The United States entered the Progressive Era from 1880 to 1920 when a variety of reformers tried to clean up problems created during the Gilded Age

Industrialization led to a rise in urbanization, immigration, poverty,

and dangerous working conditions

City, state, and federal governments were

seen as corrupt

Corporate monopolies limited competition and workers’ wages

1880-1900: Social Gospel movement to honor God you need to help people

Focus on trying to improve living and working conditions

YMCA, Salvation ArmySettlement houses – Jane Addams – Hull House in Chicago

Florence Kelley - child labor laws

Prohibition (temperance) movement

Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) – Carrie Nation

18th Amendment (1919) – outlawed alcohol throughout the USA

Changes for Women

New laws will give women more legal rights

Women are active in other successful reforms during the late 1800s and are inspired to demand greater rights for women

Margaret Sanger – birth control

The most significant reform for women was the demand for suffrage (voting rights)

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton formed

the National American Women Suffrage

Association (NAWSA)

By the early 1900s, most western states allowed women to vote but women in the East could not voteIn 1920, the 19th Amendment gives women the vote

The Progressive Era led to demands for equal rights by African Americans

Sharecroppers = poverty

Literacy tests and poll taxes limited black voting

Jim Crow segregation

Plessy v Ferguson (1896) declared that segregation did not

violate the 14th amendment

Lynching and violence were common

Black civil rights leaders were divided on how to address racial problems

Booker T. Washington

Tuskegee Institute school to train black workers and

teachers

Accommodation: Blacks should work hard, educate themselves, and earn the

rights they wanted

WEB DuBoisCalled for immediate civil rights and the promotion of the “Talented Tenth” of young black leaders

Black civil rights leaders were divided on how to address racial problems

Niagara Movement National Association for the Advancement

of Colored People (NAACP)

While women gained voting rights and labor laws……African Americans were unable to end Jim Crow

segregation, stop lynching, or gain economic equality

But, black leaders in the Progressive Era inspired

later generations to demand changes

Investigative journalists known as muckrakers exposed corruption, poverty, health hazards, and monopolies

Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives (1890): urban

poverty and life in the slums

Ida Tarbell’s The History of Standard Oil (1904):

corruption of monopolies (especially Standard Oil)

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle

(1906): unsanitary

conditions of slaughterhouses

Politics were in need of reformPendleton Act (1883): merit-based exams for

government jobs

City governments shift to city commissions

and city managers Most state create

commissions to oversee gov’t spending

Referendum: citizens can vote to increase taxes for

new programs

Voting Reform

Initiatives: citizens can make law

Recalls: citizens vote to remove officials

Direct primary elections

Secret ballot17th Amendment (1913):

direct election of Senators

The most significant state reform was governor Robert La Follette’s “Wisconsin Idea”

First state to create an income tax, form

industrial commissions, and adopt regulations

on big businesses

Wisconsin politicians teamed with academic

“experts” from the University of Wisconsin

to create state laws

Wisconsin was a model for other progressive

state reforms

1901-1909: Theodore RooseveltBelieved the gov’t ought to take responsibility for the welfare of the people

“Square Deal”

Trust-buster; Regulate good monopolies

Meat Inspection Act (1906)

Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

Conservation

TR hand-picked his successor in 1908

William Howard Taft

Like TR, Taft pushed for progressive reforms Broke up 2X more trustsEstablish the Children’s

Bureau and the Department of Labor

Went against Progressives by supporting a high tariffNot much on conservation

The election of 1912 was a three way raceWilliam Howard Taft can on the

Republican ticket

Democrats ran New Jersey governor

Woodrow Wilson

TR ran as a Progressive Bull Moose

Federal Trade Commission: monitors

unfair business practices

President Woodrow Wilson

Federal Reserve System: regulates economy by

controlling money supply and interest

rates

16th – 19th Amendments

Most of Wilson’s 2nd term was focused on World

War One

The Progressive Era (1890-1920) brought major changes to the United States

For the first time, the government began

regulating big business

Working and living conditions improved

Women’s suffrage and new state ballot reforms

increased democracy for the people

America’s involvement in World War I brought an

end to the Progressive Era