the progressive era 1890-1920

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The Progressive Era, 1890-1920

© Edward T. O’Donnell, 2006

• Conflict: Finding and Exploring Conflict and Debate

• Agency: Recognizing How People Shape Their Era

• Choices: History is the study of Choices - Nothing is inevitable!

• Relevance: Make Connections (carefully) to the Present

• Documents and Images

My Approach to Teaching HistoryMy Approach to Teaching History

The Progressive Era

• Defined• Background to the Progressive Era • Three Main Ideas of Progressivism• Who Were the Progressives• Key Progressive Era Reforms • The Darker Side of Progressivism• When Did the Progressive Era End?

The Progressive Era

The period from (roughly) 1890-1920 when many diverse groups in American society launched efforts to reform or eliminate the many social problems resulting from rapid industrialization, urbanization, and immigration.

Defined

total

1880 1,206,2991890 1,515,3011900 3,437,2021910 4,766,8831920 5,620,0481930 6,930,446

Background to the Progressive EraThe “New”

Immigration

Who Came?

• Russian and Eastern European Jews • Italians • Poles • Greeks• Czechs• Bohemians• Irish and Germans (continuing but declining)

• African Americans - The Great Migration

Ethnic Groups in Chicago’s Hull House Neighborhood, 18

Immigrant Cities

1910

% immigrants and their US- born children

New York 78.6%Chicago 77.5%Milwaukee 78.6San Francisco 68.3

Overall, the foreign-born = 14.8% of US population in 1910(12.5% in 2009)

Conflicted Views on Immigration

LOVE IT HATE IT

Many Types

of Nativism

• Disease• Superstition • Poverty• Anarchy • Sabbath

desecration • Intemperance • Crime The Immigrant: The Stranger at Our Gate from The Ram’s Horn April 25, 1896

Source: www.projects.vassar.edu/1896/0425ramshorn.html

• 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

• 1885 Contract Labor Prohibited

• 1890 Federal Immigration Act

• Ellis Island opens • Four Categories of

Exclusion 1. Health 2. Poverty3. Criminality 4. Radicalism Dumping European Garbage

Judge Magazine, 1890

Toward Immigration RestrictionToward Immigration RestrictionEarly Immigration Restriction

Background to the Progressive Era

Industrialization

1860 1900 % INCREASE

FACTORIES 140,500 510,000 263

VALUE FACTORY PRODUCTION

$1.9 bil $13 billion 584

INDUSTRIAL WORKERS

1.3 mil 5.1 mil 292

PATENTS ISSUED 4,589 95,573 1,983

1860 1900 % INCREASE

OIL 500,000 barrels 45,824,000 barrels

9,065

RAILROADS 30,000 miles 193,000 miles 543STEEL 13,000 tons 10,382,000

tons7,9762

Gross National Product

$7 billion $19 billion 171

Background to the Progressive EraIndustrialization –

Some Stats

Background to the Progressive EraIndustrialization

Background to the Progressive EraUrbanization

1890 1920

New York 1,515,301 5,620,048

Chicago 1,099,850 2,701,705

Background to the Progressive Era

Jim Crow and the New South

Background to the Progressive EraConquest of the West

The Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890

Three Main Ideas of Progressivism

1. Anti-Monopoly (vs. Big Business)

2. The Common Good (vs. Individualism)

3. Government Regulation (vs. Laissez-Faire)

Who Were the Progressives?

1. Women 2. Evangelicals 3. Journalists4. Social Workers 5. Experts 6. Professionals 7. Politicians 8. Conservationists 9. Civil Rights Activists

Key Progressive Era ReformsPolitical Reform

The Problem- corruption

- unresponsive government

Key Progressive Era ReformsPolitical Reform

The Goal- revitalize democracy and increase the influence of the people

- eliminate corruption

Key Progressive Era ReformsPolitical Reform

Municipal Government Reforms

1. City Manager

2. City Commission

3. Civil Service Exams

Key Progressive Era ReformsPolitical Reform

State Government Reform

1. The Initiative

2. The Referendum

3. The Recall

Key Progressive Era ReformsPolitical ReformFederal Government Reform

17th Amendment – the direct election of Senators

Key Progressive Era ReformsEconomic Reform

The Problem

1. Unchecked power of big business

2. Lack of competition

3. Dangerous products

4. Boom and Bust cycles

“The Bosses of the Senate” Puck 1889

“What A Strange Little Government”The Verdict Jan 22 1900 [source: Andrist_The Confident Years]

Key Progressive Era ReformsEconomic Reform

The Limits of Economic Reform

1. Diminish the power of Trusts, but leave most intact

2. Regulate private business, but not control it

3. The Underlying Assumption – capitalism’s benefits outweigh its harmful effects-- the government should minimize the latter

Key Progressive Era ReformsEconomic Reform

Corporate Regulation

1902 Trust Busting

1906 Hepburn Act

1911 Standard Oil Trust broken up

1914 Clayton Anti-Trust Act

Key Progressive Era ReformsEconomic Reform

Consumer Protection

• The Pure Food and Drug Act

• The Meat Inspection Act

Key Progressive Era ReformsEconomic Reform

Banking Regulation

Goal – reduce “Boom and Bust”

1907 Banking Crisis

1911 Pujo Investigation

1913 Federal Reserve Act

Key Progressive Era ReformsEconomic Reform

Greater Tax Equity

No Income Tax- Carnegie’s $25 mil

The 16th Amendment

Growing Economic Disparity 1890

–Top 1% of pop owned 51% of all wealth

–Lower 44% of pop owned 1.2% of all wealth

–Top 12% owned 86% of all wealth –Remaining 88% owned just 14% of

all wealth

Source: Walter Licht, Industrializing America, p 183

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial ReformSocial Reform

The Goal - The Protection and Expansion of Individual Rights

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial ReformSocial Reform

Pro-Labor Legislation

The Problem – few laws or protections for workers

Growing labor unrest

ex: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 1911

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial ReformSocial Reform

Pro-Labor Legislation

1902 Coal Strike

1903 Dept of Commerce and Labor

By 1912 38 states enact child labor laws

By 1912 24 states enact the 8- hour day for public works

By 1917 38 states enact workmen’s compensation laws

Lewis Hine and Child Labor

A moments glimpse of the outer world. Said she was 11 years old. Been working over a year. Rhodes Mfg. Co. Lincolnton, N.C. (Lewis Hine)

Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on to the spinning frame to mend broken threads and to put back the empty bobbins. Bibb Mill No. 1. Macon, Ga. (Lewis Hine)

One of the spinners in Whitnel Cotton Mill. She was 51 inches high. Has been in the mill one year. Sometimes works at night. Runs 4 sides - 48 cents a day. When asked how old she was, she hesitated, then said, "I don't remember," then added confidentially, "I'm not old enough to work, but do just the same." Out of 50 employees, there were ten children about her size. Whitnel, N.C. (Lewis Hine)

Breaker boys. Smallest is Angelo Ross. Pittston, Pa. (Lewis Hine)

Adolescent girls from Bibb Mfg. Co. in Macon, Georgia. (Lewis Hine)

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial Reform

Women’s Suffrage

The movement revived in 1893 – NAWSA

State by State effort

Federal Effort

World War I = Opportunity

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial ReformSocial Reform

Women’s Suffrage

1919 Congress passes the 19th Amendment

1920 Ratified

What’s Next?

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial Reform

Anti-Poverty Initiatives

Source: Illustration in Charles Loring Brace, The Dangerous Classes and My Twenty Years Among Them, 1874

Demonizing the Poor

“There is a large class—I was about to say a majority—of the population of New York and Brooklyn … to whom the rearing of two or more children means inevitably a boy for the penitentiary, and a girl for the brothel.”-- A New York City judge, ca. 1885

Traditional Views of the Poor

“The city has become a serious menace to our civilization. . . . It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant. … Here is heaped the social dynamite; here roughs, gamblers, thieves, robbers, lawless and desperate men of all sorts, congregate; men who are ready on any pretext to raise riots for the purpose of destruction and plunder; here gather foreigners and wage- workers; here skepticism and irreligion abound.”-- Josiah Strong, a prominent Midwestern minister, in his best-selling book, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (1885)

As Dangerous Revolutionaries

Traditional Views of the Poor

“What a blessing to let the unreformed drunkard and his children die, and not increase them above all others. … How wise to let those of weak digestion from gluttony die, and the temperate live. What benevolence to let the lawless perish, and the prudent survive.”

— The Christian Advocate (N.Y.), 1879

Traditional Views of the Poor Social Darwinism

Jacob A. Riis sheds new light on poverty and its causes

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial ReformSocial Reform

Street Arabs

Before?

Bandits Roost

After?

How to Read a Historical Image

S scan for important details

I identify the conflict or tension

G guess the creator’s intent or message

H hear the voices

T talk about your observations

S.I.G.H.T. tm © 2008 Edward T. O’Donnell

An Italian Rag-Picker in Jersey Street

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial ReformAnti-Poverty Initiatives – Settlement Houses

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial Reform

Anti-Poverty Initiatives – Tenement Reform

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial Reform

Anti-Poverty Initiatives – Public Education Expansion

Before After

Key Progressive Era ReformsSocial Reform

Anti-Poverty Initiatives – Public Parks in Poor Neighborhoods

Elite Recreation in Central Park in New York

Mulberry Bend, ca. 1890

Anti-Poverty Initiatives –Public Parks in Poor Neighborhoods

Anti-Poverty Initiatives –Public Parks in Poor Neighborhoods

Recreational Facilities

Public Health Cleaning the Streets (finally!)

Before and After

Key Progressive Era ReformsEnvironmental ReformEnvironmental Reform

Conservation

The Dark Side of The Dark Side of ProgressismProgressismThe Eugenics Movement

A.J.N. Tremearne, "A New Head-Measurer", Man 15 (1914):

The Dark Side of The Dark Side of ProgressismProgressism

“The Only Way to Handle It”Providence Evening Journal, 1921

The Dark Side of The Dark Side of ProgressismProgressism

Eugenics and Immigration Restriction

The Dark Side of The Dark Side of ProgressismProgressismThe Lynching Epidemic

183 lynchings a year in the 1890sOr 1 every two days

Thousands gathered in Paris, Texas, for the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.

The Anti- Lynching CrusadeThe Dark Side of The Dark Side of ProgressismProgressism

Ida B. Wells

“Although lynchings have steadily increased in number and barbarity during the last twenty years, there has been no single effort put forth by the many moral and philanthropic forces of the country to put a stop to this wholesale slaughter.”

-- Ida B. Wells

The Birth of A Nation (1915)

The Dark Side of The Dark Side of ProgressismProgressism

The Dark Side of The Dark Side of ProgressismProgressismImperialism

International Competition and Questions of Security

Progressivism and Imperialism?Progressivism and Imperialism?

1867 Purchase of Alaska1878 Naval Bases Established in Samoa (Pacific)1893 Hawaii annexed1898 Spanish-American War: U.S. acquires Cuba,

Philippines, Samoa, and Guam1899 "Open Door" policy established with China1899-1902 U.S. puts down Philippine insurrection1904 Columbia "Revolution" leads to creation of pro-US

nation of Panama which agrees to allow Panama Canal1909-101912-251926-33

US troops occupy Nicaragua

1914 US intervenes in Mexican Revolution1916-1924 US troops occupy Dominican Republic1915-1934 US troops occupy Haiti

America Becomes an Imperial Power

Progressivism and Imperialism?Progressivism and Imperialism?

The White Man’s Burden, American Style

Progressivism and Imperialism?Progressivism and Imperialism?

Progressivism and Imperialism?Progressivism and Imperialism?Bringing Civilization to the Savages

“Civilization Begins at Home”

Progressivism and Imperialism?Progressivism and Imperialism?

When Did the Progressive Era End?

Teaching American Teaching American History History

“Trying to plan for the future without knowing the past

is like trying to plant cut flowers.”-- Historian Daniel Boorstin

“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn”

-- Librarian and Educator, John Cotton Dana

How to Read a Historical Image

S scan for important details

I identify the conflict or tension

G guess the creator’s intent or message

H hear the voices

T talk about your observations

S.I.G.H.T. tm © 2008 Edward T. O’Donnell

Appealing to the

Feminine Ideal of Purity

Appealing to 1776

Appealing to 1776

Source: SF Call 1909

Denying the Threat to Motherhood and Family

The Question of DemocracyThe Question of DemocracyBelittling and Denouncing the Idea of Women’s Suffrage

The Question of DemocracyThe Question of Democracy