American History The Progressive Era (1890

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American HistoryThe Progressive Era
(18901920)All photographs courtesy of The
Library of Congress Lewis Hine
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The Origins of Progressivism

• Rapid industrialization, immigration, and
  urbanization in the late 1800s led to national
  growth and prosperity.

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• The rapid growth also caused poverty,
  unemployment, horrible working conditions and
  political corruption.
• Many Progressives believed that political action
  and reform, not private charities, were the
  methods to bring about progress in society.

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• Historians call the period from about 18901920
  the Progressive Era.

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Dakota Apartment House, ca. 1905-1915
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A Monday Afternoon Washing, 107th Street, 1900
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Family in Attic Home, Drying Their Laundry, ca.
1900-1910
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The Progressives Their Goals and Beliefs

• Progressives were not a single unified movement.
• They fell into four categories
• Social
• Moral
• Economic
• Political

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Some common basic beliefs were
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Igniting Reform Writers and Their New Ideas

• The ideas of many writers and journalists
  influenced public opinion about how to reform
  society.
• Journalists investigated and publicized
  conditions in certain industries, slums, tenement
  houses, and sweat shops.

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• Theodore Roosevelt called the journalists
• muckrakers.
• Upton Sinclair,
• Lincoln Steffens,
• and Ida Tarbell
• were respected
• writers and
• muckrakers.

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Progressive Reform Organizations
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An Expanded Role for Government

• Progressives sought more social welfare programs
  to help ensure a minimum standard of living.
• Many of the earliest Progressive reforms were
  made at the municipal, or city, level.
• Some municipal reformers worked for home rule, a
  system that gives cities a limited degree of
  self-rule.

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• Municipal reformers opposed the influence of
  political bosses.
• Reformers made efforts to take over city
  utilities such as water, gas, and electricity.
• Some reform mayors led movements for
  city-supported welfare services such as public
  baths, parks, work-relief programs, playgrounds,
  kindergartens, and lodging houses for the
  homeless.

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Tafts Presidency

• Taft was endorsed by Roosevelt and pledged to
  carry on the progressive program.
• However, he did not even appoint any Progressives
  to his Cabinet.
• He campaigned on a platform to lower tariffs, but
  ended up signing a bill that added some highly
  protective tariff increases.

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• Taft also angered conservationists on the issue
  of public land management.
• Taft chose Richard A. Ballinger for Secretary of
  the Interior.

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• Ballinger opposed conservation of public lands.
• Instead, he sided with business interests who
  sought unrestricted development of public lands.
• Taft angered
• many people
• and his
• presidency
• suffered.

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Turmoil in the Republican Party

• Angry Republican Progressives teamed up with
  Democrats against the opponents of reform in the
  Republican Party.
• Roosevelt criticized Taft and campaigned for
  Progressive candidates in the 1910 midterm
  elections.

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• Roosevelt called for
• business regulation
• welfare laws
• workplace protection for women
• Child labor laws
• Income minimums
• inheritance taxes
• voting reform.

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• He called this plan the New Nationalism.

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• Progressive Republicans left the Republican Party
  and formed the Progressive Party, nicknamed the
  Bull Moose Party.
• The Bull Moose platform included tariff
  reduction, womans suffrage, more regulation of
• business, a child
• labor ban, an
• eight-hour workday,
• and direct election
• of senators.

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The Election of 1912
A Four-Way Election
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Wilsons Policies as President

• Wilsons first major victory was tariff reduction.

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• He attacked the trusts by helping Congress pass
  the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914.
• This act strengthened the Sherman Antitrust Act
  of 1890.
• Wilson and Congress created the Federal Trade
  Commission to enforce the Clayton Antitrust Act.

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• In 1913 Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act
  and created the Federal Reserve System to
  overhaul the American banking system.
• In 1916 Wilson tried to attract Progressive
  voters.
• To this aim he nominated Progressive lawyer Louis
  D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court.
• In 1916 Wilson won a second term.

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The Limits of Progressivism

• The changes made by Progressives were limited to
  certain groups in the United States.
• Progressives championed municipal reforms, but
  did little for tenant or migrant farmers.
• Progressive Presidents took little action to
  pursue social justice reforms.

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• Wilson continued the Jim Crow practice, begun
  under Taft, of separating the races in federal
  offices.
• At the 1912 Progressive Party convention,
  Roosevelt declined to seat black delegates from
  the South for fear of alienating white Southern
  Progressives.
• By 1916, the reform spirit had nearly died.
• It was replaced by American concerns about World
  War I.

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Suffrage at Last!

• American women
• activists first
• demanded the right
• to vote in 1848 at
• the Seneca Falls
• Convention in
• New York.

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• The movement eventually split into two groups
• The National Woman Suffrage Association fought
  for a constitutional amendment for suffrage.
• The American Woman Suffrage Association worked to
  win voting rights on the state level.

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Preparing the Way for Suffrage

• In 1890, Wyoming entered the union and became the
  first state to grant women the right to vote.
• In 1872, in an act of civil disobedience, a
  suffrage leader, Susan B. Anthony, insisted on
  voting in Rochester, New York.
• She was arrested for this act.

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Suffragist Strategies

• Constitutional Amendment
• Winning suffrage by a constitutional amendment
• The first federal amendment was introduced in
  Congress in 1868 and stalled.
• In 1878, suffragists introduced a new amendment.
• Stalled again, the bill was not debated again
  until 1887.
• It was defeated by the Senate.
• The bill was not debated again until 1913.

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Suffragist Strategies

• Individual State Suffrage
• Winning suffrage state by state.
• State suffrage seemed more successful than a
  constitutional amendment.
• Survival on the frontier required the combined
  efforts of men and women and encouraged a greater
  sense of equality.
• Western states were more likely to allow women
  the right to vote.

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A New Generation

• Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
  leaders of the suffrage movement, died without
  seeing the victory of womens suffrage.
• At the turn of the century, Carrie Chapman Catt
  became the leader of the National American Woman
  Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
• She led the movement from 1900 to 1904 and again
  after 1915.

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• In March 1913 Alice Paul and Lucy Barns organized
  a parade of 5,000 women in Washington, D.C.
• After the success of the rally, Paul transformed
  her committee into a new organization called the
  Congressional Union.

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A Split in the Movement

• The Congressional Union (CU)

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A Split in the Movement

• NAWSA

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Victory for Suffrage

• In 1918, Congress formally proposed the suffrage
  amendment.
• After the amendment was proposed the ratification
  battle began.
• In August 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state
  necessary to ratify the suffrage amendment.
• The Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the
  right to vote, was the last major reform of the
  Progressive Era.

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Why the Progressive Era Was So Important

• Because Child Labor was banned!

Lewis Hine, the celebrated photographer
dedicated social reformer, captured the sad faces
of the children in the following photos.
Captions and quotes are from Hines published
works.
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Faces of Lost Youth
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A moments glimpse of the outer world. 11
year-old girl. Said she has been working for
over a year.
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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.
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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."
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Jo Bodeon, a back-roper in the mule room at Chace
Cotton Mill. Burlington, Vt.
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Furman Owens, 12 years old. Cant read, doesnt
know his ABCs. Said, Yes, I want to learn, but
cant when I work all the time.
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The Newsies
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Tony Casale, age 11, been selling 4 years. Sells
sometimes until 10 p.m. Saw the marks on his arm
where his father had bitten him for not selling
more papers. He (the boy) said, "Drunken men say
bad words to us." Hartford, Conn.
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Out after midnight selling extras. There were
many young boys selling very late. Youngest boy
in the group is 9 years old. Harry, age 11,
Eugene and the rest were a little older.
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The dust was so dense at times as to obscure the
view. This dust penetrated the utmost recesses of
the boys' lungs. A kind of slave-driver sometimes
stands over the boys, prodding or kicking them
into obedience.
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Breaker Boys
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Oyster shuckers working in a canning factory. All
but the very smallest babies work. Began work at
330 a.m. and expected to work until 5 p.m. The
little girl in the center was working. Her mother
said she is "a real help to me."