the progressive era. who were the progressives? the progressives set out to tackle problems of their...
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THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
Who Were The Progressives?• The Progressives set out to tackle
problems of their era.• They did not form one single group,
but were many different movements and many different kinds of Americans.
• The Progressives tended to be educated professionals-doctors, lawyers, social workers, clergy, and teachers-with a wide range of concerns.
• The Progressive Era demonstrated the rising power and influence of middle class Americans.
THE MUCKRAKERS and REFORM
PROGRESSIVE ERA
• Muckrakers helped bring reform issues to the attention of the public.
• Most were journalists and writers, but others were artists and photographers.
• Muckrakers investigated and exposed corruption and injustice through articles in mass-circulation magazines.
• In 1906, the work of the muckrakers resulted in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.
• These were the first two acts of consumer protection legislation.
• The federal government passed these laws after it became clear that the unsanitary conditions exposed by Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle were based on fact.
• As time passed, the muckrakers’ influence declined, partly because readers tired of their sensationalism.
• Nevertheless, their tradition has continued to the present day.
Other Areas Of Concern, and Other
Important Muckrakers
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• Other people and groups also worked to bring Progressive reforms to American society.
• Some active reformers during this time period were…
PROBLEMS OF POVERTY
THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
• Attempts to end the poverty, crowding, and disease in American cities began before 1900.
• Once the germ theory of disease was accepted, cities put more effort into improving water and sewage systems.
• A well-known urban reformer was Jacob Riis, who used writings and photographs to show the need for better housing for the poor.
• Some Protestant church leaders became part of the Social Gospel movement, which worked to help poor city dwellers.
• One goal of urban reformers was building codes that would require safer, better-lighted, better-ventilated, and more sanitary tenements.
Other Progressive Era Muckrakers
• Frank Norris-wrote The Octopus (1901), which dealt with monopolistic railroad practices in California.
• Ida Tarbell-wrote History of the Standard Oil Company (1904), dealing w/ the ruthless practices of Standard Oil.
• Lincoln Steffens-wrote The Shame of the Cities (1906), addressing urban corruption during this era in history.
The Temperance Movement
THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
• The temperance movement, which opposed the use of alcoholic beverages, began in the 1820’s.
• Over the years, its chief goal became prohibition-outlawing the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.
• Under the leadership of Frances Willard, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), founded in 1874, was a strong advocate of prohibition.
• They believed that through prohibition, problems of poverty and disease could be eased, family life improved, and the national economy made more productive.
• The temperance crusade led to national prohibition with the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States as of 1920.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
• Women were involved in all aspects of social reform, but suffrage for women continued to be the main goal of women’s rights movement in the Progressive Era.
• Women who had experienced success in other reform activities wanted to be able to vote.
• Furthermore, many suffragists thought that the women’s vote would serve to correct various social problems.
• The women’s suffrage movement began as part of a larger drive for women’s rights in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York.
• Such intellectual leaders as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony provided the driving leadership of the movement.
• Stanton died in 1902, and Anthony died in 1906, without achieving the objective of their life work.
• Although the women’s suffrage continued on through other female leaders by 1912 only 9 states had given women the right to vote.
• In the end, it was the highly visible activity of women during World War I that finally brought them the public support they needed.
• Due to their wartime contributions in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote.
The Fight For Birth Control
• The women’s movement also included a campaign for family planning through birth control.
• This campaign was led by Margaret Sanger, who began her work as a nurse caring for poor immigrant women in New York City.
• The American Birth Control League founded by Sanger later became the Planned Parenthood Federation.
• Sanger’s movement was very controversial which led to her arrest several times for sending information about contraception through the mail.
The Rights of African Americans
THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
THE N.A.A.C.P.
• W.E.B Du Bois, a Harvard-educated professor, felt that African-Americans should protest unfair treatment and receive a broad, liberal education, rather than a vocational one.
• In 1905, Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement to work for equal rights.
• More successful was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), started in 1909 by a group of reformers that included Du Bois and Jane Addams.
• The NAACP successfully used lawsuits as a weapon on behalf of civil rights.
Progressivism and Government Action
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• During the Progressive Era, political reform took place at all levels of government-city, state, and national.
Reform of City Government
• In the 1890s, Americans interested in good government worked to elect reformist mayors.
• Success in doing so, however, did not always ensure permanent improvement.
• Progressives had to change not only the leader, but also the way city government worked.
• Two new types of city government are associated with the Progressive movement.
• They were popular in small and medium-sized cities.
• In the city commissioner plan, the city is run by a group of commissioners, rather than by a mayor and city council.
• In the city manager plan, the city council hires a professional city manager to run the various municipal departments.
Reform of State Government
• Progressives also acted to limit the power of boss-controlled political machines and powerful business interests at the state level.
• Progressives recognized that states exercised control over many of their cities.
• Progressive reforms often proved difficult to enforce, meeting opposition from business interests and the courts.
• Thus, changes in the way state governments worked were also part of the Progressive program.
• These changes, aimed at increasing citizen participation in government, included the following:
• The secret ballot prevents party bosses (and anyone else) from knowing how people vote.
• The initiative is a system that allows voters to petition the legislature to consider a proposed law.
• Recall is the method used to force elected officials from office.
• In a referendum, voters decide whether a given bill or constitutional amendment should be passed.
• A direct primary allows voters, rather than party leaders, to select candidates to run for office.
• In 1913, Progressive reform resulted in ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, which provided for the direct election-election by the people-of United States senators.
• Up to this time senators had been elected by state legislatures, which were often controlled by corporations or political bosses.
Teddy Roosevelt and the Square Deal
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• The first three Presidents of this century-Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson-are known as the Progressive Presidents.
• Roosevelt, elected Vice President in 1900, became President when President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901.
• Roosevelt saw his job as one of stewardship-leading the nation in the public interest, like a manager or supervisor.
• He believed that the President had any powers not specifically denied to the Executive Office in the Constitution.
• Roosevelt’s administration is often known as the Square Deal because of the many reforms made during his presidency.
Progressive Era Legislation
THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
• Hepburn Act-required railroads to obtain permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission, or ICC before raising rates. (1906)
• Mann-Elkin Act-gave the Interstate Commerce Commission, or ICC the power to regulate communication by telephone and telegraph. (1910)
• Pure Food and Drug Act-Outlawed interstate transportation of impure or diluted foods and the deliberate mislabeling of foods and drugs.
• Meat Inspection Act-Required federal inspection of meat processing to ensure sanitary conditions.
• Sherman Antitrust Act- Outlawed monopolies and practices that result in restraint of trade, such as price fixing.
• Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey vs United States-(1911) held that the monopoly, Standard Oil, must be dissolved strengthening the Sherman Antitrust Act.
• In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified, authorizing Congress to impose an income tax.
• Underwood Tariff Act-lowered tariffs for the first time since the Civil War. The law also provided for a graduated income tax-one that taxed larger incomes at a higher rate than it did lower ones.
• AKA-Progressive Tax
• In 1913, the Federal Reserve Act was passed.• This act created the Federal Reserve System,
which was a national banking system.• With this new national banking system the
federal government could now; issue a new sound currency, control the amount of money in circulation, and shift money from one bank to another as needed.
• The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 strengthened the government’s power to control business practices that threatened competition.
• The act prohibited price fixing and from buying stocks from competing firms.
LABOR CONDITIONS
THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
• Roosevelt also achieved important reforms in working conditions.
• The Anthracite Coal Strike occurred in 1902, when Pennsylvania coal mine owners refused to negotiate with striking workers, Roosevelt threatened to send the army to take over the mines.
• The mine owners then agreed to arbitration, and the United Mine Workers, under John Mitchell, won shorter hours and higher wages.
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom
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• In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican presidential nomination.
• When the nomination went to Taft, Roosevelt ran as a candidate of a third party, the Progressive Party or Bull Moose Party.
• Woodrow Wilson was the democratic candidate, and Eugene Debs ran on the Socialist ticket.
• Woodrow Wilson won the election of 1912 by a landslide of electoral votes, although he received only 41 percent of the popular vote.
• In 1916, he was reelected into office in an even closer presidential race.
End of the Progressive Era
• The Progressive Era came to an end when the United States entered World War I.
• During the war, American priorities shifted to the war effort, and in the 1920s, the trend shifted away from reform and toward acceptance of society as it was.