Progressivism

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Progressivism

• Reform in the late 19th-early 20th century

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Progressivism

• Dominated US politics from 1890s to 1920s
• Advocated social reform through government
• WWI ended progressivism
• Progressivism is often considered the beginning
  of liberalism in American politics
• Liberal or progressive
• Person willing to accept change
• Conservative
• Person resistant to change
• Reactionary wants to undo progress and return to
  some ideal time in past

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Goals of Progressivism

• Political reform at all levels of government
• Reduce the power of business
• Improve the lives of the poor and underprivileged
• NOT no concern with rights of minorities

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Progressivism

• Some of the areas of interest to progressives
• Prohibition or temperance
• End of prostitution
• End of child labor
• Political reforms
• Education
• Womens suffrage
• Anti-trust legislation

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Progressivism

• Progressivism was not unified movement
• Lots of individual movements
• Sometimes goals of one group contradicted goals
  of another group
• Ex Americanization of immigrants v. immigrant
  controls and restrictions
• Control of utilities v. gov. ownership of
  utilities

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Progressivism

• Who were the progressives?
• White
• Urban
• Middle class
• Women more than men
• Protestants more than Catholics, but religious
  mostly

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Progressivism

• Muckrakersdrove the movement w/information
• Reporters in magazines like McClures
• at right is front of McClures issue, Jan. 1901

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Progressivism
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Upton Sinclair

• Wanted to write an expose of life of immigrants
  in Chicago slums
• Set in meat packing business
• The Jungle
• Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food Drug Act
• I aimed for their hearts, but I hit them in the
  stomach

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Progressivism

• Politics
• Some states had progressive governors
• Robert Battling Bob LaFollette from Wisconsin

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Progressivism

• Settlement Houses
• Jane Addams
• Hull House
• Chicago 1889
• Run by middle-class women to provide services to
  poor

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Successes of Movement

• Political reforms
• Initiative and referendum adopted in many states
• Secret Ballot first adopted in Wisconsin as well
  as direct primary elections
• 16th Amendment passed graduated income tax
• 17th Amendment - Direct Election of Senators 1913

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Successes of Movement

• Women's Rights
• National American Womens Suffrage Association
  under Carrie Chapman Catt
• National Womens Party under Alice Paul
• 19th Amendment in 1919

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Successes of Movement

• The first woman elected to Congress Jeannette
  Rankin introduced the bill which became the l9th
  Amendment -- Susan B. Anthony Amendment

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Successes of Movement

• Other feminist areas
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman urged economic
  independence for women
• Margaret Sangerreproductive rights (birth
  control movement)

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Progressive Failures

• Race Relations and Civil Rights
• Many progressives were racists
• No significant steps taken to challenge Jim Crow
  laws of south
• Teddy Roosevelt had Booker T Washington to dinner
  at White House
• Wilson, born in south, was racist

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Booker T. Washington

• "Atlanta Compromise", Washington called for
  education, self-help, and accommodation to
  whites. He believed that by making himself
  economically necessary to white society, the
  black man would eventually gain equal rights and
  respect.

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W.E.B. DuBois

• Harvard professor history
• Helped to found Niagara Movement in 1905
• opposite to the ideas of Washington
• the first collective attempt by African-Americans
  to demand full citizen rights in the 20th century
  
• NAACP 1909

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Progressive Presidents

• Teddy Roosevelt
• Became president after McKinley assassinated by
  Leon Czolgosz
• Trustbuster
• Nations first forrester, Gifford Pinchot

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Roosevelts Accomplishments

• Main strengths of progressivism came in areas of
  conservation
• Got Newlands Reclamation Act passed in 1902 for
  irrigation projects in the West
• Set aside millions of acres under Forest Reserve
  Act including 85 million acres in Alaska
• Created 5 new National Parks such as Crater Lake
  in Oregon and Mesa Verde in Colorado
• Created the first National Monument, Devils
  Tower in Wyoming
• 51 wildlife sanctuaries created

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William Howard Taft

• Hand-picked by TR as his successor
• fired Gifford Pinchot
• only American to have served as both president of
  the US and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
• Stuck in White House bathtub
• Had large tub installed

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Taft

• Taft was also the first president to throw out
  the opening pitch in baseball and created the
  custom of the seventh inning stretch and was
  president when the Titanic went down
• Teddy Taft had falling out in election of
  1912, Teddy ran against Taft on Bull Moose Party
• Wilson won when TR split Republican vote

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Woodrow Wilson

• Progressive record mainly in business
• Departments of Labor and of Commerce
• Federal Reserve Act
• Federal Trade Commission Act passed in 1914
• Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)
• Keating-Owen Child Labor Act (1916)
• Federal workers comp law
• 9 hour workday for fed employees 8 hr for RR

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Progressivism

• Conclusion
• Progressives tried to spread themselves too thin
  over too many areas of concern. This confused
  workers and supporters. But progressives
  succeeded in several areas, especially political
  reforms and business reforms. They failed in
  areas like civil rights soundly and all-too-often
  attempted to force upon a multi-cultural society
  values of the white middle class.