Progressive MovementWhite, middle-class, urban, educated

reformers (lots of women)Roots were in the Populist MovementFour goals: social, moral, economic and

political reform.

Seneca Falls Convention

1848

Protecting Social WelfareSocial Gospel Movement,

settlement houses inspire other reform groups

YMCA and Salvation Army are formed

Pass law prohibiting child labor, limiting women’s hours

Children working in NC textile mill

Handwritten draft of confederation of the YMCA circa

1833

Promoting Moral ImprovementSome feel poor should uplift themselves

by improving own behaviorProhibition - banning of alcoholic drinksWoman’s Christian Temperance Union

spearheads prohibition crusade

Newspaper Headline Announcing US states had

approved Prohibition

Woman’s Temperance Crusade: Mother Stewart and her Staff

Creating Economic Reform1893 panic prompts doubts

about capitalism; many become socialists

Expose corruption in politics, business

Many use experts, science to make workplace more efficient

Scientific management - time & motion studies applied to workplace

Assembly lines speed up production, make people work like machines

Turn of the Century Assembly Lines

Political ReformPut power back in the hands of the peopleEnd corruption by political machinesReform at the local, state, and federal

levels.

NY Times Political Cartoon attacking Politicians and Tammany Hall

Immigration and Urban PoorMost poor immigrants are forced to live in

slums because they can’t afford anything else.

Tenements are multi-family dwellings found in the slums and are usually deteriorating.

New York City Tenement Slums

Working ConditionsVery bad: long hours, low pay, dangerous

conditions.Ex: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Fire breaks out

on upper floors of a ten story bldg. Workers can’t escape because all the exterior doors had been locked by owner. Over 200 women died. Owner rec’d small fine.

Police and remains of victims of Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Unequal Distribution of Wealth

The most wealth is held by the smallest number of people. A few very wealthy people, while almost everyone else is poor.

American Most Wealthy including JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt

Activists and ReformersMuckrakers – investigative journalists who

write to expose corruption and bad conditions in hopes of change.

Frank NorrisLincoln Steffens – The Shame of the CitiesIda Tarbell – Standard OilUpton Sinclair – MeatpackingJacob Riis – How the Other Half Lives

(immigrants)

Muckrakers Lincoln Steffens

(above) and Frank Norris

(right)

Muckrakers Ida Tarbell (left) and Upton Sinclair

(below)

Jacob Riis photograph documenting crowded conditions inside NY slums

Social Gospel MovementSociety must be reformed and improved.Settlement Houses – Jane Addams, Hull HouseCarrie Nation – Temperance Movement

Carrie Nation (left) and Food Lines at Hull House (right)

Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal

President McKinley shot; Roosevelt becomes president at 42

Roosevelt works to give citizens a Square Deal through progressive reforms.

The three Cs (goals) of the Square Deal:Control CorporationsConsumer ProtectionConservation Theodore

Roosevelt

Artist’s depiction of

the Assassination

of William McKinley

Controlling CorporationsTrustbustingRoosevelt wants to curb trusts that hurt

public interest – not “good” trusts.breaks up some trusts under Sherman

Antitrust ActU.S. v E.C. Knight & Co.

Cartoon attacking the US

Senate titled “The Bosses of

the Senate.” The banner in back reads “This is a Senate of the

Monopolists, by the Monopolists

and for the Monopolists”

Cartoon depicting Trustbuster

Theodore Roosevelt

Anthracite Coal Mine StrikeCoal reserves low – strike threatens publicTeddy Roosevelt miners, operators to

accept arbitrationFirst time Federal government sides with

workers.

Coal miners evicted from company owned housing, northeast Pennsylvania, 1902 Because mining companies owned their

employees' housing, striking workers risked their homes as well as their jobs.

Railroad RegulationRoosevelt pushes for federal regulation to

control abusesNorthern Securities vs. U.SElkins Act - stops rebates, sudden rate

changesHepburn Act - limits passes, ICC to set

maximum rates

Consumer ProtectionRegulating Foods and DrugsUpton Sinclair’s The Jungle -

unsanitary conditions in meatpacking

Roosevelt pushes for Meat Inspection Act:dictates sanitary

requirementscreates federal meat

inspection program

Cartoon Depicting T Roosevelt leading the investigations of the Meat Industry

Consumer Protection (cont.)Food, drug advertisements make false claims;

medicines often unsafePure Food and Drug Act halts sale of

contaminated food, medicinerequires truth in labeling

Conservation and Natural Resources

U.S. Forest Bureau establishedRoosevelt sets aside forest reserves,

sanctuaries, national parksBelieves conservation part preservation,

part development for publicPres. most noted for conservation

Teddy Roosevelt

and Naturalist John Muir

Taft Becomes PresidentTaft wins with

Roosevelt’s supportCautiously progressive

agenda; gets little credit for successes (actually busts more trusts than Theodore Roosevelt)

William H Taft

American Tobacco v. U.S.Taft signs Payne-

Aldrich Tariff - compromise bill, moderate tariffs

Progressives angry, think he abandoned low tariffs, progressivism

Cartoon depicting Progressives feelings over the Payne Aldrich Tariff

The Republican Party SplitsTheodore Roosevelt wants to be president

againTaft’s people outmaneuver TR’s for

Republican nominationProgressives form Bull Moose Party;

nominate RooseveltRun against Democrat Woodrow Wilson,

reform governor of New Jersey

Democrats Win in 1912Wilson endorses progressive platform

called the New FreedomWants to attack Triple Wall of Privilege:

tariffs, banks, trusts.calls all monopolies evil

Democrats Win in 1912 cont.Roosevelt wants oversight of big business;

not all monopolies badSocialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs

wants to end capitalismWilson wins great electoral victory

Woodrow Wilson on campaign in Ohio

Lower Tariffs

Underwood Tariff Act -- substantially reduces tariffs for the first time since Civil War

Wilson Wins Financial ReformsSixteenth Amendment legalizes graduated

federal income taxFederal Reserve System - landmark

banking reformDecentralizes bankingNation divided into 12 districts; fed.

reserve bank in each districtThis is a bank for banks. Your bank

deposits money here.

Newspaper headlines declaring the approval of the Federal Reserve Act

Stronger Anti-Trust LawsClayton Antitrust Act stops

companies buying stock to form monopolyStronger than Sherman Anti-

trust and can’t be used against labor

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) - new “watchdog” agencyinvestigates regulatory

violationsends unfair business practices

Reforming Local GovernmentTry to make government efficient,

responsive to votersSome cities adopt government by

commission of experts Many use council-manager: people elect

council that appoints manager

Reform at the State LevelGovernors push states to pass laws to

regulate large businessesRobert M. La Follette is 3-term governor,

then senator of Wisconsinattacks big business

Reforming ElectionsDirect Primaries allow voters, not party

machines, to choose candidatesInitiative - bill proposed by people, not

lawmakers, put on ballotsReferendum - voters, not legislature,

decide if initiative becomes lawRecall - voters remove elected official

through off-cycle election

Election Reforms (cont.)Direct Election of Senators

Seventeenth Amendment permits popular election of senators

Secret Ballot (Australian Ballot) – no one is allowed to know how a person votes.

Cartoon portraying the time needed to pass the 17th Amendment allowing the direct election of U.S. senatorsBy Spencer, for the Omaha World Herald, 1912

Women Win SuffrageCarrie Chapman Catt, head

of NAWSA, stresses organization, lobbying

National Woman’s Party aggressively pressures for suffrage amendment

Nineteenth Amendment grants women right to vote

The End of ProgressivismOutbreak of World

War I distracts Americans;

Reform efforts stall

Civil Rights at the Turn of the 20th Century

Roosevelt does not support civil rights for African Americansinvites Booker T. Washington to White

HouseNAACP - National Association for the

Advancement of Colored Peoplegoal is full equality among races

Founded 1909 by W. E. B. DuBois and black, white reformers

W.E.B. DuBois

Booker T Washington

NAACP flag in New York City

African Americans Fight Legal Discrimination

Voting RestrictionsAll Southern states restrict voting, deny

equalitySome limit vote to those who can read;

officials give literacy testsSome have poll tax that must be paid

annually to voteSome add grandfather clause to

constitution to let poor whites votecan vote if self, father, grandfather voted

before 1867

Political Cartoon by Theodore Geisel attacking the Poll Tax

Cartoon depicting Intimidation of Black voters titled "Of course he wants to vote the Democratic ticket!”

African-American Responses to Jim Crow

Booker T. Washington - racism will end if blacks get labor skillsHeads Tuskegee Normal and Industrial

Institute, now a universityW. E. B. Du Bois, first African American to

get Harvard doctorate disagrees with WashingtonFounds Niagara Movement to encourage

liberal arts study

African-American Responses (cont.)

Opposing DiscriminationRacial etiquette -

informal rules for black-white relations

enforce second-class status for blacks

Moderate reformers, like Booker T. Washington, get white support

African-American Responses (cont.)W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B.

Wells think problems too urgent to postpone

Born a slave, Ida B. Wells becomes teacher, newspaper editorcampaigns for racial

justice and anti-lynching laws

ViolenceAfrican Americans who do not follow

etiquette are punished, lynchedmore than 1,400 killed 1882–1892

Lynching and Burning of Black victim in Omaha

on Sept 29, 1919

Discrimination in the NorthUsually de facto segregationMany blacks migrate North for better

paying jobs, social equalityAre forced into segregated neighborhoodsRejected by labor unions; hired last, fired

first by employersCompetition between blacks, working-class

whites sometimes violent

Racist whites lynching 3 African American circus workers in Duluth, MN, in 1920

Black family preparing to move north during the Great Migration

New TechnologiesElectricity – sewing machinesSkyscrapersAirplanes:

Orville & Wilbur Wright use engines to fly “heavier-than-air” craft

first successful flight December 1903 – Kitty Hawk, NC

Airplanes first used for mail and cargo

New York Skyscraper

called the Flat Iron Building

Wright Brothers Airplane 1902

Production ProcessesFord’s innovations:Pays $5/day – more than any other jobFirst to see workers as consumersUses the assembly line to be more efficientModel T is under $300, most Americans

can afford one.

Henry Ford and his Model T

Advertising and ConsumerismAnything that makes us more alike

contributes to mass culture: movies, books, radio, music, fashion, etc.

Montgomery Ward, Sears Roebuck catalogs bring goods to small towns

Rural free delivery (RFD) - post office delivers direct to every home

Rural Free Delivery Wagon

Movies and PhotographyMovie camera – first movie was The Great

Train Robbery – silent films.

Photography ExplosionPre-1880s, photography requires heavy

equipment, time George Eastman develops light-weight

equipment, studio processing1888, introduces Kodak camera, easy to

operatemillions use Kodak camerahelps create field of photojournalism

1923 Advertisement for Kodak Camera