The Progressive EraTriangle Shirtwaist Factory

tragedy in New York, where 146 die, most young immigrant women.

The Roots of Progressive Reform

Aims of progressives—diverse targets: government,

business, social justice, welfare, vice, immigration

Pragmatism—each reform: does it work?

Behaviorism—people can be shaped

Sociological jurisprudence—law in

light of everyday experience—does past apply?

Brandeis Brief—Muller v.

Oregon: experience over precedent

(102 pp. describing damaging

effects, 15 pp.

precedent)

William James, most

famous of the Pragmatists,

wondered, “Does it

work?”; John Dewey

believed environment

shaped human

thought, unbolted

desks.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who

practiced “sociological jurisprudence.”

Muckrakers—documentation

spurred, educated people

Voluntary organizations—civic-

mindedness with 400 new organizations in 30 years:

volunteerism, collective action

Professionals—expertise of doctors, engineers,

psychiatrists, city planners to investigate, regulate

McClure’s Magazine, which ran muckraking articles by Ida M. Tarbell

(right) exposing practices by Standard Oil and Lincoln Steffens (below), who

attacked big-city corruption.

The Search for the Good Society

Pattern of reform—professionalism to uplift needy

into middle class

Naturalism—effective to portray it just the way it is:

no more, no less—it’s the environment/not the people

Social work—new profession that grew out of

settlement houses didn’t do

things to or for people,

but with them

MIT associate Ellen Richards of the New England Kitchen, a settlement

house variation that provided cheap, wholesome food for working poor—at

first, anyway.

Muckraker Jacob Riis and one of his

photographs portraying city

slum life.

Women’s organizations—taking good care of

homes meant working outside, too New woman—find fulfillment: “nurturer professions”

Margaret Sanger—bonds of “chronic pregnancy”

Keating-Owen Act—forbade child-made goods to

cross state lines (fedaction necessary)

Charlotte Perkins Gillman (top), who wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” and condemned

domesticity as enslaving and wanted communal child rearing and housework,

and (below) Margaret Sanger who championed birth control.

Florence Kelley and Julian Lathrop who helped shape labor

conditions for women and children.

Militant suffragists—amendment “at any cost”:

examples

Nineteenth

Amendment—1920, doubles

enfranchisement

League of Women Voters Founder Carrie Chapman Catt (center, in

white and below) leads a suffragist march in New York City in 1917.

Alice Paul took the campaign for woman suffrage in a more militant

direction.

Controlling the Masses

Eugenics—selective breeding; “lesser breeds” will “mongrelize” America: arf, arf!

Americanization—paternalists wanted to teach middle-class ways while benefiting from the cultural diversity of the immigrants

Literacy test—WWI brings reading qualification for immigrants

Anti-Saloon League—pamphlets discussed insanity, family crisis, labor accidents and inefficiency; by 1917 three-fourths citizens live in “dry” counties.

The Politics of Municipal and State Reform

City-manager plan—experts, professionals, not political hacks

Weaknesses of city government—rural

state interests over city interests

Seeds of the welfare state– “urban liberalism”

Fighting Bob LaFollette of Wisconsin, also known as “Battle Bob,” early in his career, later, and making his case over the radio. He championed “direct primaries,” among many other reforms.

Progressivism Goes to Washington

Brownsville incident—discharged

w/o honor on unjust charges

Philosophy of the Square Deal—big vs. big okay, as long as fair

Anthracite coal strike—intervened

Cartoonists satirize the Booker T. Washington lunch, the Brownsville incident and the coal strike; miner’s families are evicted after the strike.

U.S. v. E. C. Knight—Sherman Antitrust applies

only to commerce not manufacturing?

Northern Securities—dissolved Northwest RR

monopoly; prosecuted 44 others

Railroad regulation—tougher ICC; Elkins Act

and Hepburn Railway Act nears “continuous

regulation” of business

Conservation through planned management—government oversight

of natural resources

Attorney General Philander Knox, who, under

Roosevelt’s direction, prosecuted “bad” trusts.

Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, which spurred

consumer protection laws.

John Muir and preservation– “forever wild” vs. conservation

Taft’s accomplishments—preserved

more land, regulated labor safety, created

children’s bureau, set 8-hour day, backed

16th Amendment

Teddy Roosevelt, the leading force in American conservation, with John Muir, a preservationist,

in Yosemite Valley in California.

Taft’s campaign ran him as “Billy Possum” taking a hand-off from “Teddy Bear,” but the job he really wanted and got was Supreme Court Justice.

New Nationalism—protect individual interests through big government: defiantly progressive, almost liberal

Progressive, or “Bull Moose,” party—progressives splinter off

from Republican party

Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom—big is

bad: corporations or government

Even when Roosevelt was on his African safari after his Presidency, he started getting impatient with his buddy Taft’s anti-

Progressive tendencies. When he got back he started developing his ideas for a “New Nationalism.” When he decided to run, he

said he was “throwing his hat in the ring” and he felt “as fit as a bull moose.

Woodrow Wilson had been head of Princeton University and Governor of New Jersey before he ran for President under his “New Freedom” platform.

Woodrow Wilson and the Politics of Morality

Underwood-Simmons Tariff—finally, a downward revision compensated by graduated income tax: momentous shift in revenue

Federal Reserve Act—to control credit and money supply with system controlled by a central board and including 12 regional banks

Federal Trade Commission—to oversee business activity

Clayton Antitrust Act—outlawed ugliest corporate practices: price discrimination, holding companies, interlocking directorates