Introduction to Progressivism

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Introduction to Progressivism

• McIntyre

Manhattan's "Bandit's Roost" Alley, 1888 Men
loiter in the alley known as "Bandit's Roost" off
Mulberry Street in lower Manhattan.
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Progressivism

• What?

• Reaction to Industrial Revolution (1890s-1920s)

Why?

• Reaction to problems of Industrial Revolution

How?

• Use the government to fix those problems

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Progressivism

• Who?

• Middle to upper-middle class
• Urban/city dwellers
• High educated
• Lots were women

Senator Robert La Follette Sr. speaks to a group
of women during his unsuccessful run for
President as a Progressive in 1924.
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Who got them started

• Muckrakers

• Journalists that investigated and exposed problems

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The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

• It was only when the whole ham was spoiled that
  it came into the department of Elzbieta. Cut up
  by the two-thousand-revolutions-a-minute flyers,
  and mixed with half a ton of other meat, no odor
  that ever was in a ham could make any difference.
  There was never the least attention paid to what
  was cut up for sausage there would come all the
  way back from Europe old sausage that had been
  rejected, and that was moldy and white - it would
  be dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped
  into the hoppers, and made over again for home
  consumption. 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 germs. There would be
  meat stored in great piles in rooms and the
  water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and
  thousands of rats would race about on it. It was
  too dark in these storage places to see well, but
  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 packers would
  put poisoned bread out for them they would die,
  and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the
  hoppers together. This is no fairy story and no
  joke the meat would be shoveled into carts, and
  the man who did the shoveling would not trouble
  to lift out a rat even when he saw one - there
  were things that went into the sausage in
  comparison with which a poisoned rat was a
  tidbit.

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And it became a reform movement

• Progressives - Made 3 Kinds of Reforms

Social Reforms
Economic Reforms
Political Reforms
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And it became a reform movement

• Progressives - Made 3 Kinds of Reforms

Social Reforms
Social Problems
Reforms/Reformers
Jane Addams Hull House (in Chicago!)
1. Urban Poverty

• Beginnings of social work
• Provided education, job training, day care,
  medical care to poor immigrants

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And it became a reform movement

• Progressives - Made 3 Kinds of Reforms

Social Reforms
Social Problems
Reforms/Reformers
Jacob Riis
1. Urban poverty
2. Unsafe housing

• Photographer of the lives of poor city dwellers
• Spurred reforms of crime, disease, building codes

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And it became a reform movement

• Progressives - Made 3 Kinds of Reforms

Social Reforms
Social Problems
Reforms/Reformers
WCTU - Womens Christian Temperence Union
3. Drinking

• 18th Ammendment - Prohibited making/selling
  alcohol (Prohibition)

Carry Nation Temperance supporter Carry Nation
speaks out against alcohol holding a Bible and a
hatchet. Nation was famous for taking a hatchet
to bar fixtures and stock
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And it became a reform movement

• Progressives - Made 3 Kinds of Reforms

Social Reforms
Social Problems
Reforms/Reformers
4. Crime/Fires

• Professional fire, police departments

1911-New York, NY Traingle Shirt Waist fire
disaster view of some of the ruins after the
blaze swept the factory
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And it became a reform movement

• Progressives - Made 3 Kinds of Reforms

Social Reforms
Social Problems
Reforms/Reformers
5. Child labor
Child Labor Laws
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Thinking Slide (Think! Dont Write!)
If you were in charge, which of the social
reforms would you tackle first? Why?
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And it became a reform movement

• Progressives - Made 3 Kinds of Reforms

Economic Reforms
Economic Problems
Reforms/Reformers
1. Large corporate monopolies
Ida Tarbell

• Took on the corruption of Standard Oil through a
  series of magazine articles

Government began busting monopolies
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And it became a reform movement

• Progressives - Made 3 Kinds of Reforms

Political Reforms
Political Problems
Reforms/Reformers
2. Corrupt Government
Initiative - people get around corrupt
politicians by proposing legislation themselves
Referendum - people have to approve legislation
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And it became a reform movement

• Progressives - Made 3 Kinds of Reforms

Political Reforms
Political Problems
Reforms/Reformers
1. Corrupt Government

• Recall - people can recall corrupt politicans

• Secret ballot

• Womens suffrage (voting)

• Direct election of Senators

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Pigs Cartoon
Bosses of the Senate What does it mean?