THE PROGRESSIVESAn Era of Reform: 1890 to 1920

CTQS FOR PROGRESSIVE ERA

Who is responsible for solving the problems brought on by industrialization?

Who were the Progressives?

Middle and upper class; women are a key element of the movement.

Progressives believed that society, through active and effective governmental reforms and legislation was capable of continued growth and advancement.

ROOTS OF PROGRESSIVES

Rapid growth of big business, coupled with social problems associated with overpopulation in urban environments led to political and social tensions

Immigration’s influence: 1900 76 million Americans (1 in 7 foreign born) by 1914 another 13 million immigrants arrived on American soil.

Rejection of Social Darwinism - progressives believe that domination by the rich and powerful was a distortion of democracy.

As the middle class expanded, so to did supporters of the progressive movement. Technicians, managers, engineers and clerks, joined doctors, lawyers and teachers to form the progressive base.

The Populists: Goals 1.Improve conditions for

farmers and workers 2.Curb the power of big

business 3.Make government more

accessible

The Social Gospel Movement:

1.Christianity 2.Social reform 3.Society must take

responsibility for the less fortunate

The Progressives: 1.Want to improve society 2.Use political action 3.Use the government to

solve problems 4.Regulation of Big Business

GOALS OF PROGRESSIVES

1. To decrease the role of special interest groups in government

2. To make the government more honest and responsive to citizen needs

3. To increase popular participation in the American system

4. To create a more active, stronger role for the Federal government

5. To push the government to be responsible for the social welfare of its citizens (reject Social Darwinism)

PROGRESSIVE UMBRELLA

Trust Busting [anti-monopoly]

Increase Democracy and curb corruption

Rejection of laissez faire

Conservationism

Civil Rights and Social Justice

Prohibition

Women’s rights

Labor Reform

MUCKRAKERSInfluential muckrakers in the movement

a. Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) - The Jungle (1906) - an expose of the meatpacking industry, although it was written as a socialist view of contemporary history.

b. Ida Tarbell - History of the Standard Oil Company

c. Others (1) Frank Norris - The Octopus (1901) (2) Lincoln Steffens - Shame of the Cities (1904) (3) Jack London - The Iron Heel (1907)

CONSUMER PROTECTIONFood and Drug Legislation

a. Meat Inspection Act 1906 provided for inspection of meat packing plants b. Pure Food and Drug Act 1906 - same day

(1) Unproven claims about a product could not he made. (2) A list of ingredients had to be made available. (3) Prohibited adulterated or mislabeled foods and drugs from interstate commerce but did not regulate intrastate food and drugs.

The Pure Food and Drug Act tookmedicines with cocaine and other

harmful ingredients off themarket

FOOD: IN CONTEXT 549

Meat Inspection Act of 1906

Administration, charged with oversight of the regulation and inspection of medicines and foods.

The Federal Meat Inspection Act required four main reforms. First, livestock must undergo a mandatory

advance copy of The Jungle. In response to the public outcry raised by Sinclair’s book and the work of other muckraking journalists, Roosevelt sent labor commis-sioner Charles P. Neill (1865–1942) and social worker James Bronson Reynolds (1861–1908) to conduct a secret inspection of the nation’s meatpacking industry. The large meatpacking companies were tipped off about the inspections. They ordered all facilities to be cleaned, and instructed English-speaking workers not to talk to inspectors without a supervisor present. However, Neill and Reynolds ultimately confi rmed the existence of unhealthy practices within the meatpacking indus-try. The complete Neill-Reynolds Report indicated that Sinclair’s novel may have underrepresented the scope of the hygiene and corruption problems in food process-ing at the time. Roosevelt later invited Sinclair to the White House and solicited his advice on how to reform the industry.

■ Impacts and IssuesOn June 30, 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. Also cre-ated at Roosevelt’s request was the Food and Drug

WORDS TO KNOW

MEATPACKING: The process of slaughtering animals and pre-paring meat for sale to consumers.

MUCKRAKERS: Late nineteenth-century and early-twentieth century journalists, authors, and photographers who sought social change by featuring injustices in such a way as to create maximum interest and action in the public.

PROGRESSIVE ERA: A period of social and political reform in the United States from the 1890s to the 1920s. Progres-sive Era reforms included labor, education, food safety, and anti-corruption laws.

REGULATION: Controlling behaviors, business practices, or industrial practices through rules, restrictions, or laws to encourage preferred outcomes or prevent undesired out-comes that may otherwise occur.

An early-twentieth century cartoon features U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt taking control of the investigation into the meatpacking scandal. © North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy.

(c) 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

UPTON SINCLAIR’S THE JUNGLE (1906)

“There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was mouldy and white—it would be dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it.”

CONSUMER PROTECTION

Regulating Industry a. 1904 - 318 Corporations controlled $7 billion (40%) of US manufacturing investment capital. b. Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890 ineffectively curbed the growth of industry and business mergers into trusts (184 of the 318 were formed after 1898). c. Supreme Court Assistance and Hindrance

TRUSTBUSTINGWorked to curb the power of Trusts and to protect the Common Man

By 1900, Trusts – legal bodies created to hold stock in many companies – controlled 80% of U.S. industries

Six companies controlled 95% of railroads

1902 - TR filed suit against N. Securities Company

Roosevelt filed 44 antitrust suits under the Sherman Antitrust Act

Establishes Fed. Gov’t position in industry

PROGRESSIVE GOVERNORS

Gov. Robert La Follette “Battlin’ Bob” - Wisconsin governor who fought, often by himself, for major political legislation.

Hiram Johnson, CA - 1911, introduces Initiative, Referendum and Recall giving California voters a level of direct control. Only other locations are S. Dakota and Oregon “Oregon System”

a. Initiative and referendum, adopted first in Oregon and in several other states by 1900 b. Recall, which allowed public officials to stand reelection before their original term ended. c. A Secret Ballot first, adopted in Wisconsin as well as direct primary elections (1903) d. 17th Amendment - Direct Election of Senators 1913

SOCIAL JUSTICE REFORMERS

The idea that social evils could be legislated away grew popular but was carried to its extreme with the passage of the 18th amendment, which prohibited the sale, distribution or manufacture of intoxicating liquors in the US.

Jane Addams (1860-1935) and the Settlement House Movement (1) In Chicago in 1889, Addams established a settlement house which was voluntarily run by middle-class white women in the midst of a slum to provide direct relief to the poor.(2) The "Hull House" project was the model for other such projects in several cities. (3) Among the services: soup kitchens, clubs for boys and girls, baths for children, reading classes, day nursery, classes on personal hygiene, a gymnasium and a little theater.

IDA B. WELLSBooker T. Washington made a great mistake in imagining that black people could gain their rights merely by making themselves factors in industrial life. -Ida B. Wells

Began her career as a journalist and would later be published by the North Star

Sued Chesapeake Railroad company for being forced to give up her seat in 1884. Won, but later over turned in 1887.

World’s Fair in Chicago (1892) Wells published and distributed pamphlets emphasizing that Afro-Americans were not an evolutionary lower race as Darwinian thought proclaimed.

IDA B. WELLSAlong with W.E.B. Du Bois was a founding member of the NAACP [1909] and with the help of Jane Addams successfully blocked the segregation of schools in Chicago.

Her articles published in Chicago area newspapers vehemently attacked southern reasons for lynchings against black men and women.

One of a few blacks who spoke out against Booker T. Washington, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute, who advocated in favor of segregation of the races.

ANTI-LYNCHING CAMPAIGN

Since 1882 there have been 4,733 people killed in known lynching cases.

1918 - Mary Turner incident

Ida B. Wells became active in 1892 after losing three friends to a lynch mob. In 1892, 231 people were killed, the most in any one recorded year.

Last known lynching is 1955 - however - James Byrd Jr (’98) Brandon McClelland (’08), USC and UCSD prank “noose” left (’10)

Over 60 actively known hate groups in CA according to SPLC

Strange FruitBy Billie Holiday and Abel Meeropol (1937)

Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Progressive Failures• No significant steps were taken at this time to challenge the

South's Jim Crow system, solidly in place by 1900, which kept Blacks in second class citizen status until the 1960s.

• a. No books like Helen Hunt's Century of Dishonor challenged the American conscience toward the plight of Southern Black citizens. (1) 90% of American Blacks lived in the rural South during the Progressive Era. (2) One out of seven farmers in the US in 1900 was Black.

• b. Although Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner, Southern anger, reacting with violent acts against Southern Blacks, caused Roosevelt to back away from further commitments after he lost Southern support.

• c. The Southern-born Wilson had no enthusiastic support towards Black rights.

African Americans RespondNiagara Movement - the first collective attempt by African-Americans to demand full citizen rights in the 20th century (without even indirect white support) (1) Led by W.E.B. Du Bois (2) Purpose: "organized determination and aggressive action on the part of men who believe in Negro freedom and growth" and opposition to "present methods of strangling honest criticism." (3) In a Declaration of Principles , they espoused black rights including the unrestricted right to vote and the end of all segregation in public places

NAACP - 1909 (1) Its primary purpose became to challenge racial discrimination and segregation in public places through the legal system. (2) Its publication Crisis was edited for 24 years by W.E.B Du Bois, whose participation in the organization was indispensable.

What happens to cause this shift from 1890 to 1920?

DAWN OF THE “NEW WOMAN”

Before the Civil War, American women were expected to devote their time to home and family - remember “Republican Motherhood”

“Cult of Domesticity” used to identify four key ideals for women to live up to: Piety, Purity, Submissiveness and Domesticity

Victorian ideals prevailed through most of the middle and upper classes. “Father knows best” idea that women needed to be protected as they were more susceptible to sin

DAWN OF THE “NEW WOMAN”

Industrialism (in particular with the lower working class) changes the traditional family structure to include women in the workforce. Immigrant women were forced to work out of necessity.

However, the wealthy working class felt the urban poor woman in the workforce was a contributing factor to declining conditions and morals in cities.

EDUCATION OF WOMEN

“A woman has a head almost too small for intellect, but just big enough for love” - physician at end of 19th c.

The education of middle to upper class women in the 1870s and 1880s is a key moment in the emancipation of women in the political system.

Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Ellen Richards, Amelia Bloomer, Susan B. Anthony.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE 1869 NWSA (National Woman Suffrage Association is founded. Led by Stanton and Anthony it was considered politically radical as it attacked the institution of marriage as entrapping for women.

The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill 1869

AWSA also founded in 1869 by Lucy Stone. It was a more moderate group; allowed men to join and supported the 15th Amendment as a step toward suffrage for women.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE Stanton, Anthony and Stone all threw their support behind the African American community hoping to combine efforts under a shared desire of equal rights.

The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, which extends to all citizens, except women, the protections of the Constitution against unjust state laws. This Amendment was the first to define "citizens" and "voters" as "male."

Later, the Fifteenth Amendment extended suffrage to all African American males

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE By 1870, frustrated with the lack of progress - the NWSA refocused on achieving suffrage cause and less on equal pay and divorce rights.

By the 1890s, Susan B. Anthony had achieved national recognition as a female leader - a first in American History.

The NWSA would later influence Emmeline Pankhurst and the WSPU (Women’s Social and Political Union) and the American ERA push by Alice Paul

"it will come...It is inevitable. We can no more deny forever the right of self-government to one-half our people than we could keep the Negro forever in bondage.” - Susan B. Anthony, 1900

WOMEN LEADING REFORM

Alice Paul, who organized the Woman's Party in the 1910s and introduced the first Equal Rights Amendment in 1916, represented the young face of radical feminism.

The campaign for the ERA during the 1910s was so radical that most social feminists rejected it out of fear that the proposed constitutional amendment would endanger protective legislation for women. As a result, the campaign for the ERA remained a minority movement within feminism.

WOMEN LEADING REFORM

In addition to the ERA, another point of division among various feminist groups was World War I. Jane Addams and other social feminists were vocal pacifists who opposed Wilson's decision to enter the war.

Radical suffragists, led by Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman(NAWSA), endorsed Wilson's decision, with the understanding that Wilson would support women's suffrage at war's end. After the war came to a close, Wilson pointed to women's loyalty in the war effort and urged Congress to pass the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

In 1919, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment and the states ratified it in 1920.