10/2/2014
Progressive Era In
Review
Progressive Era (1890-1920)
• Opposed corruption and waste in
government
• Concerned with social injustice
• Interested in government reform at all levels
• Civil Service Reform
• Anti-trust Acts
• Populism
• Interested in government reform at all levels
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10/2/2014
Progressive Era (1890-1920)
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Muckrakers
Conservation
Reform
16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Amendments
Suffrage
Prohibition
Pure Food and Drug Act
• Muckrakers - journalists
• Reformer Presidents - Teddy Roosevelt, Howard
Taft, Woodrow Wilson
• Most important effect of the Progressive Era was it
made government more responsive to voters
• 17th Amendment - allowed the people to elect
Senators by popular vote.
• Throughout time, public protests, Supreme Court
Decisions, Amendments & legislation all helped to
expand voting rights.
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• Jane Addams – Urban Social Reformer – founder
of Hull House.
• Federal Reserve Act of 1913- Created the central
banking system, granted legal authority to issue
legal tender and created a system that still
regulates U.S. Monetary Policy.
• Declining wages and high unemployment on the
west coast led to the Chinese Exclusion Act
• Being involved in the political process includes
voting in elections, being in political debate, &
writing representatives in Congress
• John Muir - led to National Park Service
• Upton Sinclair – The Jungle - led to Pure Food and
Drug Act
• Populist Party - members mostly southern farmers,
opposed banks, railroads, and upper class, hurt
African American suffrage.
• Sherman Anti-Trust Act - companies cannot raise
rates leaving the company with no alternatives for
purchases.(no monopolies.)
• W.E.B. Dubois- African American advocate for equal
rights. Founder of the NAACP.
• 19th Amendment - women’s right to vote
• 16th Amendment - created income tax to pay for
government programs
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• Initiative – (a) the power or right of citizens to
introduce a new legislative measure and (b) the
right and procedure by which citizens can propose a
law by petition and ensure its submission to the
electorate.
• Referendum – the submission of a proposed public
measure or actual statute to a direct popular vote;
this allows the people to have more influence on
the decision-making process.
• Recall – the procedure by which a public official
may be removed from office by popular vote; with
the right to employ this procedure, the people can
hold their elected leaders accountable for their
actions.
• Populist Party – established in 1890s;
comprised of poor farmers from the south;
generally opposed to banks, railroads, and
upper class; William Jennings Bryan most
popular candidate.
• Progressive Party – formed in 1912 as a
result of a split in the Republican Party; also
known as the “Bull Moose Party;” Theodore
Roosevelt most popular candidate.
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• Immigration
– Cause – immigrants sought a better life in the United
States; escape poverty, religious discrimination, etc.
– Effect – increased population; cities overcrowded; labor
force for factories, etc.
• Social Darwinism (belief that all personal and social
problems are inherited/genetic)
– Cause – a desire to maintain the economic and social
divisions in society (from the point of view of the wealthy,
“the rich get richer”)
– Effect – increased the popularity of the eugenics movement
• Eugenics (study of human improvement by genetic
means)
– Cause – an attempt to better society and the human race
– Effect – discrimination towards those who did not fit the
“perfect” human mold (extreme case was Hitler’s actions in
the Holocaust)
• Race relations
– Cause – increase of immigration (especially Asian immigrants)
– Effect – discrimination, Ku Klux Klan flourished
• Nativism
– Cause – increase of immigration, “natives” worried the
immigrants would take their jobs
– Effect – discrimination, Ku Klux Klan flourished
• Red Scare
– Cause – reaction not only to the Communist Revolution in
Russia, but to the influx of immigrants into the United States in
the years leading up to World War I.
– Effect – deportation of many Communists and Socialists
sympathizers/members
• Prohibition
– Cause – the belief that alcohol was leading to the decline of
society, alcohol was blamed for many of society's ills, among
them, severe health problems, destitution, and crime
– Effect – passage of the 18th Amendment
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• Changing role of women
– Cause – due to industrialization, many women
changed from homebound producers to wageearning consumers, and women gained the right
to vote.
– Effect – women became social and even political
reformers; worked outside of the home; affected
the economy; suffrage allowed women to have a
voice in politics
Costs and Benefits of Government
Reform:
• Antitrust Acts – the Federal laws forbidding businesses from
monopolizing a market or restraining free trade.(e.g., Sherman AntiTrust Act)
– Effects – Spawned a series of regulatory commissions in the
1900s to whether they were good or bad trusts. Not very
effective. 1914 changes made Act stronger
– Effect – Act served notice that private greed must be
subordinated to public good.
• Interstate Commerce Commission – was government’s first largescale attempt to regulate business in the interest of society at large
• Pure Food and Drug Act – for preventing the manufacture, sale, or
transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or
deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating
traffic therein, and for other purposes
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