Impact of Progressivism

Political attitude favoring or advocating changes or reform through governmental action; political philosophy in

American society from approximately 1890 to 1920.

To address social problems they called for policy committed to social justice and social democracy. They found new sympathy for the poor, for minorities, and for

women and children.

To address the needs of these peoples they saw a need for a strong central government and increasing regulation of

many segments of the business world.

Muckrackers

Temperance

Suffragettes

Populists

Middle Class Women

Labor Unions

Civil Rights

Conservationists

16th Amendment

• Passed in 1913• William H. Taft• Gave Congress the

power to collect income taxes

17th Amendment

• Passed in 1913• Woodrow Wilson• Senators would be

elected by the people instead of by the state legislature

18th Amendment

• Passed in 1919• Woodrow

Wilson• Outlawed the

manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol

Detroit police inspecting equipment found in a clandestine underground brewery during the

prohibition era

19th Amendment

• Passed in 1920• Woodrow

Wilson• Granted

women the right to vote

Suffragists picketing the White House in the rain,

1917.

Federal Reserve Act

• Passed in 1913• Woodrow

Wilson• Controls US

money supply and credit• Some say

chairman of FRB is more powerful than the president!

Interstate Commerce Act

• Passed in 1887• Grover Cleveland• Established federal

government’s right to supervise railroad activities

• The first large scale effort of the U.S. government to regulate business for the public good

Meat Inspection Act

• Passed in 1906• Theodore Roosevelt• Dictated cleanliness

requirements for meatpackers and government inspection

• Upton Sinclair – The Jungle

Excerpts from The Jungle

Before the carcass was admitted here, however, it had to pass a government inspector, who sat in the doorway and felt of the glands in the neck for tuberculosis. This government inspector did not have the manner of a man who was worked to death; he was apparently not haunted by a fear that the hog might get

by him before he had finished his testing. While he was talking with you you could

hardly be so ungrateful as to notice that a dozen carcasses were passing him untouched.

Excerpts from The Jungle

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 (tuberculosis) germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in

rooms, and thousands of rats would race about on it. A man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the

dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the pacers would put poisoned bread out

for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.

Pure Food and Drug Act

• Passed in 1906• Theodore Roosevelt• Halted sale of contaminated food and

medicines• Called for truth in labeling• Did NOT ban products

Sherman Anti-Trust Act

• Passed in 1890• Benjamin Harrison• If a company has

competition, it cannot raise rates at will leaving customers with no alternatives for purchases.

The Muckrakers

• Journalists who wrote about social ills• Named for Pilgrim’s Progress character who

would rather rake up the muck of the world than look to nobler things

• Exposed problems, but didn’t propose solutions• Earned large salaries – had articles published in

magazines like Cosmopolitan• Topics• Political corruption• Suppression of racial minorities• Slums• Dishonest business practices

The Muckrakers

• Examples• Ida Tarbell – wrote about wrongs

committed by Standard Oil Trust, beef trust

• David Graham Phillips – corruption of Congress

• Lincoln Steffens – ills in city and state governments

Other Reformers

Jane Addams

• Worked with urban poor at Hull House, the first settlement house

W.E.B. DuBois

• Founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

• His writings pushed Americans to think differently and act differently towards African Americans.

Additional Vocabulary

Eugenics

• The study of the possibility of improving the human species by discouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have undesirable traits or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits

Social Darwinism

• Theory that people are subject to the same laws of natural selection as plants and animals. It was used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and to justify racism.

Chinese Exclusion Act

• In order to deal with issues of unemployment and declining wages on the West Coast, the US government passed a law stopping Chinese immigration for ten years.