what they say, if they chill the ardor of
those who demand truth as a primary virtue, they thereby betray the good cause
and play into the hands of the very men against whom they are nominally at war.
Theodore Roosevelt, New York Times
April 15, 1906
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document H:
The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an
enlighten measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work
unceasingly in State and Nation for:
1.
2.
3.
4
5.
6
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Effective legislation looking to the prevention of industrial accidents, occupational
diseases, overwork, involuntary unemployment, and other injurious effects
incident to modern industry:
The fixing of minimum safety and health standards for the various occupations,
and the exercise of the public authority of State and Nation, including the
Federal Control over interstate commerce, and the taxing power, to
maintain such standards;
The prohibition of child labor;
Minimum wage standards for working women to provide a "living wage" in all
industrial occupations;
The general prohibition of night work for women and the establishment of an 8hour day for women and young persons;
.One day's rest in seven for all wage workers;
The 8-hour day in continuous 24-hour industries;
The abolition of the convict contract labor system; substituting a system of prison
production for governmental consumption only; and the application of
prisoner's earning to the support of their dependent families;
Publicity as to wages, and conditions of labor;
Standards of compensation for death by industrial accident and injury and
disease...
The protection of home life against hazards of sickness, irregular employment,
and old age;
The develop of the creative labor power of America by lifting the load of illiteracy
from American youth...
We favor the organization of the workers, men and women, as a means of protecting their
interests and of promoting their progress...
Kirk H. Porter and Donald Bruce, National Party Platforms,1840-1956.
(Urbana, 1956) pp.175-182.
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document I:
La Follette was words and deeds in close tandem; Roosevelt was words--and an
occasional deed for the sake of the record, or to save face. La Follette was a man who
sought to make strict economic analysis the basis of his laws; he never talked without
facts, the best available facts, and the University of Wisconsin faculty came,
characteristically enough, to replace the lobby in his home State. But Roosevelt was,
confessedly, "rather an agnostic in matters of economics"; the tariff bored him. With all
his interest in cultural and scientific matters, he never understood the spirit of the
laboratory--which was the one hope of the Progressive, or Liberal, movement....
The value of reforms, as I see it, is that they fail to achieve what they are
sanguinely intended to achieve; and in so failing they help make the system which they
are intended to patch up only the more unpatchable. In other words, every vote for
reform, entered upon intelligently, is a Jesuitical vote for revolution. Conservatives like
Nicholas Murray Butler know this; that is why they fear the growth of a bureaucracy
intended to administer a "return"; that is why they fear the retention of the anti-trust
acts.
John Chamberlain, Farewell to Reform: The Rise, Life, and Decay of the
Progressive Mind in America (New York: John Day Co., 1932), pp. 235-39,
272, 307-09, 311.
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document J:
I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean
not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand
for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial opportunity and of
reward for equally good service....
Now, this means that our government, national and state, must be freed from the
sinister influence or control of special interests....We must drive the special interests out
of politics....
We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the
people may know beyond peradventure [doubt] whether the corporations obey the law
and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public.
....Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another
tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective---a graduated inheritance tax
on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount
with the size of the estate....
Moreover, I believe that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all
our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of the few....Now, with the water power,
with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face with the fact that there are
many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they are to be
allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one of the fundamental reasons why the
special interests should be driven out of politics....
I do not ask for over centralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad
and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what concerns our people as a
whole....The national government belongs to the whole American people are interested,
that interest can be guarded effectively only by the national government....
...The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal
advantage.
Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism, New York, The Outlook Company,
1910, pp. 11-33.
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document K:
The concern of patriotic men is to put our government again on its right basis, by
substituting the popular will for the rule of guardians, the processes of common counsel
for those of private arrangement....
In the first place, it is necessary to open up all the processes of our politics....The
whole process must be altered. We must take the selection of candidates for office, for
example, out of the hands of small groups of men, of little coteries, out of the hands of
machines working behind closed doors, and put it into means of direct primaries and
elections to which candidates of every sort and degree may have free access. We must
substitute public for private machinery.
It is necessary, in the second place, to give society command of its own economic
life again by denying to those who conduct the great modern operations of business the
privacy that used to belong properly enough to men who used only their own capital and
their individual energy in business.
Take another matter. Take the matter of the initiative and referendum, and the
recall....
Why do you suppose that in the United States, the place in all the world where
the people were invited to control their own government, we should set up such an
agitation as that for the initiative and referendum and the recall....
....Because we have felt that in too many instances our government did not
represent us, and we have said: "We have got to have a key to the door of our own
house." The initiative and referendum and the recall afford such key to our own
premises....
Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, New York, Doubleday, Page &
Company, 1913, pp. 3-294 passim. Reprinted by permission
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document L:
Source:
The Fate of the League of Nations. Wilson Cartoon. Gillon p.916
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document M:
Among the many inexplicable things in life there is probably nothing more out of
reason than our disregard for preventative measures and our apparent willingness
to provide almshouse, prisons, asylums, hospitals, homes, etc., for the victims our
neglect. Poverty is a culture bed for criminals, paupers, vagrants, and for such
diseases as inebriety, insanity, and imbecility; and yet we endlessly go on in our
unconcern, or in our blindness, heedless of its sources, believing all the time that
we are merciful in administering to its unfortunate results. Those in poverty are
fighting a losing struggle, because of unnecessary burdens which we might lift
from their shoulder; but not until they go to pieces and become drunken, vagrant,
criminal, diseased, and suppliant, do we consider mercy necessary.
Robert Hunter, Poverty. (New York: Grosset and
Dunlap, 1904), pp.76-97.
Document N:
The damned cowboy soon began fulfilling Mark Hanna’s worst fears. With Roosevelt’s
accession to the presidency, the Progressive movement, which had started with such
local efforts as campaigns to oust city bosses like Richard Coker, gained a national
leader. To some extent the Progressive movement was house-broken version of
Populism. The Progressives tended to come from cities and towns, whereas the
Populists had hailed from the countryside, and the Progressives were mostly of middle
and professional classes, where the Populists had been farmers and their economic
kin.
Yet Progressivism, like Populism, was essentially, an attempt to employ the
tools of government to restore a balance to society that rapid industrialization had
knocked awry. The Progressives distrusted big business, just as the Populists had,
and they worked to collar the captains of industry. Roosevelt flummoxed J.P. Morgan
in 1902 by bringing an antitrust suit against Morgan’s Northern Securities railroad
trust. The Supreme Court decided in Roosevelt’s favor and against Morgan… Taft’s
Justice Department won a suit against the Standard Oil Company…Rockefeller later
established the Rockefeller Foundation with a gift of $100 million.
The Progressives adopted a number of …measures favored by the Populist. They
supported an income tax and succeeded in amending the Constitution to allow it. They
advocated direct election of senators and…rewrote the Constitution to effect it. They
wanted currency reform—and established the Federal Reserve System to produce it.
H.W. Brands, The Reckless Decades. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1995. p. 341
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Document O:
“I believe progressivism was a radical movement, though not by the common
measures of economic and political radicalism. More influenced by socialism than
they liked to admit, progressives nevertheless shied away from fundamental
restructuring of the capitalist economy. The sweep of progressivism was remarkable,
but because progressive agenda was so often carried out in settlement houses.
Churches, and schoolrooms… Progressivism demanded a social transformation that
remains at once profoundly impressive and profoundly disturbing a century later.
“From its private and intimate origins, the progressive movement ultimately
played out on a very public stage. Progressivism was a explosion, a burst of energy
that fired in many directions across America.
“…We have been scaling back our expectations ever since that age of bold
reform. Chastened by his experience in the Wilson government, Franklin Roosevelt
pursued a New Deal liberalism that was in many ways less radical than progressivism.
Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society fought the racial injustice that the progressives had
shirked and even helped to perpetuate in the first place; but the Great Society
liberalism avoided the sharp attack on upper-class privilege and the optimistic faith in
remaking individuals and creating utopia.”
Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall
Of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920.
New York: Free Press, Simon & Schuster, 2003, p. xv-xvi.
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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AP US History
TOPIC(S):
STUDENT GROUP:
Round Table Discussion
Progressive Era In America
5-8 students per group
Social Darwinism
Pragmatism
The Social Gospel
Women’s Christian Temperance Movement
Social Justice
Muckrakers
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
New Professions for people
NAACP
City Reforms
Wm. Allen White “Green Light”
Constitutional Changes
Wisconsin “The Laboratory of Democracy-LaFollette et.al.
New senators of change Women’s Voices of change Nativism
Catholicism
Progressivism & Blacks
Radical Reformers
Feminism
Theodore Roosevelt
Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Wm Howard Taft
The “Bully Pulpit”
Roosevelt’s reforms
The Political Spectrum
Bull Moose
New Freedom
Brandeis Brief
John Dewey
Naturalism
Owens Keating Act
Pure Food & Drug Act
Immigrants & Life in America
US vs E.C. Knight
Labor Changes
Northern Securities Case
Basic elements of discussion and analysis:
Group Leader:________________________________(Appointed by Teacher)
Use the spoke diagram attached to this instruction sheet to outline the major issues
discussed in your group
What were the flash points leading to the Progressive Era??
What were the two contending forces of opposition? 1)____ 2)____
What was the social/cultural status of the average person in the period? Would you
like to have lived then? Would you like to have lived as an average person?
Are there any enduring characteristics from the time period that affect us today?
If you encountered the concepts of Progressivism on an AP Test what ten concepts or
achievements would you choose to write on and why? Remember the criteria for
grading are: fluency, form, and correctness (both of information and style)
What historical significance can be attached to reforms of Progressivism? What was
the dark spot of progressivism? Explain.
What were the costs and consequences of the progressive changes, reforms and ideas?
What was the feeling of Teddy Roosevelt toward the trusts?
Why does Woodrow Wilson distrust the Republican Progressive reforms?
Discuss in your group the nature of Progressive foreign policy and economic responses to Progressivism?
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
14
Discussion Summary-Outline For Progressivism
Thesis statement:
Point
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#1:__________________________(Leaders)
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Robert La Follette
Hiram Johnson
Point
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#2:___________________________(Programs)
Square Deal
Dollar Diplomacy
New Freedom
Constitutional Reforms
Local government changes
Point
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#3:___________________________(Foreign Affairs)
Spanish American War
Treaty of Paris 1898
Central America—Dollar Diplomacy
Wilson and neutrality
World War I & Versailles
Point
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#4:___________________________(Domestic Reforms)
Conservation
Trust-busting
City Government
Pure Food & Drug
Point
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#5:___________________________(Economic Developments)
Tariffs
Labor & Wages
Demand of populist reformers
WW I economic reforms – Income taxes
Regulation of trusts
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Point
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#6:___________________________(Cultural – Social Changes)
Women’s rights - feminism
African-Americans and their dilemma
Literature of realism
Artistsic impressionism
Immigrants & assimilation
Point
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#7:___________________________(Court Decisions & Reforms)
Northern Securities Case
E.C. Knight Case
Muller vs Oregon
Brandeis nomination to the Court
Point
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#8:____________________________(Reforms)
City manager system of government
Challenges of Social Darwinism
Women’s vote
Recall, referendum, & initiative petition
Muckrakers
Conclusion(s)
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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FREE RESPONSE QUESTION
The Progressive Era, 1889-1916
DIRECTIONS: After reading the chapter in the textbook, thoughtfully read the
following question, brainstorm and plan your answer. In an essay, 500-750 words
write and respond to the question. Use fluency, form, and correctness so that the
stream of ideas is meaningful to the reader.
QUESTION:
Not since the Puritans has the middle class taken control of government in an
obvious attempt at reform. But the middle class needed leaders of unparalleled talent
and virtue. Identify FIVE great progressive leaders at the local, state, and national levels
that helped to bring effective major constitutional reforms to the American middle class of
the nation. What were the tenets or pillars of progressive ideology and do they exist
today?
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Formulate a sound thesis statement
Be sure to cover the scope of the question
Analyze and provide as much factual material as you can to support your thesis
Deal evenly with all parts of the question
Use good mechanics of composition: good spelling, grammar, transitions, & style.
Have someone edit your work before turning it into the instructor of your course.
You should pay attention to the chronology section of the text whenever it will help
you.
Your essay will be scored on the generic rubric of Educational Testing Service 9 point
scale.
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
17
The Progressive Movement 1870-1920
Essay Format-Planning An Essay
Thesis statement:
Point
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#1:
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Point
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#2:
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Point
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#3:
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Point
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#4:
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Point
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#5:
__________________________________________________________
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__________________________________________________________
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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Point
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#6:
__________________________________________________________
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Point
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#7:
__________________________________________________________
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Point
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#8:
__________________________________________________________
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__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
Conclusions:
Copyrighted 2002. All Rights Reserved, John A. Braithwaite, Kaysville, Utah
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